DESERT TOURS MOROCCO: TAMEGROUTE AND THE TINFOU DUNES
Tamegroute is a village located approximately 25 km from Zagora centre it is easily reachable by collective taxi. There are several collective taxis going from Zagora centre to Tamegroute . Traveling by collective taxi in Morocco is a budget option as well as a way to better connect with the culture. Locals are usually very friendly and they might start some talk with you in French and if they only speak Arabic they might ask you some questions trying to get understood what it is a nice way to learn some Arabic words.
The journey does not take longer than 45 minutes and once I am arrived at Tamegroute main square a local guide who speaks English offers me visiting the subterranean Kasbah and some local potteries to which I accept.
Visiting the subterranean Kasbah and potteries
The subterranean Kasbah in Tamegroute is another world heritage example of earthen architecture. My guide walks me through the intricate paths that lead to houses and pottery factories and even if visiting the interior of the houses is not possible we go inside a couple of public places, a tailor place and the pottery factory and I am allow to take pictures in this place. It always amazes me how cold it can get inside a Kasbah and even if it quite hot outside I have to cover myself with my Moroccan Selham that is the perfect piece of clothes for this purpose as even if it will protect you from the cold it still open enough to wear it in those days in which the hot to cold oscillation is so extreme that a Winter coat will be too much.
We take a complete stroll all around the Kasbah that then we go outside the Kasbah where he shows the two types of ovens used in this work and we have a couple of conversations with people doing this work.
The biggest library in Northern Africa
I return afterwards to the main square located near the “Zawiya Nasiriyya” that is a sufi school for the ¨Nasiriyya¨,one the most influential sufi schools in Islam, founded by the theologian, physician, poet and scholar Sidi Mohammed bin Nasirñs, whose tomb also resides there. The building also houses what it was once the richest library in Northern Africa, containing 50.000 volumes at the time and approximately 4000 at the moment. The volumes have been spread among different libraries, museums and universities in Morocco for study.
The graves of eight marabouts (Important Muslim leaders or teachers) also reside there and you can see several people with mental or physical illness coming there to ask for healing. Visiting the place and seeing the people gathering around is like contemplating a living miracle.
Later, I decide to go around the village just to look around and take some pictures and I get stopped by a local man who is driving a touring van (you can see the tour company name painting on the outside ).
We start talking and he tells me the he has travelled several countries in Europe and he has friends there are he like talking to European people. He tells me he is on the way to a friend´s house and he invites me for a lunch and I accept. We go to his friend´s house and we eat some delicious soup and some beans with meat. The food is delicious and we have some casual conversation about the travel agency they lead and the countries my new friend has visited in Europe while the TV is on showing the ¨National Geographic¨ channel.
We finish lunch and Tarek brings me to his travel agency and once there he propose we go to visit the little desert spot, 7 km away from Zagora, he has a camp to which accept.
On the way we stop in hotel that as a built in star observatory it to meet, Patrick , a Belgian biologist, turn astronomer that works at the hotel showing the guests the sky and also gives information to several space awareness companies.
I am delighted to talk with someone who finally understands about physics as being a physicist myself I find it difficult talking to people who find difficult to understand the concepts that for me are simple and he explains me how recently he was observing the sun and he could detect a black spot that assumed to be a coronal mass ejection. Some days later he found out that there had a been an ¨Aurora Borealis¨ at low latitudes in Canada.
We drink a few delicious ¨Casablanca¨ beers and head to the Tinfou dunes, around 500 meters from there to see the sunset. I walk up to the highest dune to admire the sun reflections upon the desert and the hamada, the delicate cues sunset and remember how ironical is for the Northern hemisphere habitants that it is when our beloved star is the closest that we feel the least of its warmth, due to the sun rays angle of incidence.
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