Erfoud and the Fossil Industry

This area of Morocco used to be an ancient sea the bed of which has now been raised exposing fossiliferous limestone. The most common is from the Devonian period and has ammonites and orthoceras showing light against the black base limestone ( called locally marble as they think that posher). It polishes well and is used to make tables and sinks. Indeed it is everywhere in Erfoud even set into concrete steps.

We had hoped to stay the night and take a 4X4 trip into the desert. I had read about Erfoud's fossil industry and it made  the town sound like the Klondike in the Gold Rush.

http://partners.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20001029mag-fossil.html
http://www.aramcoworld.com/issue/200902/morocco.s.trilobite.economy.htm

The area is also known for its tribolites, many previously unknown species of which have been found there. They are prized by american collectors such as Bill Gates and the rarest and best specimens sell for over $20,000 a piece.

The hotel at Erg Cherbi advertised trips which described a town seething with fossil hunters and cabinets of fossils out side every shop. It wasn't like that the town was nearly deserted. The central hotel we hoped to stay at seemed deserted and when we found a staff member and asked if there was a room available (they clearly were not fully booked) he excused himself and left us waiting and after some time sweetheart saw him peeping round a door to see if we'd gone and he could come out. We realised we would not get a trip to the fossil field  nor see the "prep" shops for the tribolites, and decided just to have lunch, see if we could see any fossils and move on.
 The fossils are mined on an industrial scale and the trade is worth about $40million pa to the moroccan economy. We did find a shop with a small "museum" and the owner was happy to show us how they processed the rock.
They start by throwing water onto it as this increases the contrast and allows them to see the fossils more clearly.

They then decide what the sample is suitable for, tables, sinks,plaques, individual specimens, and cut them accordingly. Individual fossils may be picked out using dental drills and air brushes

 or sheets or blocks of stone may be cut and polished to make tables or sinks . Sweetheart bought a pestle and mortar and we splurged as I had been looking for a coffee table since we redid the salon.

It is mostly orthceras with some other fossils. Our friend says we paid a good 25% less than the best price he would get in Taroudant and it was less than a cheap pine table at Argos, so I am happy.
The owner had excavated under the shop and made a sort of grotto which he used as a museum for some of the better specimens he'd found, dinosaur eggs and parts and particularly good tribolites and ammonites.

Camels at Sunset

As the dunes are to the east of the hotels you can easily walk in to see the sunrise but you have to go much further in to see the sunset, so Sweetheart and Beloved decided to take a camel ride in to watch it. As walking past the camels had shown I reacted to them much as I do to horses, I decided not to stage a medical emergency in the middle of the dunes and remained in the hotel. Beloved was particularly pleased with himself as he had not be on a camel since an unpleasant incident on Tangier beach 25 years ago and this trip went well and allayed a quarter century of apprehension.

Ksar Oualad Abdelhalim

 We had intended to take the "Circuit Touristique" south of Rissani which takes you round the mausoleum of Moulay Ali Sherif, several Kasbahs and a section of the ruins of Sijilmassa. We started at the Ksar Oulad Abdehalim which is directly opposite a highly advertised restaurant where we intended to get lunch. Unfortunately, being the off season, the restaurant, although open, was not actually serving food, so we got no further than a quick look at the outside of this Ksar and went of in search of lunch. The ksar was built in 1900 for the brother of Sultan Moulay Hassan whom he had appointed Governor of the Tafilalt.

The Lake in the D.esert.

We took a 4X4 trip through the dunes and round the hamada on the eastern side so we could look over to the Algerian border. Still closed; a 2km demilitarised zone (for which read minefield) on each side. 

You could see how colonialism and modern fixed borders has destroyed life there. The hamada is just made for nomadic graziers but people are having to settle into villages.

Fortunately the dunes bring a constant supply of tourists who are a more profitable cash crop than flocks.As it was the off season we did not see many other tourists (well one jeep) and it was all very Beau Geste and the Foreign Legion, but we did see a lot of grazing camels, turned out as un-needed until the tourist season picks up.

One of the more surprising features was the lake in the middle of the dunes. It is semi-permanent, its size varying with the season and there were a couple of years during the drought of the early noughties when it disappeared altogether  It was there and mirror-like clear but sadly we were there too early in the year to see the flamingos which migrate through. I have never seen a wild flamingo :(

Merzouga and Erg Cherbi

The Erg Cherbi dunes near Merzouga Are a traveller's dream of the Sahara. They are a ribbon 28km Long and 7km wide running north south, rising as a golden contrast  from the hamada of black stone . It is where all the trips from Marrakesh and Ouazazate come and most of them will take you on a camel ride to camp in the dunes. By taking a circuitous route you can travel 4 hours by  camel to a camp 20mins or less from base by 4X4 so that the camps are quite luxurious. It being winter and the desert desperately cold at night we were not tempted and stayed in one of the long line of hotels bordering the dune. The view from the bedroom window was pretty good

 and you could just walk out the back door of the hotel into the dunes.

 Which is exactly what we did one morning to watch the sunrise.

Rissani and Sijilmassa

This south-eastern area of Morocco is known as this Tafilalt. It has been disproportionately important in moroccan history as many dynasties had their origins there including the current Alaouite dynasty. The main building dominating the centre of modern Rissani, situated next to the army base, is the Foundation for the Study of Alaouite Heritage.

In medieval times the area was a separate kingdom whose capital was Sijilmassa, adjacent to modern Rissani. 

Before 771 the local Berbers had been converted to a form of Islam and had started to build the city of Sijilmassa. They used a Koran in the Berber language, something heretical to mainstream Sunnis. Whilst the Idrissids were establishing a kingdom in northern Morocco, from 771 Sijilmassa established a separate Kingdom which lasted until 1055 when it was taken over by the Almorovids who imposed a strict version of Islam, smashing all musical instruments. The city remained important into the 14thC and was extremely wealthy due to it's being the northern terminus of the trans-Saharan trade route bringing gold from Ghana. Eventually the southern end of the route moved east into Mali due to the discovery of new gold fields and the branch leading through Tamegoute to Marrakesh increased in importance. Ibn Battuta visited Sijilmassa in 1352 and found it a beautiful and rich city but by the time Leo Africanus visited in the early 16C it was destroyed and he saw only stately ruins. 
Although there were still obvious ruins at the beginning of the 20thC these have all crumbled and the only remains are one gate which we did not have time to look for.
Rissani itself has a good modern entrance arch

but the most noticeable feature of the town, in common with many in the Tafilalt, was the numerous murals painted on walls and gable ends. 90% feature water either as a river,lake, waterfall or fountain, and the ones pictured here are by no means the best but just convenient for where we could stop the car.

The Road to Rissani

The road to Rissani through Nikob and Alnif gets increasingly arid. It is a god road with some interesting road signs

and warnings to beware of "ensablement". I love that  word.
Sweetheart demanded that we stopped to take pictures of camels grazing  as she had never seen a herd of camels like that before. 3 days later she was blase; seen one camel herd, seen them all.