Only stones, sand and sun

05.02.23 Quarzazate - Taliouine Only 175 kilometers separate Quarzazate and Taliouine, and yet it is a whole world that separates the two cities from each other. On the mostly well-developed route, we were able to drive at times up to 100 kilometers per hour because there was no traffic. Ricci was generous and allowed us to take a one-hour lunch break for the first time!

The path soon led us into a completely different landscape. Suddenly, from one kilometer to the next, there was nothing but a desert of stones, a few small bushes and meager grass, all framed by hills and mountains with steep cliffs. Everything seemed to be immersed in a dark, often almost black reddish-brown, interrupted only occasionally by a light beige. I don't know why, but this color tone also has an enormously calming effect on me. No music, just gliding along in this homogeneous brown, stony and sandy world, where nothing moves, everything is as it has always been.

Perhaps that's the reason for its calming effect on me. There is no planning, building, improving here. No wanting or needing. There is only sun, stone and sand. And occasionally, a couple of gaunt figures tirelessly hacking away at this desert of stones with their hoes, hoping to eventually coax a little green out of the ground.

Just before Taliouine, green returns. Greenhouses emerge from the sand. No wonder, we are now in the province of saffron. Gerd will be pleased. He wants to stock up for future expeditions into the realm of pleasure and taste. The 74-year-old simply has a knack for cooking. He and his wife Ute caught my attention on the first day because they treated each other so lovingly. Holding hands here, an embrace there, a kiss or just a loving glance - it's as if the two are newly in love. And yet they have been married for 51 years. They have been a couple for even longer. "I was 15 and Gerd was 17 when we first met," Ute says, almost shyly. "He was my first big love, and my big love, he has remained that way until today."

It's surely no different for Gerd. The trained foundry technician was the head of a large foundry near Schwäbisch Gmünd for many years. They both love to travel. "In 1967, we went camping in Italy for the first time," Ute recalls. Gerd's brother Volker, who was twelve years old at the time, was also with them. Perhaps because their mother died very early on, the two Swabians are still inseparable today. Gerd with Ute and Volker with his wife Renate always bring up the rear in our caravan, their mobile homes practically always parked next to each other, and they often spend the evenings together - with good food and a glass of wine.

"We are simply family people," says Ute, for whom it was a matter of course that as a trained seamstress, she soon became only a housewife, a mother of two and now a grandmother of four. Until 2013, she lovingly cared for her parents and Gerd's father until his passing. On the one hand, it was a heavy blow, but on the other hand, a great burden was lifted. She was suddenly hit by the travel bug again, and Gerd bought a motorhome, by the way, the same one as Volker's, and at the same time.

Since 2019, they have been traveling with the Reisemobilfreunden Europa, participating in many shorter trips and also on longer ones such as Sardinia or now Morocco. Traveling alone would be unimaginable for Ute. "We do everything together," she says, scanning the area for her Gerd, who is standing behind the frying pan. The feelings they have for each other are almost tangible. Love goes through the stomach, says an old saying. That may already be one reason why Ute loves her Gerd so much, but I'm sure it's not the only one. In Gerd and Ute, love is at home in their hearts.