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| photos from a speeding van never the best |
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| ait benhaddou |
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| thems the fake gates on the right |
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| el guido |
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| moroccan kitty looking alot happier than parisian kitty |
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| ah the blue and reddy brown and the wow |
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| YEAH!! |
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| pretty thingsss |
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| ma :) |
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| me n ma! |
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| and lastly ma and a random... |
Oh-Kay. Look at this, two in one month. Ah-hell. So this adventure is - surprise surprise - still in Morocco! Almost done draggin it out, promise. We booked ourselves a one day tour, as the original plan was that we would leave two days early and go to Essouira for an overnight trip, but then we were having too much fun in Marrakech we thought flag it, do a day trip, then we can stay in our riad which we lo-hooove, not have to travel anywhere (like the 2-3hr trip Es-Mk) on the day we fly home, and fun! Mountain trip! Oh I loves me some mountains, and these were just amazing. Getting out of Marrakech took a while, and while we were driving in our minibus (oh yeaaaaah) I saw what first registered in my brain as a statue of a dog, but pushed over sideways. Thennn I realised it was actually a dead dog, but as it was like 40+ degrees outside, it had I dunno, died, filled with gas then rigor mortis set in, so it looked like you could have stood it up and it would stay. And it wasn't the last one of them I saw either. Back to the real story tho....
The Atlas Mountains. Our trip up and over the mountains takes like...3 hours or something. We stopped at a bunch of roadside places, with all their little stalls trying to sell you stuff, but the views! oh sheesh the views! It was really cool seeing the like, barren dusty rocky huge hills towering everywhere and then right down the valley middle a line of bright green trees. The colours of it all just looked so bright even tho it was just blue brown and green. Maybe I just have bright eyes when things get awesome hahaha.
The little stalls they stop you at all had these 'crystals' for sale, 'rocks' that you could open and it was a little cave of sparkles inside? Everyone knows them...anyway, straight off the bat you're like, there's no way they are real, as they are these crazy fluro colours and the guy is trying to tell us this dark blue one is amethyst. Now I don't know much about crystals, but I know what amethyst looks like, and you my man, are completely full of shit. We were joking on the bus about how I bet if you put it in water the colour would come off, so obviously as soon as me and mum got home in it went to a glass of water...which instantly changed colour. I don't think anyone is actually fooled into thinking they're real, but they're kinda cool to look at anyway. I guess they grow them somehow. Rambling...so back to the desert...
Ait Benhaddou, a sweet spot on an old caravan route between the Sahara and Marrakech (thanks wiki), that happened to have a scene from that movie 'Gladiator' filmed there. Its a UNESCO world heritage sight, and it is a pretty one, with the old city over the lake (which was dried up when we were there) and the new city on the road side. We had a guide man who was telling us all about the river and the old days and how the city used to run, and how they built it and had to keep repacking on the dirt/maize/stone clay stuff they build with after the rainy season. Hard work. Then he showed us where the bit of the movie gladiator was filmed, and apparently as it is a UNESCO site, whatever they built they had to put pack to the way it was originally, and it took like 27 days to build, a thousand extras to film, and 20 days to take down, and is 6 minutes of the movie, and you only see the actual Ait Benhaddou one time and it looks super imposed anyway. Well, at least they had fun eh? They built a new two pillar gateway that they didn't have to take down, but it's not used and looks a bit out of place. They also left a massive crater where they had built the fighting ring thing, I dunno if they keep it there for the story or what. There was even a poster of Russel Crowe hahaha. It was definitely a cool place, even if it was definitely the tourist trap it sounds like.
The day after was our last day, boo, and the only thing we had planned was to go to the Marjorelle gardens, or Yves Saint Laurent gardens in town. Mum was loving it, gardenbuff, it was pretty cool. They'd painted the buildings that amazing cobalt blue colour that stands out everywhere which looked amazing. We stopped for a tea break after wandering round, and then made for the maze way home. We went back a different way just to get a look at a few mosques on the map, went around in circles a bit haha, and managed to get to our flight on time in the afternoon, no hassles. Geez. Write much?
All in all, it was a super-fantastic holiday to spend with mum and I wish you'd come back again waaa.
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