The Painted Rocks of Tafraoute

December 31^st, 2025

I awoke to a chilly, but gorgeous blue sky and sunny morning, the last one of 2025.

Good morning Octi.

One of the most popular tourist attractions in the area is to visit the Painted Rocks.  In 1984, the Belgian artist Jean Vérame painted a bunch of blocks of rocks, mainly blue, but there are some yellow, some pink and a few other colours.  Supposedly it was done in grieving for his wife, and he wanted to keep her memory alive.

My first sighting of some of the blue rocks in the distance.

The road to get there was quite bumpy...I was hoping it was going to be worth the abuse to Octi.

Getting closer...

I put Octi there not just for another Kodak moment of the van, but to give a perspective of the size of some of these painted boulders.

I also read that it took about 18 tons of paint.  Not sure about that, but some of the boulders are massive, and it’s not just one clump of rocks that are painted, there are numerous spots with the psychedelic looking rocks.

Another big clump about 100 meters away.

The Sound of Silence at the rocks...well almost, until a chipy bird interrupted.

It had a kind of "Flintstone" feeling.

I propped the phone on the ground with the timer.  Surprisingly I got the shot on the first go!

Hard to see, but the moon looks balanced on the mountain at the bottom of those wispy clouds.

Can you see it there?

Another Octi moment.

On my way back to Tafroute...I did a bit counterclockwise circle.

There were massive boulders everywhere.  It reminded me a bit of Hampi in India, but they were a bit redder in colour here.

This is supposed to look like Napoleon's hat...um, sure.  Might as well add it to the tourist must see list.

It sure is a pretty area.

I thought I would get some tagine, it’s a dish of veggies and some kind of meat (chicken or lamb) and spicy sauce and it’s cooked over many hours in earthenware pot.  Well, the restaurant was sold out of tagine, so the waiter offered me some other chicken dish (I didn’t catch the name), also in a clay pot of a different shape.  It was sitting in the ash embers of a fire on an open stove and was quite hot.  They packaged the pot up in a cardboard box for me to take back with me and I paid a 20 dirham ($3 CAD) deposit on the pot.  I was also given some flat bread for dipping.

It was still warm when I ate it about three hours later.  I didn’t even know exactly what to expect as I peeled off the aluminum foil that was covering it.  It just looked like a hacked up chicken in a clear sauce.

It wasn’t bad.   The chicken just fell off of the bone, but I found it a bit greasy and couldn’t quite finish it all.  It wasn’t the best New Year’s Eve dinner I’ve had…but you can’t win them all.  After dinner I just watched some shows on my laptop and did stay up just passed midnight, but I didn’t even notice the clock tick over into the new year.

Happy New Year!!!