Ait Ben Haddou, Morocco UNESCO & movies

While setting up our base in Marrakech, we took a 3 day tour out east. Our first major stop was a town we've all seen, but never heard of, Ksar Ait Ben Haddou. Ait Ben Haddou is a Berber village and UNESCO Heritage site that has been used as a movie set for decades. Movies filmed here include Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Jewel of the Nile (1985), The Mummy (1999), Gladiator (2000), Game of Thrones (3rd season in 2013) and they are currently building an arena to film Gladiator 2 staring Russell Crows son.

Given it's a Berber village, our tour was guided by a local Berber man named Abdil. Abdil also tries out to be an extra in movies. He got to be one of the 4 men who got to triumphantly lift Daenerys Targaryen after she freed the slaves of the city. He promised us autographs we never got (jk).

Only 5 families currently live in the old town. Wikipedia states that none of the buildings in the village believed to be built prior to the 17th century. Despite this, the old town was created with centuries old Berber construction methods and that is a big part of its appeal. The plaster on the outside needs to be constantly replaced because rain followed by heat can cause cracking in the sides.

The river between the new and old town is also naturally salty due to mineral salt in the land. That means they have to walk 3 km to get water from another natural spring. Color commentary: we were here in mid March and it was almost 80°F and sunny. I'll leave the rest to the imagination.

Our guide Abdil taught us some of the Berber language which, after Arabic, proved very easy. Azun (with a slight l sound on the n) is hello. Many Berbers in the desert wear blue head wrappings and the Spanish word for Blue is "Azule" (coincidentally?). That helps us remember how to say hello to the "blue men" as they are sometimes called.

To use that as a segue, their head scarfs are dyed with natural "indigo" stone mined locally. The dye helps keep them cool in the desert and doesn't run when you sweat as modern synthetic blue dyes can (as we were told).

Ten-milt (is how I would spell "thank you" in Berber) for reading.Read more