We had an early start again this morning - which was unfortunate, because I could have done with a couple more hours sleep, but I suppose it would have been a waste! I packed my things and dashed downstairs for a quick breakfast of croissants and coffee. Then we were back onto the coach for the four hour drive to Ouarzazate. Leaving the red-walled city of Marrakech, we were able to see the Atlas mountains after a few minutes, and gradually we began to climb the twisting, turning road into the mountains. The landscape is all red-coloured rock and I asked Dominique, one of our hosts for the visit, if he knew the name of the rock, but he did not. On reference to my travel guide, I found that the red-stone houses and villages are built of tabia, a mixture of water and red mud from the Haouz plains, and in places, they almost looked as if they had been carved straight out of the red rock rather than built! Many seemed uninhabited, and I wondered if the people only live in them for a short while and then move on and build another. Again, on referring to my book, I learned that the houses do not withstand heavy rainfall, and the foundations crumble when they become waterlogged, and so they are abandoned in ruins after only decades.

There were sometimes herds of goats and flocks of sheep on the road - usually around a blind corner! And donkeys, loaded up with bundles and bales, poor things. And stalls of "rare mineraux" by the side of the road, dozens of uncut semi-precious stones such as quartz, and stalls of ceramics and pottery, amphoras and tajines made from terracotta and brightly glazed ceramic plates. There were whole hillsides covered in big cactii, each one must have been six feet high.

The Berber villagers high in the mountains must have to be self-sufficient, living off the land with their own goats and sheep, and they must surely grow their own fruit and vegetables as it is hundreds of kilometres to the nearest towns and cities. It did not even look as if they would have electricity or fridges at the dwellings in the mountain valleys, although by the side of the road there was the odd cafe or shop which looked as if it had a fridge inside. It was a real culture shock to a Westerner like me who loves all the home comforts - I wondered at how these people must go their whole lives without ever going to such places as supermarkets and department stores! (I believe Morocco's one modern shopping mall is in Casablanca, and I have no idea how like our shopping malls that is likely to be!) We even saw people doing their washing in the river! I found Morocco to be a totally new experience, another world, really, and very hard for someone like myself to understand, how people manage without things like washing machines!

After two hours, we stopped at a roadside cafe and shops, and after taking some photographs of the breathtaking scenery, I went for a browse in the shops, and was persuaded by an insistent shopkeeper to buy a necklace of beads and a small, brightly- coloured tajine. He actually said I got them for a special price, and that the tajine was a present to me for buying the beads, but on spending 140 dh, I think not, he was haggling in typical Moroccan fashion. I also bought some postcards.

After another gruelling two hours the hilly, winding road was really taking its toll, and there were several instances where I (and quite a few of my fellow travellers) really thought we were going off the edge of the road and down the mountainside! I guess the coach driver was used to these types of roads, however. The landscape gradually became much flatter and desert-like, and in fact we were now much closer to the edge of the Sahara, and the colour had changed from the red mud around Marrakech and into the mountains, becoming much more sandy and golden. Shortly before arriving at Ouarzazate, we passed an area which I understand has been used for several epic movies, (including The Jewel of the Nile and Lawrence of Arabia), and in fact they now have permanent film studios and a hotel which, when not in use by the actors and film crews, is open for people to stay there.

Ouarzazate itself is a relatively new town, but with its many excellent, modern hotels it has quickly become a popular holiday destination itself. The town appeared, looking like a mirage in the distance, which indeed it has been called many times. We stopped for our lunch at the Berbere Palace, a beautiful hotel, sumptuous and cool inside, and there was a wonderful swimming pool, surrounded by palm trees and bougainvillea, and I had a quick paddle to cool down in the midday heat (at least 30C I would guess). We chose our lunch from hot and cold buffets, lots of salads, and a variety of meat in sauces and couscous, followed by some rather interesting patisserie. We rested at the hotel for a couple of hours, and the driver was late returning with the coach - we think he had fallen asleep somewhere - but for me anyway it was a welcome respite from travelling on the coach, and I took the time to start making my notes for this journal - I had decided I want to remember everything long after this trip is over!

After leaving Ouarzazate, we drove another 90 km, the land becoming much flatter, with many palm trees, and at one point Dominique asked the driver to pull over and stop while he got off and went to look for some armoise, which grows wild, to show us. Shortly after, we started to see the hedgerows of pink rose bushes. This is the damask rose, (rosa damascena), and it is in fact the subsidiary crop - the bushes form the hedges used to divide the larger fields up into smaller plots, and they protect the main crops grown inside, which is usually wheat. (In Turkey, the rose grown there is rosa centifolia, and whole fields of it are cultivated). Little shops started appearing, advertising "eau de rose" and "produits de rose" for sale. After another few kilometres, we arrived at El Kelaa des M'Gouna, which seemed quite a large, busy town considering how far out into the mountains and desert we had travelled. The town is situated where the two rivers, the M'Gouna and the Dades, run into each other, and its name literally translated means something like "the joining of the M'Gouna". The town only seemed to have one hotel, Les Roses du Dades, and this was where we were staying.
 

We did not go to the hotel just yet, however, we continued through the town to go and see the S.B.I. factory, where we saw the roses laid out on the floor, ready to be distilled or extracted, and the air was heady with the rich, incredible fragrance of the roses. The roses are picked by the local townspeople, and brought to the factory in hessian sacks, but if they remained in the sacks until they were distilled, they would start to ferment. The flowers are required to be as fresh as possible immediately prior to distillation, and so to inhibit the fermentation process, they are tipped out in areas of about five square metres onto the factory floor, and the workers periodically turn them over to keep them fresh. They are then collected into sacks again to be taken to the extraction vessels. We saw sacks of petals being tipped into a solvent extraction vessel, with several shelves going into the vessel to make layers. We then went back into the other building where the roses were all laid out on the floor, and we were allowed to go into one of the areas of flowers, to sit, kneel, and even lie face down on the petals and deeply inhale the indescribably amazing scent, and then everyone went really mad, playing in the piles of roses, throwing them into the air and at each other, and nobody minded!

In this other building, were the vessels where the rose concrete is extracted from the extract solution by distillation under vacuum. We saw tins of the concrete and smelt a sample of it in a little jar. We also saw all the distillation vessels, or alembics, and there were twelve of these in a row, and we saw them being charged with sacks of roses. The distillation waters from the rose petals contain a small amount of phenyl ethyl alcohol, and other constituents which are slightly water soluble, and this rosewater or eau de rose is also collected and sold. We were each allowed to collect our very own bottle of "Eau de Rose du Dades" as it came out of the condenser, by standing on a platform. Apparently, the spent flowers are collected after processing and used for fertilizer, so nothing is wasted. The concrete is transported to France to be converted to the absolute.

We were served mint tea in the S.B.I. dining room, and then, as the sun was setting, we returned to the town, to go to the hotel. This hotel, although not five-star like the Es-Saadi, I shall remember as having a lot more character. As we walked in, the doorman sprayed us with rosewater, and we were welcomed with the ubiquitous mint tea. Having obtained the keys to our rooms, I went up to my room, and it seemed there was no electricity, so when the porter brought my case, he tried all the lights, then he fetched someone else who brought some new bulbs, but eventually they put me in another room. Unfortunately, while the rooms themselves were pretty much the same, the first room had the most breathtaking view, as it was at the back of the hotel, with just open desert landscape to be seen. My other room was on the side, but this view was still nearly as good, and I could see the desert by standing out on the balcony, and the only sounds to be heard were the running water of the river, and crickets and frogs.

In the shower, the water was cold, until I tried the cold tap instead, and found they were plumbed back to front, but it was just such a relief to be able to have a hot shower, I could not have coped with a cold one! We had our dinner at the hotel, and to start with we had a soup which we were told was harira, but it was different to the one we had had before, it was more like potato soup. This was followed by tarte a l'oignon, (like an onion quiche), some brochettes, and a fruit salad with apples, oranges and bananas. After dinner I took a quick look outside at the night sky, to see if the Halebopp comet was still visible, but there was a cloud where it should have been. So I went straight up to bed for a much needed sleep.

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