Just before reaching the pass, an interesting Berber approached us and asked us where we were from (the reaction to any country you name invariably will be: “Aaah, Gernenay/France/Spain! Very nice country. Guten Tag/Bonjour/Buenos dias!”. The Berbers up there know a few words in practically any language. This one was particularly interesting and although I knew he was going to sell us something if we stopped, I couldn’t help but agree when he said something along the lines of “stop to smell the roses” or so. He invited us for tea at “his house, just around the corner” and I smelled a rat, but Wolfgang wanted to o very badly and experience the hospitality of this friendly man. Well, after the next corner there were about 30 little shops huddled together on the small plateau near the pass and of course the Berber’s “house” was his shop. I managed to convince him that we practically didn’t have any money, so we got away with only buying two nice headscarves and a small silver snuff box for 15 € or so. It would have been even cheaper, but Wolfgang kindly offered his money when I tried my trustworhty “see, my wallet is empty - scheme”. This was the most unobtrusive dealer we met on the whole trip. In general, the indigenous Berbers have a completely different way of dealing with customers than the lowland Arabs who moved in just a few hundred years ago. He had the typical Berber eyes and really was a fascinating person:

Having crossed the Tichka pass, we branched off the main road and took a smaller road down a remote valley, which would later become an extremely bumpy dirt road. Here, I’m wearing my headscarf because that was the best protection against the sun. It often really makes sense to copy the locals.

As we rode on, Wolfgang’s wound began to hurt more and more and we began looking for a campsite. When we finally stopped in Telouet, a guy dressed like Aladdin approached us and offered his Help in fluent German. he showed us a very nice little hotel and then invited us to have tea at his home... I immediatley knew what was up and didn’t want to go, but Wolfgang insisted once more to “just go and have a cup”. He really wasn’t thinking stright at that moment. Anyway - we followed this guy with the monster turban on his head and lo’ and behold: it was the local carpet trader... He even had a persian cat.

During the next two hours, I needed all my wits to prevent Wolfgang from exchanging his expensive digital camera for a carpet. I finally convinced both the trader and Wolfgang that two friends of mine who would be travelling along the same route three weeks later (the really did) would bring the camera and exchange it for a carpet (of course they didn’t). What the trader told us about Berber Nomad carpets was quite interesting, though:
Berber women only make four carpets during their whole life (it takes ages to weave without a proper loom). The first one is done at the age of fifteen and expresses her expectations in her future husband and gives her the opportunity to show off her skill and knowledge. Of course the future husband isn’t allowed to see his wife before the wedding, but from the patterns of the carpet he can tell whether she likes to travel or whether she would rather stay in one place, whether seh has experience in caring for many animals or in navigating by the stars (nomads travel at night) and whether she accepts polygamy and with how many wives or not (they do have a choice!). If they marry, she makes another carpet as a wedding present, then one to furnish the tent and I forgot what the last one was for. When travelling, nomads always use carpets made from camel hair (which apparently repels scorpions) or from cactus fibres (also called “vegetable silk”), never from cotton because that would gather up too much sand and get far too heavy for transport. You can only distinguish “vegetable silk” from artificial silk if you try to set it on fire! it doesn’t burn and doesn’t smell of plastic.

Now, here’s the guy - straight from Arabian Nights (which I read on the journey, by the way. Gives you a great insight into the Arab mind and the stories are quite spicy, too.):

After we had escaped the carpet trader, we went for a short walk over to the Kasbah, the oldest one in Morocco. The Kasbahs were introduced as local government seats by arab invaders 300 years ago. The locals are awfully proud of their brickearth ruin that is rapidly melting away in the rain, now. The guardian wasn’t available this day, so we decided to return the following day to see if we were more lucky then.

This evening, our hotel host served us delicious tajines and had tea with us afterwards, telling interesting tales of the region. Hospitality is holy for Moroccans and once you have been accepted as a guest somewhere, you are perfectly safe and under the personal protection of your host. I accdidently came upon an explanation in the “Arabian Nights”: Allah sometimes appears in the guise of a stranger, it says there. When I went for a walk to the Kasbah, I left my new Uvex sunglasses lying on a wall outside the hotel and when I came back after two hours, the hostess had taken care of them. These sunglasses cost more than a Moroccan earns in two weeks. I bet they would have been stolen in a southern European country.

Day 8:
DOWN THE DIRT ROAD