Donnez-moi un stilo

Morocco is an extremely beautiful and diverse country. Concerning landscape it has to offer everything: green hills, wild rock formations and mountains, deserts, oasis, palm trees, waterfalls, canyons, beaches and so on. We are fascinated by how quickly the landscape changes. Within 50 or 100 km you can find something completely different, exciting and unexpected. We enjoy the nature and the sun a lot.
From Ouarzazate we headed northwards and crossed the High Atlas on a small road to Demnate. Fortunately the temperature dropped. 40 degrees, like we had in the desert one day, was a little bit too much. From Demnate we went to Ouaouizarht, Naour, Aghbala, El Kebab to Tighassaline where we are now.

Like the landscape changes the people also change. It is very clear that the South of Morocco is more conservative. We almost never saw women without a headscarf. They always cover every centimeter of their body with, mostly black or dark, fabric. (They even always wear socs.) We adapt to this culture by cycling in 3/4 pants and with long sleeves. When we enter a village Petra always uses a headscarf too. In the North people are much more open, they wear colourful clothes and the women show more skin.

Since Zagora we also see more other tourists. French with their campers, Spanish with four wheel drives, motorcyclists, some other cyclists and backpackers. With the tourist also some problems started. From Agadir to Tata we had great contact with the local people. They were curious about us and we were curious about them. We talked to quite a lot of people, had some tea or dinner with them, exchanging thoughts and stories about our worlds. The more north we come the better their French gets but also the more they see a big fat Dollar sign in us. People are less interested in us as individuals but want to sell us stuff. The result of that is that we are less open towards locals which we really find a pity.

The most annoying are the children, mostly boys. 'Donnez-moi un stilo' (Give me a pen) is probably the sentence we have heard the most in the past two weeks. The kids all want a pen, money, a piece of chalk or a T-shirt. We never give anything of this to kids we just met on the street. Some of them get really angry about that, others start throwing stones (which, to be honest, happend not so often till now).
After 4 weeks in this Islamitic country we can tell you the following about the roles in the society (in general):
Men are allowed to do everything but are also mostly just hanging around without working anything. Jobs men do: tourism, driving trucks or taxis, all kind of shops.
Women are clearly not equal to men and do most of the work in and around the house and with the childern.
Children are the kings. They only listen to their fathers. They go a few hours every day to school. Quite a few girls are studying at University but if they get married they have to fulfill the role of mother and housewife.

And now: Off we go to Fes, probably the only city we will visit.

Our first impressions of Morocco

Finally we managed to upload some of our pictures. As you can imagine we have much more.
We crossed a little bit of the Sahara, one part also in a van with our friend Chris. Now we are in Ouarzazate, the Hollywood of Morocco. Apparentely some movies have been made in this desert city. We keep going North, away from the heat and hopefully we will find a way to escape the touristy parts. We get a little bit tired of 'Bonjours! Ca va? Vous cherchez une bonne hotel?' ...

From winter to summer in 4 hours

After a flight of about 4 hours we arrived in the middle of the heat in Agadir. From winter to summer. Though the locals here don't know what we are talking about. It's possible to buy gloves on the markets, people also still wear them and they also wear thermal clothes under their trousers and pullover. At the moment we are in Foum Zuig, in the South of Morocco and it's between 35 and 40 degrees.

From Agadir we went south to Ait Baha, Afermi, Igherm, Tata till Akka Iguirene. We cycle slowly due to a few reasons:
1. The Heat: Our white bodies have clearly still get used to it. Actually even Peter is 'a white one' here.
2. The Mountains: Immediately the first day we headed towards the mountains. We crossed the Anti Atlas which was very beautiful. We saw a lot of different plants and everything was extremely green. The climbs we did with our bikes were not very steep but especially Petra is still not in shape to cycle them up fast.
3. The Baby: Petra is getting rounder and thicker which means a few kilos extra and sometimes a sore back.
4. The People: We get invited regularly by locals which is great. People are extremely friendly. Very often they make us to stay longer and spend a day with them.

Yesterday we met Chris in Akka Iguirene, a 21 year old British guy who is going with a van through Maroc. At the moment he is going the same way as we do and he will give us a lift till Zagora. After that we will cycle up the beautiful Vallee du Draa till Ouarzazate.

(We take a lot of pictures and would love to share them with you. Unfortunately the internet connections here are not very good. That's why you have to wait a bit before you can see them.)