Back to Morocco

Well I have done it, I have bought my air ticket to go back to Morocco for a one month visit in December. It will be great to go back and catch up with people and do some more sightseeing, as long as it is not too cold. AND hopefully I will have bought a digital SLR camera by then so it will be a great opportunity to try it out. As for what I will do while I am there, I have no idea of the specifics yet as I have a few other things to deal with before I have time to start thinking about that. Like getting myself organised for work tomorrow. I can't believe how quickly the one week holiday has gone!

Reminiscing about Morocco

Having been back in Australia for the last few weeks, after not having been here for 18 months, I have spent a lot of time talking about my life in Morocco, the attractions of Morocco and showing photos of Morocco. I made a photobook through Snapfish in which I put my best photographs and that has been a real hit. Of course it also makes me sad about leaving Morocco but I hope to be back!

Here are some of the photos that seem to get the most comments and impress people the most. They are also some of my favourite photos.Spring in the High Atlas mountains

Detail of a Moroccan door, one of many photographs I have!

Berber houses in the High Atlas mountains

A rose at the Saadien Tombs, Marrakesh

Family get together

Well I finally made it back to Australia - it just took an extra 24 hours! As my sister also came over from Perth to visit, last week was a real family get together. The first time my mother had her 3 daughters together for 11 years. At least we got to spend some good time together as well as getting out and about a bit in the cold weather. This is just a short post as I am on dial-up internet!

Mum and my sister in front of a tree stump that has been carved into nursery rhyme characters using a chain saw -
Here is Mum and the three of us -

Leaving Morocco

The time is almost here, tomorrow I fly to London then on to Australia. It is always a very difficult decision when working internationally to decide when to leave one country and to move to another. Based on the fact that it is a long way and expensive to get from Morocco to Australia I decided to look for a job in Asia, somewhere closer to Australia. In doing so, it would give me the opportunity to see my mother more often while she is still fit enough to appreciate it. When I get back this time it will have been 18 months since I have visited Australia.

So after I visit Australia for one month's holiday, I am off to Dhaka, Bangladesh to work.

Am I sad about leaving Morocco? Absolutely as it is a great place to live and work most of the time. It is safe, the people are friendly and I have made some good friends here. It is also a good stepping off point to Europe and other parts of Africa. But I still haven't mastered Arabic or French!

Having said that I hope to be back to visit Morocco and I also hope to return to Africa to work at some stage. So this blog mightn't come to a complete end now, but instead I'll post less often. I also hope to start a blog about life in Bangladesh, and when I do I will put a link to it on this blog.

Au revoir Maroc.

More attempted abstract cacti photos!!

Yves Saint Laurent memorial, Marrakesh

While in Marrakesh I took my friend to see the spectacular Majorelle Gardens. This second visit was not enough, after she left I went back for a third visit. Actually this one was a research visit for a potential travel article. It was also the coolest outdoor place in Marrakesh on one of the forty degree days. In the cafe they had mist sprinklers around the edges, which must have dropped the temperature by more than 10 degrees. Made the relatively expensive prices for food and drinks worthwhile. Oops, forgot to photograph the cafe! But here is a reminder of the gardens anyway.

What has been added to the gardens since I was there last is a memorial to Yves Saint Laurent after his death on June 1st 2008, who bought and restored these gardens in the 60s. He had a villa next door in which he spent a large amount of his time. In the dappled shade of the banana trees is what loks like a Roman column on top of a terracotta base. This quiet oasis in the Marrakesh mayhem is an ideal place to sit and remember one of th best known French designers.
After this I decided to try and take some artistic photographs of the cacti, not that I am a very artistic person! Here's one.

Ourika Valley

The Ourika Valley was one place I hadn't seen in Morocco until the last couple of weeks. It is a very picturesque valley coming down from the High Atlas Mountains and relatively close to Marrakesh, only a 45 minute drive away. The valley has steep mountainsides, a bubbling stream running down the centre of the valley that is bordered by green fields of crops. Cooler than Marrakesh (not hard when it has been 43 or 45 degrees for the last few days) and an attractive peaceful environment it is an ideal destination for day trippers. There are lots of cafes and restaurants scattered along the valley edges to cater for these visitors. In addition there are also many hotels and auberges for visitors who want to stay overnight. I can imagine it would be a very peaceful place then, once the day trippers go home. It certainly is picturesque with th buildings being forced to be built on the stepp mountainsides, often painted very colourfully or decorated in an ornate way.
Located 24 kilometres up the valley is th pilgrimage site of Setti Fatma. here an annual festival is held at the shrine or Koubba of Setti Fatma. Not when I was there though.
We returned directly along the Ourika Valley to Marrakesh, however to enter the valley we followed the piste (dirt) road from Imlil , winding through the mountains, past earthen housed Berber villages and road excavation. We also passed turn off to Oukaimeden, Morocco's main ski resort, which is reached by following the Ourika Valley. Travelling the piste road gave the opportunity to see some stunning mountain vistas. Unfortunately photographs can not give the scale and grandeur of these views. so high were the mountains that the villages looked like they wre made from brown paper-covered matchboxes. Juniper grew wild in many areas of these mountains - Red Juniper, Spanish Juniper or Prickly Juniper. Here is an attempt to depict these stunning views in the photograph below.