Update

Ok, it is now 9 pm on Monday and I think I can settle down enough to update. The last weeks have played havoc with my sense of timing. My Berber family here (Houssaine) has had several emergencies. Not the least of which was when his nephew was mountain climbing and fell and broke his leg and came to Oz to have it set. Then, same nephew, had "a hole in his stomach", which I suspect was a perforated ulcer. He came to Oz on Wednesday last week for surgery. On Thursday, Houssaine picked his sister up at the bus station to go to her son. On Friday about 6 pm I got a hand delivered message from Houssaine that we were leaving at 6:30 pm for Todra (with sister and nephew) in a taxi. Quick pack and off we went.

We arrived at night about three hours later and the taxi dropped the sister and nephew off at their home and we continued on down the road to Houssaine's wife's brother's home. I had met him (Driss) before in Oz. I was left there and Houssaine went back to his sister's until morning.

Well, let me tell you that Driss lives right in Todra Gorge, one of the most famous tourist spots in Morocco. He has a business there. He does horse riding tours in the gorge and mountains. Housssaine, Driss, and his wife Malikia showed me to my room. WOW it was an ensuite built of concrete and into the rock. How spectacular. I have some photos, but they are terrible.

In the morning, Houssaine returned from his sister's and we set out to walk in the gorge (photos attached). It is really beautiful. While we were walking we came upon a group of donkeys drinking from the stream and the nomad women from the mountains were washing their clothes. It is difficult to get photos of them, but I tried and that is what you will see. There is also a photo of Mustapha and the horse he rode down. Mustapha is the caretaker of the horses, but in his off time goes to this tourist walking area of the gorge to sell "jewellery" to the tourists. BTW it is in this area that Houssaine and his wife are from. They lived about a three hour hike up in the mountains. Houssaine was more than willing to take me there, but my body was not. It would have been wonderful, but something I must accept I cannot do.