We only had to drive 2.5 hours today, so we took our sweet time getting up, and eating breakfast while overlooking the Dades Gorge and the Tamlalt Valley. Pallavi surprised me by finding accommodation near the Tamlalt, which is a rock formation that looks like fingers emerging from the ground Little Mermaid style. We had a few options on what to do with our day, but we ultimately decided that we'd drive towards Dades Gorge, as it was just 10 kms or so away from our hotel.
After driving hairpin turn after hairpin turn up the mountain and through this little narrow crevice of a gorge, we took our obligatory pictures. Unlike the Todres Gorge, this gorge had zero tourists and just one lone Moroccan tradesman out selling his wares. This young man was happily sitting on the side of the road, weaving a hat, with all of his hats and boots laid out on display. We stopped to look at his wares and were amazed by how sweet he was. He was the first guy who didn't seem like he was just out to make money off of us. He happily told us about his hats, what they were made of, the various styles, and so on. We liked him so much we bought from him, and Pallavi then asked if he also made carpets. He said no, he didn't, but his mother did. He gave us her card and told us to drive 3 kms down the road, where we would find his mother.
We drove 3 kms. No store. We drove 2 more kms. No store. We asked some locals and showed them the card, and they pointed us back in the direction from whence we had come, and told us to drive 2 more kms.
We turned around and drove 2 more kms. No store. We asked some local, who again told us to turn around and drive 1 km.
We turned around and drove 1 more km. We asked some more locals, who told us to turn around, and pointed out a small home on the left hand side of the road just a few hundred meters away.
We turned around and pulled next to the house. We were greeted by a sweet woman, who didn't speak any English, who confirmed that the card did belong to her. We asked about carpets, and she confirmed yes, but invited us inside her home for some tea and to wait for her husband.
We had read that the carpet buying experience in Morocco is just that - an experience. You should expect to have lots of tea, to take a lot of time, and to negotiate a bit. You should also try to buy directly from the weaver to both better support them and to get a better price.
Expectations set, we entered the house. We were taken past their 2 goats, a pile of corn on the corner of the floor, and through an open-air space that contained a building with a kitchen on the left and were led to a cave lined with carpets on the floor on the right. We followed the woman's lead and took off of our shoes and sat on a carpet inside. The cave smelled like humanity. As we sat, we realized that this space was the family's main living space. Everything that they owned was piled up in the corners of this area.
We sat and the woman brought over a table and set it down. She then brought tea, pouring them into what clearly were here nicest glasses, and gave them to us. Her two small children, a boy and a girl (about 5 and 3, if I was guessing) sat down across from us. She then dumped a pile of shelled nuts on the floor and used a handmade nut cracker to crack all of them, which she then insisted we eat. She was giving us such amazing hospitality, even though they clearly didn't have a lot to give. We waited and Pallavi made conversation using hand gestures. Pallavi even went to the car and got some Indian candies we were carrying and gave them to the kids. Finally, the husband came home, and shook our hands, and sweetly shook his kids and his wife's hands. He spoke a bit of English, and from that we learned that it gets very cold in the mountains, even snowing up to 2 feet in the winter, but the cave, as he called it, was very warm. We also learned he has 9 children! 8 boys and the one girl who sat across from us.
They then invited us for lunch, which we kindly refused. The family was poor, but they seemed happy, sweet, and weren't wanting for food. Finally, we got to the carpet buying. We found a beautiful carpet that we loved, and bought it. After we left, we thought, they say carpet buying is an experience, and this certainly was an experience we'll never forget.
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