I didn’t realize (because I was, let’s be honest, underprepared for this trip in so many ways) that Morocco is a great place for fossils. Hmad took us to a workshop where people quarry huge slabs of rock out of the hillsides, and they are full of ancient sea creatures.
They slice these slabs and then polish and shape them into sinks, counter tops, dishes, wine racks, all kinds of things. Years ago, I was directing a photo shoot in a very expensive house, and they had fossil countertops in the kitchen. It never occurred to me that they were real fossils. But they were, and they very likely came from this exact place, Fossiles d’Erfoud, or somewhere similar.
Petra was agog at all the fossils, and the whole process. The skill with which the men identified the best way to use each slab and then executed their vision was truly extraordinary. It was like they could hear the fossils, or sense the flow of the ancient currents that aligned them in the stone.
We walked through their showroom, in awe of the scope and scale. Petra insisted on buying some shiny rocks, of course, and I bought a soap dish for our bathroom and some gifts for my nieces and nephews.
They also had a small museum of fossils they had found and, for whatever reason, decided to keep instead of turning into goblets or dinner plates.
Hmad was happy to learn that Petra was into fossils. When he was a teenager, he used to dig fossils with his father to make some money. Later in our trip, when we were close to where he grew up, he took us to a hillside where fossils were just…out there for the taking.
Petra’s pockets filled very quickly with crinoids and ammonites.
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