82 days in

desert bitches

Today we’re leaving our friends and their beautiful Kasbah after spending two nights in the lap of luxury - free of charge - while I photographed the place for them.

It’s been enjoyable to just laze around the pool, drink beer and wine (which I haven’t really done since Spain) eat delicious food and be generally pampered.

At times I’ve felt like a freeloader and’ve had to remind myself I’ve spent hours photographing and retouching images for Sylvie and Nasser, so it definitely hasn’t all been free. Sian hasn’t had to do much though.

Yesterday Nasser showed us around his home village, a tiny place called Tamnougalt: picturesque with a well preserved Kasbah (owned by Nasser’s family) and a crumbling Jewish Kasbah. Not much else though.

Anyway, today we’re off to Zagora; a small town in the desert. It’s mostly a place where people go for camel treks into the Sahara, and not much else I gather, so we’ll probably only spend a day or two there before heading off to M’hamid and the end of the road. Then to Agadir and onto the Western Sahara.

79 days in

Agdz

We’ve spent the last few days in a tiny village called Adgz. It’s pretty much off the tourist trail; the occasional bus load stops for a break and a few tired drivers stay the night in one of the cheap hotels. But apart from that there’s just a few Kasbahs near the town catering for rich (mostly French) tourists wanting to get away from everyone.

Today while on our way to visit Ksar Agdz (an abandoned village near Agdz) we met the owner of one of these hotel Kasbahs. He noticed me photographing a crumbling Jewish Kasbah nearby and approached me asking if I was a photographer. When I said I was, he mentioned his need for images to go with an expose that Home Magazine is doing on their hotel. He then asked if I would shoot his hotel in exchange for a free night’s accommodation and complimentary dinner, to which I agreed.

Nasser turned out to be a great guy. He and his French wife built their hotel three years ago, and it’s a stunning place with beautiful gardens and a pool. He’s also a great source of local knowledge, and has offered to take us to the place he grew up, a beautifully kept Kasbah in a nearby village, incidentally used in the movie Babel.

So tomorrow morning we head 30 minutes walk out of town to photograph Hotel Kasbah Azul. Never thought I’d be picking up commercial jobs on this trip.