morocco: a stroll through the tinghir oasis

After visiting all things Berber in El Khorbat, we left the town.  We pulled off at a cliff overlooking an oasis of palm trees and mudbrick villages.  Some aggressive guys were selling scarves, mostly Pashminas.  They had quite a nice selection and I ended up buying two (a red cool patterned one and a pretty purple one) for 150 dirhams each (around $15).  I got ripped off for sure.  My fellow travelers gave me grief about buying more scarves, but I didn’t care. I was happy with my purchases. 🙂

An hour later, we settled into Hotel Amazir in Tinghir.  The hotel was lovely but the rooms were basic.  The upstairs lobby was nice enough but the basement dining area was especially inviting, overlooking a lovely pool surrounded by palm trees; the pool sat above an oasis and a burbling stream.

At 5:00, we met for a walk through the oasis.  We started by wandering through the deserted town of Tinghir.

We descended into a recumbent green valley stretched out between two rose-gold rocky mountains. We strolled on a path cut through small farms, under effusive palm trees and alongside watercourses (called falaj in Oman).  A delightful breeze tickled our skin, making the walk exceedingly pleasant;  it was one of the highlights of our entire time in Morocco! As I often felt when I lived in Oman, it was refreshing and exhilarating to walk through greenery in the desert.  I felt content to relive my multitudes of walks through mountains and date palm plantations.  All I needed was my friend Mario along. 🙂

We came upon some mudbrick ruins; it was like encountering old friends.

We walked on a path shaded by palms, with water flowing through the watercourses.

I was of course taking pictures of everything, and Chai, the pediatrician from Thailand, started taking pictures of the same subjects I was photographing.  “You my teacher,” he said, with his impish smile.  I assured him I didn’t know much about photography, but he kept following and teasing me as we photographed the same things.  He repeated, “You the teacher!”  He had an expensive-looking camera, so I assumed he was more professional than the amateur photographer I considered myself to be.  Our lighthearted interactions made the walk even more pleasant; he was such an innocent and endearing companion.

We strolled past local people gathering crops and carrying them in fabric bundles on their heads or in carts pulled by donkeys.  They seemed gregarious with one another;  their laughter danced and cartwheeled across the garden plots.

More ruins tumbled down the brown mountain on one side of the oasis, and poppies swayed in the breeze.

I loved the sound of the date palms rustling overhead in the breeze, and the earthy smell of the crops.

Donkeys brayed and squealed as we made our way across the fields.  Their sing-song bellows faded behind us as we climbed over 100 steps to the top of the village.  From there, we had great views of the oasis, the farms, towns and ruins.

In the village, Saeed picked us up in the van and took us to Todra Gorge for our last short walk of the day.

*Steps: 13,835, or 5.86 miles*

*Monday, April 15, 2019*

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“PROSE” INVITATION: I invite you to write up to a post on your own blog about a recently visited particular destination (not journeys in general). Concentrate on any intention you set for your prose.

One of my intentions was to write about how I reveled in an experience.  Did I bask in the light, the breeze, the rustling of leaves on the trees?  Truly possessing a scene is making a conscious effort to observe closely.

It doesn’t matter whether you write fiction or non-fiction for this invitation.  You can either set your own writing intentions, or use one of the prompts I’ve listed on this page: writing prompts: prose. You can also include photos, of course.

Include the link in the comments below by Monday, March 9 at 1:00 p.m. EST.  When I write my post in response to this invitation on Tuesday, March 10, I’ll include your links in that post.

This will be an ongoing invitation. Feel free to jump in at any time. 🙂

I hope you’ll join in our community. I look forward to reading your posts!

the ~ wander.essence ~ community

I invite you all to settle in and read a few posts from our wandering community.  I promise, you’ll be inspired. 🙂

• Mari, of Mari’s Travels with Her Camera, wrote a piece using a sentence she found from a random book to tell of two beautiful German towns, Bremen and Bremerhaven.
  • Breman and Bremerhaven

Thanks to all of you who wrote prosaic posts following intentions you set for yourself.