Around 0700 I drove again in the direction of Ourzazate to be there on time 1000. On the right I saw the Atlas with its snow covered peaks far away from the road. Everything which is green here, has its cause in the glacier streams and the melt water after the snow melt. It must be quite large floods, which pour out then in the direction of Sahara. The Draa flows into the Atlantic again after a turn, the rest seeps into the desert. Before I could drive off, a guy from the shop under the hotel 20dh coaxed me out of his car on the grounds that he had been looking after the car all night. I didn’t believe that, but I didn’t feel comfortable with the whole hotel. So I gave it to him and made off.
Meanwhile it had become quite cold, so that I had to use the heating in the car early in the morning. After a few kilometres I stopped at a kind of rest stop. For the other conditions it was quite luxuriously equipped. Several Tajine-Grill stood in the kitchen out of order and waited for it during the day in enterprise to be taken. I let myself prepare as always an Omlette with processed cheese and in addition gave it naturally again tidy coffee and flat bread. I arrived punctually in O. and drove again to the gas station. I don’t remember what I had paid, it wasn’t very much. Meanwhile a lot of garbage had accumulated in the car, which I packed into a plastic bag and put back into the car. The car lender received me again and the whole procedure started again. I was a bit worried if the car would not have been damaged by my ski runs.
Anyway, it didn’t look like that on the outside. The lender took off his list and the car and shivered a bit if he would not present me with a huge bill. Everything seemed to be clear until he bent over and crawled under the car. There I felt a little more queasy, because I really hadn’t expected it. But everything went well and after a short time I started the car again and stood with my garbage bag in front of the shop. The garbage bag flew according to national custom to the edge of the main road and I went again into the Royal around a room to take.
This time it lasted with the old Zausel still longer than I was already used to it. In the meantime I looked at the hotel entrance. Interestingly, there was a pretty painting with exactly the route I was driving in 48 hours. That was a bit strange, because I only had the LP cards and they had more details on the wall. I left my stuff in the room after taking a good shower. There was always warm water in the Royal. This time I walked towards Neustadt, towards the road to Zagora. Directly after over the main road also small gardens began, which were situated at the Draa. In the gardens the water was still regulated with hoe and earth heap in irrigation canals and distributed over the fields.
I watched you for some time and went a little further through the gardens. Arriving at the river I turned around again towards the main road and now through the medina, which should be one of the oldest in Morocco. In any case it was said that it is from the 12th century. The lanes were narrow and extremely angled. More than once I was finally in a dead end. All in all there was not much going on. The houses were still partly built of clay. At the somewhat more modern looking northern exit to the main street some young city guides waited, who also addressed me whether I want to have a guidance. Maybe I should have done it afterwards, but I had walked through it for some time now. But now I really went in the direction of the relatively new Neustadt over the Draa and its narrow bridge, on which I almost stepped with one leg into a hole.
All over Morocco you could see that they were building outside the cities or villages. Those were not only houses, but first sidewalks, which stretched themselves partially one kilometer at the main road into nothing. One recognized also that these were relatively again put on, since also palms were freshly planted and these were still small and were watered more often. This was also the case at the transition to the Neustadt. I had arrived there at a corner but I didn’t feel like running any further, as I was spoiled by the car and after two weeks running was enough.
I sat down again comfortably in a corner cafe directly at the crossing and drank several coffee while I wrote in my travel notes. Sometime I went back again and looked at the old Kasbah at the main street in the center. The whole building was made of clay and already quite dilapidated. But one could already go up through the rooms and some floors. Everything was incredibly narrow and low. I walked a little bit through the city, but there was nothing special to see. Meanwhile it had become evening and I went on the central place, where already many people had gathered. There were numerous restaurants with seats on the square. In one of them I discovered a WLAN before. So I went in there with my netbook and ordered a tea.
I tried to get into the net, but I didn’t succeed. I asked the host for the password, but he couldn’t answer me correctly. Now I was a bit confused. But in a dark corner one sat alone at a table in front of a laptop. That was a somewhat strange sight, since I had only sporadic access to the Internet cafe for days. I went to him and asked how I could get access. He couldn’t communicate in English and I couldn’t communicate in French. But somehow it worked. I gave him my netbook, with which he first had some difficulties, because it had no Arabic keyboard, but only a short time I had access. Interestingly, this was a public net on the square and not from a restaurant. As far as I could remember, the password was the same as the net name. That I found already remarkable that there was so half before the desert a public net. I spent some time surfing and writing emails until I got too cold and later went back to the Royal.
