• Kasbah Bab Ourika

    19 de outubro de 2025, Marrocos ⋅ ⛅ 26 °C

    While preparing for this trip in Germany Elfi and I watched a film on Netflix called "Love in Marocco". It was absolutely terrible, but parts of it were filmed in an incredibly beautiful Kasbah, today a boutique hotel decorated in exclusive maroccan style.
    As we neared Marrakesh we remembered the film and researched where it was located and decided to spend a night in this incredible location and really spoil ourselves.
    I phoned them, only to hear that they were booked out for the months in advance. We decided to look at the place none-the-less, eat a luxury meal and then sleep somewhere else in our "Sprinti".
    Oh my god, were we spoiled! The place was incredible. The evening began with gin tonic (hardly available in this Islamic country) while watching the sun set, then continued with an incredible meal and wine.
    As we returned to our car I passed a seated british gentleman talking to the hotel manager and spontaneously developed a really nice conversation. It turned out to be the founder and owner of the Kasbah.
    He promptly offered us the room they keep in reserve for VIP'S.
    And so it came that every staff member knew that we were befriended with the owner. They carried us on hands!!!
    And so, we spent two days in heaven.😁
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  • Cascades d'Ouzoud, major negotiations!

    17 de outubro de 2025, Marrocos ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C

    On the way to Marrakesh we passed the cascades d'ouzoud. A 100 meter waterfall that used to transport huge quantities of water is today just a memory of the past.
    Obviously it is overrun by tourists, but it had ONE very exceptional carpet shop run by Abdelkabhir and his nephew Yassir Ben who regularly visits Berber families in the Atlas mountains where the women weave the most unbelievable carpets during the long winter months. I promptly fell totally in love with one of the carpets. While trying to negotiate the price, the number of carpets kept increasing. Due to "complexity" of the negotiations we posponed to the next morning. After breakfast we continued, I told him about our trip and how I had produced hashisch at the "weed farmers", he told me about his visits to the weavers in the mountains and how they use natural dyes for the wool, I told him about my family and kids in Germany and he told me about how each carpet he buys is like a child to him especially the one carpet I loved most which he called his best horse! We dealed-and-wheeled for three hours with breaks for tea and discussions with our "back-up teams" (Elfi and his uncle).
    All the while Elfi had philosophical discussions with his uncle about ethics, beauty and bought some earrings😁
    Finally the deal was closed! 6 carpets for an absolute fortune😁
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  • Road construction as development aid.

    17 de outubro de 2025, Marrocos ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    The Riff mountains, as well as the central-, and high-Atlas mountains are home to the Berber tribes. We have experienced this region as one of extreme poverty, with people sometimes totally desperate, begging us to buy something, anything, just so that they can have some money. It tears my heart to experience this, especilly when one realizes that they are talking about several "Dirhams", less than 50 Euro cents.
    It seems the region is totally disconnected from the development marocco has gone through in the last decades. Houses are made of stamped clay frequently in total disrepair, transport is by donkey, cooking is with wood. Water, which was once readily available in the mountains has becom a magor problem as the drought continues. Villages are dying out and the cultural heritage of personal jewelery and family carpets is being sold to the markets in Marrakesh to people like us, to generate at least some money for the families. It is all very sad!

    What we have noticed is that there is massive road construction and repair work taking place all over, especially in the Atlas mountains where tracks leading tens of kilomerters to tiny villages in the high mountains are widened and graded. These multi-year projects train and use locals, also in qualified positions, such as truck drivers, operators of machine shovels and other infra structure.
    This brings desperately needed income into the region, villages and families.
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  • "Dra Tafilalet", another gorge attempt

    15 de outubro de 2025, Marrocos ⋅ ☁️ 16 °C

    Today we drove into the "Dra Tafilet" gorge in another attempt to drive through the bottom of a river gorge. To not make the same mistake we made last time, we walked the 8 km route along the gorge bottom to check out the route. Because river beds always risk sinking in, we chose a route slightly above the river bed. At some stage, as in the last gorge, large rocks apeared blocking any vehicle. One huge rock we were able to roll aside cm-by-cm. For the other immovable monsters we decided to stack rocks around them building ramps to be able to cross over.
    After 2 hours of bone crushing work we had the bottleneck solved and continued our hike, only to be confronted by a 5 ton shovel that a grader had deposited during road works. That was the end of this effort!

    But a wonderful surprize awaited us when we hiked back along the stream, a small waterfall. The first moving water we have washed ourselves in since the beginning of the trip🤽
    So the next morning, the daring Elfi Aschenbrenner took the steering wheel, in a dare to drive through rhe river bed.
    She managed without further catastrophies!😎
    One more adventure survived!🧛
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  • Todra gorge, HELP! Masked Asean touists!

    13 de outubro de 2025, Marrocos ⋅ ☁️ 17 °C

    And then the gorges get deeper and deeper, and suddenly in a place where the road is only 3 meters wide, a huge tourist bus comes through, directly behind, 3 other busses. We have arrived at the Todra and Daades gorge, an eldorado for climbers and a "must see" for Japanese and Chinese tourists who walk around wearing their face masks.
    We gather our spirits and activate "maximum tolerance" and walk along the rows of Berber tribe carpets and garments, relax in a chilled Berber tent only with locals, all smoking grass to a very cool Sahara band called "Saharawi". Maroccan tea, and another marroccan tea. It is difficult to leave😅
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  • Breakfast in Ait Hani, what a chill !!🌹

    13 de outubro de 2025, Marrocos ⋅ ☁️ 14 °C

    A spontaneous stop in "Ait Hani" results in a chilled breakfast watching the village come to life. Kids are picked up by the school bus, the Imam from the local Moshee philosophising wit others about the Koran, beautiful Berber tribe girls not allowing me to photograph them flirting with the boys. Just another early morning in "Ait Hani"❤️
    and in the.middle of it the beautiful Elfi ♥️
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  • Les greniers d'ajougal

    12 de outubro de 2025, Marrocos ⋅ ☀️ 17 °C

    When you look at the history of marocco, it seems like a series of wars with "A" flattening and plundering city "B", and then "C" flattening and plundering city "A".
    Life for the normal farner must have been hell allways at the mercy of others with them repeatedly plundering everything they posess.
    So I found it really cool that the farmers of Ajougal stored their grain in a natural ledge of an 800meter high cliff and promptly built some houses in the ledge to live.
    The ledge is only accesable via a 1 metre wide gap. Very easy to defend against any army🤣
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  • The tears that filled two lakes

    11 de outubro de 2025, Marrocos ⋅ ☀️ 12 °C

    Once upon a time near Imilchil in the high-Atlas mountains!
    There were two berber tribes, the Ait Brahim and the Ait Yaaza who battled over water for centuries.
    Then the handsome shepherd "Tilsit" and the beautiful "Islit" fell hopelessly in love. But their tribes forbad them to meet, and so the two fled from their homes into the mountains and cried and cried their sorrow, their tears filling two deep craters until both drowned.
    Their respective tribes were so deeply shocked, that they ended their century long feud and started the "Moussem", a wedding market. Once a year the barberies come down from all over the atlas mountains to meet in Imilchil and approx 60 women choose their husbands to marry on the spot. Several notaries who are present, sign the documents and because everyone knows each other and the whole thing is a party anyway, one saves the costs for a wedding party.

    And so, each night the two lovers exit their lakes and reunite!
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  • "High-Atlas" mountains

    10 de outubro de 2025, Marrocos ⋅ ☀️ 12 °C

    Besides the incredible roads, the highlight of this leg was an invitation to lunch by Ismael and his father. While tanking water, Ismael a 15 year old boy approached us wanting to understand each and every detail of our car and trip. Then he askes us if we'd like to eat the Friday prayer lunch with them.
    We sat in their cool mud-brick living room, a flat screen TV running in the background operating from solar panels. Outside, in holding with their tradition the mother stayed in the kitchen while the two men entertained us, the older speaking good french.
    When I asked why she doesn't join us, the answer was very clear: "A woman connot be with the guests, she may only be with our family". This was said with total clarity, yes even a coldness!
    Wow, difficult to accept for us europeans.
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  • Toilet fiasco and other terrible things

    8 de outubro de 2025, Marrocos ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C

    Oh no!
    It has happened again, the unthinkable! We forgot to empty the urine tank of our toilet and............
    I'll spare you the rest.
    The result is one whole day of cleaning the toilet and the floor. This is about my most favorite work!

    Then followed the the canyon drama.
    The big trucks decided to not even try, but we took the bet, we will get through. So we drove a whole day into the canyon and had to turn back, at some stage the rocks got so big that no stacking of stones before and after them could solve the problem. We first had to reverse hundreds of meters and then turned around needing half a day to get out again.

    But then we were richly rewarded by the "Cirque de Jaffar" one of the most incredible off-road tracks I have ever experienced, advancing into the "High Atlas" to 2500m with the most beautiful place for the night.
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  • Donkey visit for breakfast

    8 de outubro de 2025, Marrocos ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C

    The "Source de l'oum Rabia" is a huge irony in this water starved country because the massive waterstream coming out of the mountain is intensly salty!
    But the Tachine we had for dinner in a beautiful barbary tent overhanging the stream was delicious, and Aziz, whose wife did the cooking, attentively refilled our maroccan tea every time it threatened to empty. ❤️

    We then drove on to "lac Aguelmame Zigza" the only natural lake that still has water. That is a shocking fact!
    MANTOCO had last seen the lake in 2014 with a water level 50meters higher than today!
    But also here we had a plesant surprize when a little donkey (let's call him Joe) came by for breakfast.
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  • Monkey business😍

    4 de outubro de 2025, Marrocos ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

    These Atlas mountains are home to huge endemic Cedar trees and used to be covered by them. They are also home to troops of Barbary apes. Now only a small zone of trees remains, protected by a national park with at the center, the Cedre Gouraud (a huge dead cedar tree which is revered as a reminder of how things used to be). As we drive through the country, huge 100 year old dead stems sprinkle the landscape, reminding us of how it used to be.
    The dying of these ancient trees has also drasticly reduced the living space of the monkeys putting them on the endangeeed spieces list.
    Near "Azrou" we spent two days with a troop of barbary apes and were deeply moved by how incredibly intelligent , emotional and cute they were.
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  • Luxury Ifrane, and a country in drought

    4 de outubro de 2025, Marrocos ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C

    Today was wierd!
    The plan was to pass by a series of large alpine lakes. But not a single one had water, only dust! No water! Not a drop!.
    It was here that we heard that since the 1980 there has been a dramitic decline in rainfall, and that in the last 7 years, virtually no rain has dallen in a region that is normally gifted with water.
    All the more absurd when we arived in "Ifrane", the favourite holiday destination for wealthy maroccan families, home to an elite university and a huge holiday home of the king, guarded by a whole division of the royal maroc army. The whole town a luschious green park with lawns and ally ways of trees. Sprinkler systems irrigating the town all day long.
    And this in a country suffering from dramatic drought!
    And yet, Elfi an I decided to suck up this exclusive atmosphere as a change of scenery to our 4 m² and enjoy a real cappucino, a crispy salad, and a real beer, (all be it alchohol free).
    What a crazy world!
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  • Sefrou

    3 de outubro de 2025, Marrocos ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C

    Spontaneously we deviate from our route to visit "Sefrou" a trading town from the days of of the camel caravans. This town was known for its many different religions and maximum tolerance for strangers. Sinagogues stand next to Moshées, modern stidents next to ladies in Chador hoods and face mask. This tolerance for others would do our world good in these times.Leia mais

  • 2000m, Maria Callas and great cooking❤️

    2 de outubro de 2025, Marrocos ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    We are now in the central Atlas mountains, and constantly varying around 2000 and 2600 meters. Unbelievably steep roads with hairpin bends leading up Mountain passes and down into the next valley, and finally endless high altitude plains.
    And yet there is also a sad side. The slopes and plains are massively over grazed leaving the surfaces bare to wind and rain. The result is massive erosion with huge gullies everywhere. I have never seen such bare surfaces!. On top of this many locals use wood for cooking and heating. I was really shocked when I saw trees cut down to run a charcoal production all along a steep mountain road.
    All this shocks me and makes me sad.

    In the midst of all this, parked off road on a peak near the 2509m pass, we listen to Maria Callas as the sun sets to the smell of delicious cooking.
    Oh my god, how good life can be❤️

    Just as we get up in the morning we get a visitor. "Joe" the donkey has just carried his owner up the pass and so they drop by for a cup of tea and the donkey for a carrot. The crazy thing is he doesn't want the carrot, only the prickly thorns grown out of a tiny bush.
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  • The sweet smell of Marijuana everywhere!

    29 de setembro de 2025, Marrocos ⋅ ☁️ 16 °C

    Oh my god, what a pleasure it is to drive through the Riff mountains with open windows! Constantly we are accompanied by the sweet smell of Marijuana. It is harvest time and the endless fields are being cut, the plants tied into bushels and dried on the rooves of the houses. EVERYWHERE the sweet smell of weed. We are becomming addicted and hyper sensitive to this delightful smell, constantly sniffing the air every time we come round a bend 😁

    But we have also dived deep into the topic of Hashisch smuggling, their speed boats, drug bosses and how the spanish police chase the smugglers crossing the straits of Gibraltar.

    This afternoon we turn off the road onto an off-road track leading us high up into the mountains to 1700m where we spend the night on an outcrop. It is totally silent, pitch black and we feel alone in this incredible place.
    Then at 23:00 hrs the unbelievable happens! A huge truck surrounded by strong lights creeps along the road in the darkness. The driver spots our lights and stops 109m away. 4 men in boots, armed with strong torches, get off and start to approach us. All the reading about drug bosses has got to our heads, we are terrified and switch off all our lights, lock the car and prepare ourselves to grab the kitchen knives. Suddenly, not seeing us in the dark anymore, they turn back to their truck and move down the mountain track in the pitch black night.
    We are giggling and shaking all over, aware that we have read too many stories about the drug trade. Non-the-less the night is restless with wild dreams😁
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  • The Spanish rock castle

    27 de setembro de 2025, Marrocos ⋅ ☁️ 22 °C

    We continue along the coast and over a beautiful pass where we spend the night over looking endless mountain ranges.

    We are slowly getting into the rhythm of finding beautiful places for the night, and creating a little paradise in Sprinti for ourselves. Living with Elfi in this tiny space feels better and better. We are cruising nicely with each other.😁

    The following day we arrive back on the coast via a long off road track (red) and end up high above the sea overlooking "Penon de Velez de la Gomera", a big rock belonging to the spanish and guarded vehemently by its soldiers. The location is so beautiful that we spend the next two days here, observing the spanish soldiers guarding their ridiculous but beautiful Rock😁.
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  • Chechaouen, the blue town.

    24 de setembro de 2025, Marrocos ⋅ ☁️ 21 °C

    In Chechaouen most houses are painted blue. But what is really important is that it is at the center of the marrocan Weed production region.
    We did not know that, but as we drove with open windows the smell of haschisch wafted in although there were no people. Later we learned that it was the pollen we were smelling. It is mid-harvest time!!!!
    So we embarked on a endevour to become weed specialists😀
    Did you know that Marocco has a 70% market share in Europe, that it exports 67.000 to. per year, that 2million people live off this production in the Riff mountains, and that they have been growing a local weed called "Beldya"for hundreds of years.
    So, we hiked up the mountain behind Chechaouen to visit three young maroccan growerd with their french friend who explained things to us.
    The female plants are cut and dried on the flat roof tops. Then a kind of stocking is spanned across a bucket, a plastic layer comes on top of the dry plants and is then beaten with a stick. The THC laden Pollen/resin falls through and is then pressed to beads and blocks. Like with the quality of olive oil there is first, second and third beating. The result is best quality "Kif"
    It is really tough work and yeld is low.
    These guys were living on the floor in a tin hut bearly above subsistance level.
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  • And off we go, to Tetouan

    24 de setembro de 2025, Marrocos ⋅ ☁️ 22 °C

    Today our first mountains, coastal roads, and finally Tetouan with our first Medina (old town and souk) head-first into arabian life where everything happens in the souk: shopping for food, chicken and goat slaughtering, with small eatery directly next door and endless stalls selling second hand clothing, and shoes.
    Wow! What an experience. I am spontaneously beamed back into the world of Iranian markets in 2022 during our Arabia trip.
    We planned to spend the night on a beach nearby called "Oued Laou plage", but were chased away by the royal maroc army shortly before midnight. Once again a parking lot becomes our home 😁
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  • Arrived at last

    23 de setembro de 2025, Marrocos ⋅ ☁️ 18 °C

    Arrived in Tanger at last!
    Two whole days and nights on a ferry ship is pretty long!
    After hours getting through customs and out of the harbour area it was already dark and we headed for the next parking near a beach where we spent the night.
    And then our first morning,, jog on the beach, swim and meditate. Wow, what a feeling to be here. Now the journey really begins.
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  • Warming up! Off-road training

    16 de agosto de 2025, Alemanha ⋅ ☁️ 17 °C

    Off road driving training for Elfi and Barbara.
    And oh my god, how they impressed me! growing beyond their fears during the course of a weekend and having real fun while at it.
    I really do have two very cool women accompanying me.
    Markus will be doing a similar course during October.
    Among some of the exercises, how to choose your path through the terrain to keep all wheels on the ground and keep traction, and if they are in the air, how to behave. And the most exciting, when the motor stops on a really steep hill, how to drive backwards without loosing control.
    What an exciting weekend!
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