Visit to small village

Up early, we drove through the Atlas mountains along the ancient caravan routes. We watched and photographed the scenery as it changed from a lush green to a much more desert appearance, dotted with low shrub brush and huge rocks.
We visited a fascinating Berber (Moroccan tribe) town that was built on the ancient remains of a Kasbah, a community style hostile where traveling caravans of traders would stop for food and sustenance along their trade routes in the desert. Our guide, and by now very good friend, Hakim, had gathered instruments from a local music shop so that we could work with the school children in the village. As you can see from these pictures, the town was built in and among the ruins of the old Kasbah, it reminded us the Native American Pueblo dwellings. The villagers continued to design and build their homes according to the same their ancient traditions, using a mixture of sand, hay, clay and rocks. There have been heavy rains here lately that have washed out the roads in many places, so Hakim had to drive through the open desert to find a new route to the village.