Location Scouting - Ait Ben Haddou, Morocco

…There’s a policeman nearby who does not look happy. Before he can order us out of there, I launch into my ‘location scouting’ routine. I’ve used this gimmick a few times, and it often works.
“Hi! We’re looking for locations for a film! Is it OK if we leave the car here for a few minutes while we look around?..”

We bounce off the hardtop onto a dusty side road toward Ait Ben Haddou, Morocco. The villages on the banks of the dry river bed are quiet, and shimmering in the scorching midday sun. Ait Ben Haddou towers over the plain, a fantastic jumble of mud brick minarets.

(Top: Ait Ben Haddou, some-time haunt of Russell Crowe.)

Bill picked me up from the side of the road between Marrakesh and the Atlas Mountains. He’s a placid, intelligent man in his sixties with a smiling Californian face. We’ve become friends in a few hours, talking about travel, our sons, and the curiosities of Moroccan life.

We come across a small market in the centre of the village and select some stingingly fresh vegetables and fruit. I launch into what I think is a capsicum, and
spit a big mouthful of red hot chilli out the window of Bill’s rental.

Bill bounces the hatchback across a dry river bed, and parks as close to the gates of the Kasbah as he can.
“Hollywood park!” He grins.
There’s a policeman nearby who does not look happy. We have come round from the village, on a goat track that tourists are clearly not supposed to know about.
Before he can order us out of there, I launch into my “location scouting” routine. I’ve used this gimmick a few times, and it often works.
“Hi! We’re looking for locations for a film! Is it OK if we leave the car here for a few minutes while we look around? Morocco is so beautiful! We really want to shoot some scenes around here for the film!”
I include Bill in the story, casting him in the role of the director. With his Californian smile, white pants and cowboy hat, swinging his video camera left and right, he really looks the part.
It goes over a treat. We don’t get the bum’s rush. The cop shows us a place we can park in the shade right at the entrance to the Kasbah, and assures us he will look after our car personally while we look around.
A group of sweaty, bothered looking tourists trudge past, and scowls at us. I can see them wondering who these over privileged bastards are, dodging the hike from the parking lot while everyone else has to tramp up the hill past the touts.

Ait Ben Haddou is beautiful in an earthy way that no medieval architecture in Europe is. It’s an eleventh century pile of mud bricks and unmilled wood. The architecture is classically formed, but the materials are crude. Walls are crumbling here and there, exposing the gnarled tree limbs that form the framework. Mud, stones, straw, gravel, all are mixed together to make a sort of primitive concrete that surrounds and reenforces the wooden frame.

Where else but Morocco can you walk through an ancient monument like Ait Ben Haddou and see donkeys in laneways. It’s a living town, with several families still inhabiting the better preserved sections of the citadel.

There’s a top storey room that is called the “honeymoon suite”. It was the tradition for newly married people to spend their wedding night there. It is very small, and drafty, which would have encouraged intimacy I guess.

Our self appointed guide tells us enthusiastically that Russel Crowe stayed at Ait Ben Haddou during the filming of “Gladiator”. The guy looks wide eyed about this. Russell must have made a big impression. I wonder if this poor guy copped Russ’s cell phone between the eyes.

Bill enthusiastically documents everything with his handy cam, complete with a personal commentary. He makes me feel lazy as I shuffle around, sweating and taking occasional pictures.

Bill is very taken with my shemagh scarf. He sees a stall selling souvenirs, and they have scarves. The salesman starts the bidding at 1000 Dirham, more than US$150. I laugh, but Bill perseveres earnestly. He firmly sticks to his price: 100 Dirham. The salesman capitulates eventually, but with bad grace. Bill refuses to close the deal and buy the scarf until the salesman has shaken his hand.
“I have been in business for 40 years”, bill tells me as we stroll back to the car. “No deal is any good unless both parties are happy. I probably still payed too much, but I can afford it, and he’s made a good sale, so…”

We shake the cop’s hand, thank him for guarding the car, climb into the hatchback and bounce back up the river bed. The stony, arid plain stretches empty to the horizon.
Bill drives as if he is behind the wheel of his Jeep Cherokee.
“Does this thing have a spare tire?”, I stutter, my teeth clacking together as the car shudders over the rocks.
“You know, I’m not sure”, Bill says seriously, “but I got the comprehensive insurance package.”