March 12, 2023

The first day in my 70. year. And what a day that was ...

The day started with Omar being quite sick and shaky due to a cold. I know how that feels. We took off anyway, towards Ouarzazate with its film studios for famous movies that have been done here, and then further to Kasbah Ait Ben Hadda, a castle that has been changed into a hostel. 

We promised ourselves to take it slowly.

A stop nearly at the top of our trip up.

Stunning view to the mountains. Later on we were on snow level.

We were actually on snow level. The parking area here had snow in the background.

This woman we saw at our stop, very serious, and obviously in pain with her right wrist and elbow.

Omar had some physio tape. "See, she is in pain. I will tape her."

"What if she resists or doesn't want you help?"

"Then I tell her that I am a doctor and that she must follow my orders."

And so he taped her, and the old woman was very quiet and let Omar do his job without opposition or resistance.

Then we had some breakfast with this "bread" and some honey and of course the always present tea.

The bread is made with water, olive oil, salt and water. It is prepared like puff pastry.

I really got used to the tea. It is quite a ceremony to prepare it out of green tea, mint and sugar.

By the way, this is an arabic stop sign, saying "Stop". You have to read it from right to left.

At another stop, Omar needed a break. He was very tired from the cold.

A few minutes rest do wonders. And Brigitte's spray for sore throaths.

The first challenge and also fun was driving up the mountains on a wild and winding road. Driving up was great fun, stuff bikers like a lot. I just realized that the sheer width and weight ob my cases made the bike somewhat less stable in extreme leanings towards left or right. Up at the top, we were on snow level. Quite an amazing view. Omar has the pics, he is sleeping already. I will update this blog entry tomorrow.

On the Southern side of the Atlas, the landscape changes from green to brown, from lush vegetation to more desertlike scenery. 

On the way up we met a Moroccan guy living in Switzerland (its kind of funny when a Moroccan guy talkls Swiss German). He had done the same trip we were just doing, but then going further down all the way to South Africa.

On the way down the hill, the quality also literally went downhill. Many, many construction sites with gravel, wet streets, big holes, wild lane changes and a lot of traffic plus a curvy road asked a lot from the driver.

Well, we made it to Ouarzazate to the film studios. Amazing what the construction teams have built there. We saw the sets for Gladiator, Cleopatra, the Mummy and other stunning movies.

Welcome to Ouarzawood.

I immediately recognized these cages, they were used in Gladiator when Maximus was transported to Azcabar.

Behind the scenes, you see the scaffolding. The guide told us that the backdrops for the film scenes are very easy to change, everthing is made out of styrofoam, plastic and paint. One of the reasons films are often produced in Morocco is the blue sky, that the digital processing uses as a Blue Screen, copying in whatever is required.

The first part we saw was "China". Here the film "Little Buddha" was created, or "The Last Emperor".

The interior of the palace.

It looks pretty real

Sometimes with lots of detailwork

Omar has a picture of me sitting in front of the Buddha. I will indert that later.

Then some Egypt scene ..

Some North African or Middle East sets

This set is probably Egypt. The guide told us, that the colums are not connected to the beams at the top. So, it is very easy to turn the Egyptian columns into Chines one, or into Roman or Greek or German ...

Lots of details here. The Moroccan studio team does the contruction work. The artwork is done by the film company's artists.

Omar as a Greek minister or tutor 

... obviously happy and content 

Then we moved on to our final destination, the hostel Kasbah Ait Ben Hadda. That turned our to be a real challenge. 

The navigator wasn't specific enough to guide us to the right location, so that we where lead onto the wrong track - and that turned out to be a cross-country, offroad trip as I had seen in in the movie "A long way around" by Evan Mcgregor and his friend. The path - you couldn't  call that a road anymore - was worse than gravel. 

It had pebble stones like on a river bank, leading up and down and left and right. Then the road lead straight into a river that we had to pass, not knowing how deep it would be. Well, there was no hesitating - off we go, into the river and through. Boots, pants, and bikes were covered with that muddy spray. 

That part was actually quite easy. Then we were so far out in the wilderness that we had to seriously question what the GPS had told us. And, sure enough, we had to turn around, the whole shit again. Second time it went better than before, because I had gotten used to the feeling of driving through heaps of pebbles. Omar encouraged me to drive faster rather than slower, and that actually did the trick. Once again through the river and further towards the hostel. 

At this point I'll leave out the details of how we got to the hostel to spare the reader's nerves. I'll just say this: I was pretty exhausted, and so was Omar. I think I need some time to get back into my old swing of things.

The hostel itself is wonderful. We were warmly welcomed, and, the host seeing my somewhat flaky condition, we immediately got the best rooms of the house. Really nice.

And this hotel has a restaurant! Great! Omar ordered a hot meal ...

... and we had dinner at the pool, with a great sunset in the background and the certainty in our minds that we could go straight to our beautiful rooms for a restful sleep.

Omar in the castles inner yard.

Here you find a little video that Omar produced of the castle. By the way: when you double-click a photo, you see it full-screen. With the left and right navigation keys you can flip through the picture in full-screen. For videos, you can have them full screen as well when you click the full screen icon in the lower right corner, as in YouTube.

Then, Omar had the idea to interview me, like a talkshow guest. I had to reduce the file size quite a bit by converting the original to a very low resolution. This is what came out (German only, sorry). A must see if you ask me, quite funny:

My otherwise black boots, now covered with encrusted dust, tell the story of the day.

The night was not as calm as I had hoped. The pulled ligaments and muscles in my right arm were quite painful. And on top of that, some of today's food caused a violent diarrhoea. 

To make the best of the night, I enjoyed my audiobook "Heligoland" by Italian physicist Carlo Rovelli, the story of Werner Heisenberg, the emergence of quantum physics and the radically altered view of what we have previously perceived as reality and consciousness. What we perceive and believe to be reality is only a controlled hallucination, a product of our brain. The perception of an "I", an outside observing subject in the world of surrounding objects, is also an illusion, designed to feed the instinct of self-preservation and to survive as an individual. Quantum physics changes everything: space, time, matter, thoughts, the whole reality has redesigned itself. This leaves us with a profound sense of mystery.