April 1, 2025

Hôtel Kasbah Tizimi, Erfoud, Morocco

Good morning. Yesterday was a long travel. We slept fairly well. The bed is very firm. But the room is cool. This morning we are off to Rissani.

Rissani is a town in Errachidia Province in eastern Morocco. It is the closest town of significant size to the Erg Chebbi, the largest sand desert in Morocco. It is the home of the mausoleum of Moulay Ali Cherif, The third great-grandfather of Moulay Cherif, founder of the Alaouite Dynasty here in Morocco.

We will learn more about the Berbers today. Berbers, or the Berber peoples, also known as Amazigh or Imazighen, are a diverse grouping of distinct ethnic groups indigenous to North Africa who predate the arrival of Arabs in the Maghreb. Their main connections are identified by their usage of Berber languages, most of them mutually unintelligible, which are part of the Afroasiatic language family.

They are indigenous to the Maghreb region of North Africa, where they live in scattered communities across parts of Morocco, Algeria, Libya, and to a lesser extent Tunisia, Mauritania, northern Mali and northern Niger. Smaller Berber communities are also found in Burkina Faso and Egypt's Siwa Oasis.

Descended from Stone Age tribes of North Africa, accounts of the Imazighen were first mentioned in Ancient Egyptian writings. From about 2000 BCE, Berber languages spread westward from the Nile Valley across the northern Sahara into the Maghreb. A series of Berber peoples such as the Mauri, Masaesyli, Massyli, Musulamii, Gaetuli, and Garamantes gave rise to Berber kingdoms, such as Numidia and Mauretania. Other kingdoms appeared in late antiquity, such as Altava, Aurès, Ouarsenis, and Honda.

Berber kingdoms were eventually suppressed by the Arab conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries CE. This started a process of cultural and linguistic assimilation known as Arabization, which influenced the Berber population. Arabization involved the spread of Arabic language and Arab culture among the Berbers, leading to the adoption of Arabic as the primary language and conversion to Islam. Notably, the Arab migrations to the Maghreb from the 7th century to the 17th century accelerated this process. 

Berber tribes remained powerful political forces and founded new ruling dynasties in the 10th and 11th centuries, such as the Zirids, Hammadids, various Zenata principalities in the western Maghreb, and several Taifa kingdoms in al-Andalus, and empires of the Almoravids and Almohads. Their Berber successors – the Marinids, the Zayyanids, and the Hafsids – continued to rule until the 16th century. From the 16th century onward, the process continued in the absence of Berber dynasties; in Morocco, they were replaced by Arabs claiming descent from the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

Today the Berber people are trying to reestablish their cultural heritage and identity. Yesterday Aziz pointed out that the black scarf the many women wear is either fully black or black with colorful a design. The fully black ones are for people who identify with Arabs, the ones with the design are for women who identity as Berbers. The designs differ depending on which Berber tribe your family belongs to.

Our guide today is known as the man in blue. He is wearing a Tuareg kaftan, except they wanted us to call it a BooBoo. The true point is that is a wonder share of blue. There is no exact official Tuareg blue. Some are light and some are very dark blue. However, they are all blue.

The questions will be why bring this up. Well, these people are still very much in love with their past and to which tribe they belong or belonged to. It may have been several generations since they were “pure” anything, but the still cling to a single notion of their tribe. Much like Italians cling to their city. Or anther really good example are the contrade of Siena.

The Tuareg people are a large Berber ethnic group. They were traditionally nomadic pastoralists inhabiting the Sahara in Libya, Algeria, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Morocco and Nigeria. They have their own language known as Tamasheq, which belongs to the Berber branch of the Afroasiatic family of languages.  

The Tuareg people are credited with spreading Islam in North Africa and the adjacent Sahel region. The Tuareg social structure has traditionally included clan membership, social status and caste hierarchies within each group. They have controlled several trans-Saharan trade routes and been an important party to the conflicts in the Saharan region during colonial and post-colonial times.

Just after 09:00 we were at the mausoleum of Moulay Ali Cherif. It is more of a beautiful mosque and garden than a mausoleum. We were allowed to walk through the garden area but not enter the mosque, except to stick our heads in a take a photo.

A half-hour later we were at demonstration on how guests were greeted with the traditional mint tea of Morocco. There was a very nice tea ceremony followed by a display of rugs; yes, another place to purchase something. For Moroccans, mint tea is as important as earl grey is for the British and green tea is for the Chinese. They will serve it at any time of the day with sweet and savory foods; it’s always tea o’clock in Morocco.

The ingredients are simple - fresh mint, sugar, water and gunpowder tea. Gunpowder tea is a type of green Chinese tea in which each leaf has been rolled into a small round pellet. When the round pellets are hydrated, they become surprisingly large.

The process is also simple. You need a teapot and hot water. In a clean teapot pour the gunpowder tea in. Then take some hot water and rinse the tea. That in add the hot water to the teapot, let is sit for just a minute, swirl the water around a couple times, then pour the water out and discard it. This “washes” the tea and loosens the pellets making them ready to make the tea.

Now add sugar and hot water to the teapot. Put the tea pot back on the fire until it comes to a boil. It will be “frothy” at the top. Once it has come to a boil and looks frothy remove it from the heat. Open the teapot and stir with a large spoon to make sure the sugar is well dissolved. Once you are sure the sugar is dissolved, add the fresh (washed) mint leaves.

Let it sit for a couple minutes. Pour a cup and look at the color. It should be a light smoky color – similar to whiskey. Then pour the tea from the cup back into the pot. Repeat two more times. You are now ready to serve the tea. The level of sweetness is controlled by the hostess or host, unless you are an honored visitor then you will be asked to make the tea. It has to do with people being poisoned with tea historically. Which is why it is always made in front of your guest; never in the kitchen.

When pouring a cup of tea you can use a small strainer to strain out the tea leaves. You can also place a piece of fresh mint in each teacup/glass to obtain a stronger mint aroma and to decorate your teacups/glass. The use of glass is intentional because here they serve the tea in small clear drinking glasses.

After escaping the rug sellers, we boarded the motor coach and headed to the central market. Now this will be the XX number of central markets we have been too. The actual number is really unknown, so XX because it is a least a double-digit number. The Romans probably started all of this. Every city in Italy, and every city we have been too which has occupied by the Romans has one.

The spice merchant we visited

They are basically the same. An area set aside for merchants to display their goods. Usually narrow walkways between the stalls. Some will have or display prices, others won’t. The Grand Bazaar in Istanbul may be one of the largest and most organized. They are usually divided into product categories; meat here, vegetables there, household products somewhere else.  Generally, you can find anything! Some places people are actually making things right there – they were here.

They are fun to visit and fun to walk through, but you have to like being close to people. The noise can be aloud. The smells vary depending on where you are in the market. The meat park can smell pretty bad, the spice section can smell sweet. In the Middle East, and Italy, and probably elsewhere the prices are “flexible”. We like to know how much something is before even looking at it. If the price is one, we are willing to pay, then ok we buy it. If not, then walk away. We don’t like arguing over the price.

We did buy a rug, not here. We did negotiate a price. Was it the best price? Did someone play less? Unfortunately, at least one of us isn’t sure we didn’t get taken. We’ll never know. What we paid was probably worth what we paid.

After the market we headed back to the hotel for lunch. Lunch was at 13:00. Just a simple chicken in pita bread with fries. It was covered in onions, but they came off quickly. We asked for ketchup for the fries. Eventually we got some but it seemed really watered down. After lunch we headed back to our room to rest. Tonight, we have the sunset drive in the Sahara, and we leave at 16:00.

We first drove to the home of a Berber family that Aziz knows. It was interesting to see their tent, and the mud home they built. It is a simple life. The government has given them a solar panel to run a pump for water. They have a small garden next to their tent for growing vegetables. They had a pen with goats in the back.

Yes they have a satellite dish, no they don’t have a tv.

After that we took off across the plain for the edge of the Sahara. Then we went to the base of Erg Chebbi’s highest sand dunes. The dunes are nearly 140 meters (450 ft) high. We mounted camels and rode up the dunes to watch the sunset. It was really quite amazing.

Afterwards we sat at a café at the base of the dunes and listed to native drummers. Aziz gave us wine and peanuts as an aperitif before heading back to the hotel for dinner. We didn’t get back to the hotel until after it has gone 20:00. We tried to eat some dinner but weren’t really hungry. So we left and called it a night.

Buonanotte e ciao, Enrico e Maria