MOROCCO # 3 - A little house in Agdz

17th -19th June 2008

We crossed the Tiz n Tichka pass to Ouzarzate, it was easy, the road was good, no mud slides at this time of the year. By late afternoon we were in Agdz the start of the of the Draa valley palmeraie, we had crossed 100kms of moonscape barren mountains from Ouzarzate to reach this dusty little town but somewhere around here was the little pisè house in the palm trees that had seemed so enchanting in the photo on the internet announcing it was sale.

We wanted to stay at the Casbah Caid Ali apparently a Kasbah being slowly renovated by a French/Moroccan family and inherited from a great grandfather, Caid Ali.

http://www.casbah-caidali.net/hotel-agdz-gb.html

The kasbah looked impressive, a rambling pisé structure with high towers and a traditional format including the riad, a hollow square surrounded by arcades. It had an atmosphere of abandonment, maybe there had been some renovations to secure the structure but it felt neglected and uncared for. The riad was scruffy and desolate with a broken fountain the middle, no sign of orange trees or aromatic herbs mentioned in the web site. It was melancholic. Our room appeared to be the only room in the riad, it was long and narrow with badly renovated high painted ceiling, or at least the colours seemed too paintbox bright to me. An ugly modern wardrobe had been pushed in front of a traditional alcove, pity. The door to the room had been beautiful once, now patched and disfigured by chains and padlocks, but at least it was in its original painted colours, not touched up. The surrounds were very beautiful with 100s of soaring palm trees growing in rich clover pastures irrigated by the overflow from the pool.

The owners were very simpatico, they made us very welcome and gave a lot of information about the history of the kasbah and the great grandfather with his 6 wives and hundreds of Haratin black slaves, no wonder he had to make such a sprawling kasbah. The village scattered around the Kasbah walls has a predominantly black population and there is a theory that the Haratin were the original inhabitants of the S.W. Moroccan oasis villages and were made into slaves by the invading arab traders who were tempted by the enormous wealth of dates from the the valleys of the Draa and Dades.

After dinner we were escorted through labyrithal passages to a clearing in the village where a celebration was going on. Several huge drums and tambors pounded out rhythmic beats accompanied by the clapping of the women and small children of the village all dressed to the nines in gauzy turquoise and pink, beaded and sequined. One woman was dressed in white lace and with her elegant little figure, mantilla like headdress, small pointed slippers and tiny waist she reminded me greatly of a dusky version of Goya's portrait of the Duchess of Alba in white, strange but true.

The celebration seemed set to go on all night so we slipped away back to our peaceful room in the abandoned riad, it was a full moon and the kasbah looked magnificent, easy to imagine its former glory.

Next morning up bright and early to make arrangements to meet the guardian of the house for sale. Turned out he was a cousin of the Kasbah owners so he turned up to meet us there. Full of anticipation we left the Kasbah and dived into a winding trail through the palm trees to the small pisè house with a view of Jebel Kissane set amongst some groups of large mature palms .

The plot of land was small, about 1000m2, the house was traditionally built, thick walls of brown mud and straw, flat roof of rough beams and mud, a squatter loo, no running water in the house but a deep well and pump in the garden. It was peaceful, just a few people passing on their way to tend their land. We had permission to spend a night so went off to the souk to stock up on a few things we could eat without cooking. Another beautiful moonlit night and just the soft rattle of the palm branches in the coolish breeze. Something to think about but the area around Agdz does not enchant me, no interesting excursions and I suppose walks through the palm trees pall after a time so probably not my dream house, needs a lot of work to make it comfortable for any length of time........still it exists and apparently building is strictly restricted in the palmeraie now as it is on the verge of becoming a unesco world heritage protected area.

Spent one more night in the Agdz area at the Kasbah auberge in the village of Tamnougalte, newly built, basic, good pool and great views of the mountains and the village.

Tamnougalt was once the capital of what functioned as an independent republic in the Draa. The republic was ruled by an assembly of families, such as Caid Ali's family, who controlled both exports and imports as well as taxation of local agriculture and small industries thus amassing wealth, prestige and plenty of power.

We were at a bit of a loose end at this point, thought we would visit the other great palmeraie of the Dades valley and then took the weird decision of going even further south and into the desert at Rissani, we had fond memories of Rissani but maybe not the best decision considering the great heat that was building up by the day.

Dades was very changed, huge amount of building, Todra Gorge unrecognizable and unbearable with convoys of tourist buses, hundreds of people distracting from the splendour of the gorge.................old fogey moment.......I remember the first time I went 20 years ago, just one simple auberge and a walk through the river to get into the gorge.......ahhh. So despite the madness of driving into the hottest part of Morocco we felt we might just be able to find some respite from all this heavy tourism, I know we are tourists too but.............