THE ROAD TO MARRAKECH 2008

THE ROAD TO MARRAKECH

Who'd a thought that the southern Moroccan desert town of Quarzazate would be the center of a thriving movie production industry, drawing Europeans and Americans alike. It's basically a brand new town, thanks to a dam constructed nearby in the early 1970's, which provided a reliable source of water. The movie industry came later, and with respect to filming activity the town has become Hollywood plus Sedona (plus whatever the European equivalent is) rolled into one.

Just like a number of early Hollywood westerns were shot around Sedona, there have been a number of films made in this town. That does not include many (if any) Academy award productions, at least to date, although a late 1990's version of Cleopatra was filmed here. The varied landscape, highly competent artists, and attractive economics have made Morocco in general, and this town in particular, a very attractive place to shoot Biblical epics, westerns, historical pieces (everything, at least so far, except scripts requiring a Manhattan skyline). One of the sets used to make The Mummy and The Mummy Returns has been expanded into a production studio. The Hotel we stayed at is full of memorabilia from a number of these productions. In fact, our hotel décor looked more Egyptian than anything we'd probably see in Cairo!

We traveled to Kasbahs (forts) owned by powerful rulers of the 12th - 14th Century. These rulers made a considerable portion of their wealth by guaranteeing safe passage to the caravans that traveled during that time, headed to Marrakech. The one pictured to the right is a United Nations World Heritage Site from the 12th century and still has a couple of families living inside the fortified grounds. One of the made-to-order Kasbahs we saw was recreated by Hollywood film-makers for a movie, and the gate to the far right in the picture above was built by Michael Douglas for a movie.

We traveled all day through Berber territory, and saw several distinct Berber tribal areas. The Berbers are nomads and freely cross a number of country boundaries in North Africa. Our guide is half Berber and proud of it. They are clearly a hard working and industrious people. They are also fierce fighters, having repelled all who attempted to take their land by force, including the fearsome Ottoman Turks.

I mentioned in an earlier email that I was struck by the house- building habits of the Moroccan people, at least those in the outlands. Old adobe houses, which are basically baked clay and straw, require constant repair especially if there have been unusually heavy rains. At some point, it is easier to abandon adobe houses rather than to try to repair or rebuild them. In fact, whole clusters of houses are abandoned and new homes constructed nearby. As the picture shows, the decision to abandon does not always mean that the builders will construct the new houses out of concrete, a building material that obviously has a much longer lifespan. The houses in the right background are abandoned; in the foreground rebuilt in adobe, and in the far left, rebuilt out of concrete. Although this practice of abandonment rather than repair is hard to fathom coming from the urban Western world, looking at the adobe crumble back to its component parts with time suggests a rather sensible people that don't bother to waste time and effort on demolition when nature eventually does it for them and other land is available nearby to rebuild.

We ended our three days of road tripping through Morocco by

checking into a resort on the outskirts of Marrakech. Although Carol is disappointed that she was not able to jump from the car to a shopping center, this property is over the top. (This is now Carol speaking: the comment about shopping- -not true!) It outranks anything I have seen yet in the world. What's pictured to the right is an immense reflecting pool around which extraordinary guest rooms are built - - the size of small homes. It would require too many pictures even to show our suite adequately, so that will have to wait. In any event, this resort is a great place to get our land legs again before striking out for the wilds of Marrakech tomorrow.

< PREV | NEXT >