Today is the day we pack up and leave our Saharan camp.  We’re slowly making our way back to Marrakech, but hitting some interesting stops along the way.

Hey, it’s my birthday today!  55 years old.  I now qualify to buy a house in an “Active Lifestyle” senior citizen community.

Loading up and out at daybreak.  It’s another 75 minute ride back to the place where we meet up with the truck that takes us on.  Our driver has already dealt with our luggage.

Ho hum, yet another Camel ride for Brenda.

We are heading west toward a town called M’Hamid – where the road begins again.  On the way, high up on a hill, we stopped to see these Nomad women selling scarves and little toy trinkets they make by hand.
Brenda is here trying to figure out how to buy and thank the woman for some little treasures she is bringing home to the girls.

Another of Brenda’s goals was to buy a Tagine – the earthenware pots used for so many meals here.  She wants a real one that can be used in our oven at home, not the ornamental ones that are usually sold at the tourist traps.
In Tamegroute, we stopped at a pottery factory to find what she was after.

A man demonstrating the pottery wheel techniques.

Kids mixing the dirt and water & etc for spinning.  This is the ‘factory’.

Product going into the kilns.

The processes here have not changed in thousands of years.

The final product in the warehouse.

Brenda deciding on her final selections.

.. and of course, finding the one animal to play with while the owner wraps up her pottery.  Let’s see if they can somehow make it back to home in one piece.

In Agdz.. this is our hotel for the night.

A 50 yard walk out of our compound yields an abandoned village of Ahslim Ksar.  No one has lived here for about 70 years – modern citizens moved a bit south and live now in “the city”.  This entire walled village can now be explored, at your own risk.

An old well, next to a field of date palms and saffron crocus.

Another Kasbah that is still in use down the way.

Back at our hotel.  We have found that if you can get water here, things grow amazingly well.  The soil is rich, just bereft of moisture.