MA9: Icht

Icht is another small little village in the south of Morocco. It is known for its ancient town that is partly underground as well as stone carvings that are supposedly dating back quite a bit.

We decided to stay at an official campsite this time as we intended to do some chores such as laundry.

Google Maps navigated us in the completely wrong direction and we initially ended up on someone’s private land. Taking navigation into our own hands we found the entry to the campsite after 5 minutes.

When we arrived there was a Swiss couple checking in and Kathrin started chatting with them. They told us there would be a guided tour through the ancient town in about 2 hours’ time and that slots were still available.

Perfect timing, we quickly loaded the washing machine and just after we finished hanging it to dry the tour guide showed up.
It was a small but mixed group, some French, some Swiss and us Germans. We were the only ones who didn’t speak French, but that wasn’t a problem for the guide at all. He would record his explanations in French and let a translation app translate it to German. This worked surprisingly well and we thought it was super nice of him.

He guided us through the city which he obviously knew perfectly well and had a ton of very interesting information and historical facts to share. It turns out that his family owns one of the houses in the village and that his grand father was the last one to live there.

We learned that his grandfather had two wives – you can have up to four – and that is why the house had to have at least 3 levels: One community level, one for wife #1 and one for wife #2.

This triggered some French people and they started to discuss and explain that that is not ok. We cannot understand why people think it is ok to start such discussions or think they know better or their way of life is the right one. You may think what you want, but please refrain from trying to convince a tour guide his ways or his culture’s ways are wrong!

Feeling a little awkward about this the tour continued and he explained that the little holes in the wall are pigeon traps. If you’re into pigeons it’s a perfect system, your groceries practically fly into your “fridge”. For us vegetarians the thought was rather “interesting” 😉

Another very interesting fact was that the irrigation system, which is hundreds, if not thousands, of years old carries water all the way from the Atlas mountains. The system runs partly underground which is a very impressive engineering feat! The water was perfectly clear and fish even live in it.

The entire tour took about 2h and time flew by fast. Usually the tour guide invites the group to his home for tea and conversation, but due to Ramadan we did not get to enjoy that part of the tour. We would have really enjoyed talking more about the ways of life in Morocco and his families history. It was fantastic that he gave so many insights especially into his families past.

Returning to our campsite the laundry was dry (30°C working its magical powers!) and we spent some more time with the Swiss couple before enjoying a calm evening.

The next day we left quite early as we had yet another highlight right in front of us: The R107 aka the most amazing drive in Morocco. But before embarking on that journey, we stopped at the stone carvings. We only found 2 rocks with carvings on them and they weren’t super impressive. Maybe we expected too much from documentaries about cave carvings?