At our customary morning stop for coffee and souvenirs I saw this very organized snack shop:

Then another couple of hours driving….

Until we reached our end stop: Aït Ben Haddou. This area is known as the Hollywood of Morocco as dozens of movies were made here, including Lawrence of Arabia, Indians Jones, Jewel of The Nile, The Mummy. There’s a large film studio, Atlas Films, and here in this town they’re rebuilding an arena for Gladiator 2.

After checking in to our hotel we went to a women’s cooperative weaving studio. Here the rug salesmen were a little hard-core but G Adventures patronizes them as all the money goes to the women (it maybe their husbands working there but there’s no middleman). 3 of our group bought so we were there a while as different rugs got flipped out…

We then crossed over the Salt River to the old town, an almost deserted casbah from the 15-16th C. Originally housing several hundred people, there’s just 3-4 families left. They’ve all deserted the old buildings for modern ones on the west bank of the river.

And finally our last activity was making our own chicken tagine for dinner. 10 of us took the class, prepared as demonstrated to us with a little individuality as to the spicing, and one hour later, voilâ! Moroccan Tagine!