• Michael Spies
Gjeldende
  • Michael Spies

Eagles fly, deserts call!

"High Atlas" mountains and deepest Mauritanian Desert. Time to move again! Les mer
  • The road of the Kaspah's, Quarzazate

    27. oktober 2025, Marokko ⋅ ☀️ 20 °C

    Kaspah's were the previous palaces of wealthy families. In the past they were made of stamped-mud bricks. Today most have been abandoned and are slowly eroding away.
    But most faszinating was Ben Haddou, a stamped-clay town on the slope of a hill which has been the backdrop for numerous block buster movies, among other "james Bond", "Game of thrones", "lawrence of Arabia", "Gladiator" and "Dune".
    We entered the town with the plan to stroll through this beautiful location but left it screaming when we saw hundreds of tour busses with chinese tourists wearing face masks!😁

    Shortly afterwards follows Quarzazate a totally unreal large city in the middle of the desert and home to a Hollywood style film studios and "Noor", the largest solar thermal powerstation with thousands of sun-tracking mirrors facing a huge tower and generating temperatures of over 700 degrees centigrade.
    Les mer

  • Okaimeden - Mohammed Cous Cous

    26. oktober 2025, Marokko ⋅ ☁️ 10 °C

    On our second evening, when returning from our climb I bumped into Mohammed Couscous who was walking back to his village after an unsucessful day of trying to sell a few fossils to the three tourists that he had met. It was freezing cold, his shoes worn through and clothes tattered, but he spoke french!
    Elfi and I rummaged through our clothes and gave him everything that wad not essential, clothes, shoes, and several packs of coffee we had with us inviting him to sell them if he wants to generate some income for his 5 kids.
    He spoke of desperate poverty in the region!
    Oh my god, how privileged and lucky we are❤️
    Les mer

  • Goodbye Marrakesh, on to Okaimeden

    26. oktober 2025, Marokko ⋅ ⛅ 10 °C

    The last thing I would expect to find in Marocco is a ski resort, and yet,
    Okaimeden is just that, a ski resort!
    The village, at 2609m is full of chalets and typical french ski resort hotels. Okaimeden peak reaches 3255 meters with a view on the high altlas chain of mountains all over 4000meters, among other, the 4167 meter Jebel Toubkal.
    And now the sad part.
    The village is empty, with exception of a few locals and sheep, the fancy hotels are falling apart and the lifts are broken.
    Everywhere decay!
    One small cozy Gite, "chez Juju" is still open, but not even they have guests. "Juju" founded the gite in 1946 in the days when they still had 4 meters of snow and you hiked up the mountain with skins under your skis. Modern lifts followed, hotels sprung up.
    Today average snow in winter is 50cm, the tourists are gone and everything is falling apart. Listening to locals talking of the "old times" is agonizing! They speak of constant mountain streams of water, all summer long, today everything is dry.
    Les mer

  • Marrakesh 4

    22. oktober 2025, Marokko ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

    Right next door to Hassan Fessie making brass lamps, in the same back yard complex, were three guys producing mosaik tables in a workshop no bigger than 10m2. The Mosaics were chiseled out of clay pieces with utmost precision using a tiny hammer.
    Before leaving Marrakesh we returned to the courtyard of Atisains Africaune to say goodbye to the wonderful people we had met there: Salah Nasiri and hi uncle Aziz el Khanjar and , Mohammid Tari who poured some wonderful tea as a farewell.
    Les mer

  • Marrakesh, an insane boiling pot.

    20. oktober 2025, Marokko ⋅ ☀️ 31 °C

    Marrakesh is a mirror our arrival at our our Riad in town, (riad = traditional Maroccan town house) .
    We walked through narrow, dirty, incredibly loud, stinking ally ways at 35deg. with hooting scooters racing by, and shouting carts pushing through. Then we turned down a tiny pitch-dark ally way into a dark tunnel, wondering where the hell we are. Suddenly on our left a decorated door with knocker. We knock, and enter into a court yard, with fountain and trees in the middle, surrounded by 5 beautiful maroccan rooms and TOTAL SERENITY! An oasis in the middle of chaos.
    Marrakesh is crazy, it is everything! Claustrophobic, Loud, dirty, stinking, beautiful, artistic, fascinating, touriststic, warmth, politeness, agressiveness, stress. Acute poverty crashes head-on into extreme wealth.
    And it is totally exhausting!
    It was like a roller coaster ride.
    Merchants and artisans, motor cycles and carts, incredible african and arabic art next to the most terrible touristic rubbish, luxury restaurants next to the street butcher that imediately grills the sheep he just killed.
    Simply crazy!
    Les mer

  • Kasbah Bab Ourika

    19. oktober 2025, Marokko ⋅ ⛅ 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.😁
    Les mer

  • Cascades d'Ouzoud, major negotiations!

    17. oktober 2025, Marokko ⋅ ☀️ 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😁
    Les mer

  • Road construction as development aid.

    17. oktober 2025, Marokko ⋅ ⛅ 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.
    Les mer

  • "Dra Tafilalet", another gorge attempt

    15. oktober 2025, Marokko ⋅ ☁️ 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!🧛
    Les mer

  • Todra gorge, HELP! Masked Asean touists!

    13. oktober 2025, Marokko ⋅ ☁️ 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😅
    Les mer

  • Breakfast in Ait Hani, what a chill !!🌹

    13. oktober 2025, Marokko ⋅ ☁️ 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 ♥️
    Les mer

  • Les greniers d'ajougal

    12. oktober 2025, Marokko ⋅ ☀️ 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🤣
    Les mer

  • The tears that filled two lakes

    11. oktober 2025, Marokko ⋅ ☀️ 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!
    Les mer

  • "High-Atlas" mountains

    10. oktober 2025, Marokko ⋅ ☀️ 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.
    Les mer

  • Toilet fiasco and other terrible things

    8. oktober 2025, Marokko ⋅ ☀️ 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.
    Les mer

  • Donkey visit for breakfast

    8. oktober 2025, Marokko ⋅ ☀️ 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.
    Les mer

  • Monkey business😍

    4. oktober 2025, Marokko ⋅ ☀️ 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.
    Les mer

  • Luxury Ifrane, and a country in drought

    4. oktober 2025, Marokko ⋅ ☀️ 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!
    Les mer

  • Sefrou

    3. oktober 2025, Marokko ⋅ ☀️ 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.Les mer