Yesterday afternoon we stopped on our way to the hotel at a gorge. We stood in the center, the tall rock walls surrounding us reaching to touch the azure sky. A river ran through the center, cold clear water through which we could see the pebbles that carpeted the bottom. Absolutely idyllic, a place that reminded one just to stop if for only a mere second to breathe.
This morning we visited a melach. The last Jew left 16 years ago. The melach was within a mud fortress, which historically was near the pasha's palace, so that the Jews could benefit from his protection. They sold here salt ( hence the name), silver and with their ingenuity invented a foot pedaled machine to weave with. We visited a store which still used the same process to create colorful blankets and tapestries. The store was in what had once been a Shul. Rafi described how the place had once looked like, a pointed out to us where the biymah and the Aaron hakodesh had been. Sad I think, that a place which had once been a house of worship had been converted into a store selling merchandise to tourists. Everything had been renovated. Not even a symbol remained to show what this place had once been.
For lunch we stopped by an abandoned Berber castilla- or fortress. Before being given a meal of bread and shukshukah we got the opportunity to explore. We crossed a muddy stream, balancing on sandbags, and climbed up the old fortress that sat on it's banks. From above the fertile land rested, spread out below, creating a contrast; the bright greenery, the dusty orange and the deep blue. On the horizon were the atlas mountains, their caps covered in snow. We stood in the glaring sunlight in short sleeves and looked at the snowy mountains that loomed above us
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