Travel Update from Morocco
Hello my Steemit friends, after some days without WiFi, I would like to give you a quick update on my travels.
From Merzouga, where I got lost on the Sahara (see my last post), I made my way to the city of Tinghir. This is where I met a German guy who is couchsurfing everywhere he goes in Morocco.
I have had some amazing experiences with couchsurfing in the past, but have not been doing it a lot recently since I couldn't find a host the last times I tried and dislike the payment system that the company behind couchsurfing has installed to make money out of the hospitality that people provide for free to each other. Also, since I never get a local sim card when traveling because I enjoy being offline apart from a little WiFi time, communication with hosts is quite difficult.
However, I ended up traveling together with this amazing German guy I met and he found some awesome couchsurfing hosts for us, so we explored Todra Gorge together with a local guy and stayed with an amazing host in Dades Valley after that. Above, you can see a photo of abandoned mud brick houses near Tinghir (second photo). The nature in both of these places was just as impressive as the kindness and hospitality of our hosts. The last two days we stayed with another amazing host in the city Ouarzazate. Our host has a Kung Fu school and we joined a training session yesterday! It was so much fun. Yesterday, we also did a trip to the UNESCO world heritage mud brick city Aït-Benhaddou which you can see in this smartphone snapshot I took (first photo). My other photos are still sitting on my camera, but you will see them in my future posts about this beautiful part of Morocco!
This morning, we split ways and I made my way to the city Taroudant, where I'm now spending the first rainy afternoon of my trip in a coffee shop with slow WiFi. Receiving so many nice comments on my recent post has made me very happy and I feel bad for not having replied yet; you can all be assured that I really appreciate your nice comments and will answer every single one of them soon!
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Cool to see your updates, and look forward to your stunning photos later when you have some decent wifi. =) I did a lot of couchsurfing and hosting before, but not recently. So they made some changes there?
I should start editing my photos to post them later today :D It has been raining here all day so I don't have much else to do anyway..
Couchsurfing has had the "verified membership" for a couple of years now I think, but now you can only send out a limited number of requests if you don't pay a monthly fee to be verified..
Too bad... Perhaps there's some new site based on blockchain like Steemsurfing? ;)
I love the update! Your trip sounds incredible!
Thank you, I'm really enjoying this trip!
Wow, the views you've taken a shot of are stunning.
They were! This are just my smartphone snapshots, I've got some better photos that are still sitting on my camera. Will post them soon :)
And I thought Couchsurfing was one of the last platforms staying true to themselves. Sad to hear they implement changes. BUT anyways, so happy you made some great connections anyways. That abandoned village looks amazing!!! I wonder what the drone laws are there.
They did what most platforms do once they have grown an established user base - trying to make a lot of money out of their users.. They are doing it in a particulary sneaky way by asking to verify your identity by providing your credit card details and only mention in the fine print that you are signing up for a monthly subscription.. Without the subscription you can only send out 10 requests, which is mostly enough, but not if many hosts don't reply.
The abandoned kasbahs in Morocco are really amazing! And I'm pretty sure there are no drone restrictions here :D
These places looks really worth a visit too. Do you know why the mud houses were abandoned?
Looking forward to more travel diaries.😊
I don't know about the ones on the photo (Todra Gorge), but the couchsurfing host I stayed with in Dades Valley said that his grandfather used to live in the mud houses that were built close to the river and the fields, but sometimes they would flood. When a road was built and later running water was installed, everyone moved to new houses further from the water.
The houses in Aid Ben Haddou are actually still inhabited, despite the lack of modern comforts!
Thanks for the extra information @jpphotography. It looks like a really interesting place to visit. I enjoyed your post very much! 😊
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