Marvellous Morocco: Rain in the desert, grit in my omelette and a bumpy camel ride
Rain in the desert. Not what I was expecting on the first morning of a four-day trip through the Moroccan Sahara. We had stepped off the plane at Ouarzazate airport late the night before to be greeted by warm, dry air filled with the sweet scent of flowering date palms. Now, though, it was raining as we loaded the three 4x4 cars that would take us to the dunes of southern Morocco. It was clear the locals weren't used to the weather - one man strolled past holding a closed umbrella above his head. My group of 11 travellers from the UK - including solicitors and social workers, and all experts in dealing with downpours - had decided that a long weekend in the sun, miles from civilisation, was an excellent way to escape the daily grind. The trip started in Morocco's movie-making capital, Ouarzazate. Ironically, the name means 'city without noise' but it is bustling with locals and tourists. It has always been busy. In the 16th Century it was the main crossroads from Sub-Saharan Africa up to Marrakech in the north. It was around here that many of the scenes from epics such as Gladiator, Lawrence Of Arabia, The Last Temptation Of Christ and Star Wars were filmed. The landscape was used as one of the locations in Star Wars for Tatooine, the home planet of Luke Skywalker. We followed a route through the Draa Valley, driving over the surprisingly green Anti-Atlas Mountains which stretch all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. Screeching round precarious hairpin bends in the mountains was a bit hair-raising, but the vast, unspoilt landscape was more than enough to keep my mind off the fact that we often appeared to be heading straight off a precipice. The immense, rolling hills of the Anti-Atlas gave way to flatter, drier land. The first sign of a village en route was always a football pitch - well, a couple of wooden frames erected opposite each other on a flat piece of land. Then, just round the corner, loomed the kasbahs - fortresses constructed from local clay and almost inseparable from their surrounding landscape.
Par rapport à la moyenne des cinq premiers mois des années 2005 à 2009, soit 17,79 MMDH, ces recettes sont en hausse de 3,3% ou +591,3 MDH, selon les derniers indicateurs des échanges extérieurs, fournis par l\'Office des Changes. Les dépenses voyages se
