Our first stop en route is about and hour out of town at a roadside fruit seller. We bought three big trays of fruit (apples, peaches, plums) for the group for 150 Dihram - that's about €15 or $20NZD!!
As we continue to drive the landscape changes continuously. We travel through stands of gum, oak and cedar trees, then on through undulating (pretty rough) farmland. There's mile after mile of rocky land that looks impossible to be farmed.
Working donkeys are everywhere carting people, farm implements or goods. Street sellers pop up in the middle of nowhere and I can't help but wonder if they would actually sell anything???
The houses are quite different too. There are a lot of tiled roofed houses, which is necessary to cope with the snow in winter.
As we continue to climb through the mountains the landscape continues to change and we stop at a small town called Ifrane. Originally settled by the French/Swiss, the town has a distinct Swiss look and feel to it. The change is so dramatic, you wouldn't think you were in Morocco!
Homes with steep gabled roof lines, balconies and window boxes and streets with wide pedestrian only areas and lovely green grass are central to the town. We only stopped for 30 minutes, just enough time for Nous Nous (closest thing to a flat white coffee - very nice). It's a nice change in pace and scenery from the busyness of the towns we have been in so far.
Apparently at some stage Ifrane was recorded as the 7th cleanest town in the world. Whilst it is still clean, there's still some rubbish on the streets and the houses are starting to look a bit old. I'm sure that Ifrane would have dropped down the 'cleanest city' rankings quite significantly.
We drive past a huge home built by a wealthy business. With two gigantic jugs in the entranceway it looks almost Disney in design, and has now been turned into a hotel. As a gesture to the local community, the same businessman also built a Mosque. It is said in the Quran that if you build a mosque, then Allah will build a house for you when you die. Maybe he had been a bit naughty and needed some insurance?
We continue our journey and soon enter a large national park of Cedar trees. This is a popular stop as the forest is home to the Barbary monkeys - the same as those found in Gibraltar. We stopped at one of the designated areas and found a dozen or so monkeys, including a couple of very cute little babies. Whilst not tame, they are pretty comfortable around humans and will take food from your hands. The monkeys are fun to watch as some run around or race up and down trees, carrying the babies in their backs.
As we drove on, the landscape changed to very dry and stoney. We were entering nomad country and started to see nomad tents set back from the road. We stopped on the side of the road near one of the tents and Samir went and asked if we could visit, which they said yes too.
What a lovely family. Grandma was in the big tent holding her baby granddaughter, while her son was out working, gathering food or digging for medicines. We had just stopped down the road where a group of men bent over, where digging the soil for medicine to treat rheumatism - it's the root of a particular plant they're after. Maybe the nomad father was amongst them?
There are two other grandchildren, but they're older. Grandad is leaning back on a stack of carpets with one of the grandchildren cuddled up against him.
The mother had just made some bread which the family share with us as well as a plate of goats butter - both the bread and butter are absolutely delicious. The butter was incredibly creamy and the bread still hot and light from just being cooked.
They family are extremely friendly and welcoming and are happy for us to snap away with our cameras. Of course everyone went nuts!!
The tent is made of woven woollen sections, which are stitched together when they set up camp. It would be impossible to carry as one covering, as it would be ridiculously heavy. It's supported in the middle by a wooden beam; a straightish branch from a tree. The beam is held in place by two branches wedged into the ground and slotted into holes carved into the beam.
Inside the tent it's divided into two - one side for cooking, the other for living, including sleeping. The cooking side has a dirt floor and an open cooking area. A roughly shaped shelf holds quite a large selection of cooking pots and pans, plates and cups.
On the living side, beautiful carpets are spread out, two or three deep. It's really comfortable sitting on the carpets, which is also shared by a couple of kids (baby goats that is). The kids are very cute and pretty friendly. They're tied up to stop them running off, but the still manage to climb on to me and have a good sniff around.
One of the family dogs, a pretty mangey looking thing with three legs, sneaks inside under the edge of the tent next to me and curls up to escape the scorching heat outside. When the mother noticed the dog she came over and gave the dog a belt on the hip of its missing leg, and the dog took off yelping. Obviously goats are ok, but dogs aren't!
This family moved here around June and will stay until September at which time they'll move on. When it's time to move they have to unstitch the different woollen sections and pack it all up separately for easier transport.
As this area gets a lot of snow, they head for the Sahara in the winter. That's about a three day walk, during which they'll sleep under the stars. Putting up the tent each night would be way too time consuming.
We say our goodbyes and continue on towards Midelt. We pass loads of nomadic tents and other more permanent structures. It's funny, the most run-down shack will still have a satellite dish on it!!!
As we get closer to Midelt, the colour of the soil changes from brown to red, which is mined for making bricks. Clearly a popular business as there are five factories producing bricks in this area.
We stopped for a most interesting and delicious BBQ lunch in a small town near Midelt. At the front of the restaurant, open to the elements was the butcher with about a dozen hanging meats. Alongside that he had the mincer in full flight creating delicious little patties, at the same time slicing up small lamb chops, also delicious.
On the walkway in front of the restaurant is the open air BBQ. Transporting the meat is a simple two or three steps from the butcher to the BBQ. As the meat and vegetables, for our vegetarian travelling companion is cooking, the smoke flows through the open air restaurant. The smell is fantastic and I was salivating at the prospect of some freshly cooked meat.
On the table there were small dishes of cumin and salt which we use for additional flavouring. As the meat is served, we also get served vegetable tangine. The best way to eat is to create pockets in the freshly cooked bread (round and flat), add the meat and vegetables and season to your personal tastes - delicious!! This was the followed up with equally delicious fresh plums and peaches.
Feeling full, it's back on the mini bus and off to Midelt.
Our stop for the night is a hotel Auberge Jaafar, about 6kms west of Midelt set in the middle of a huge orchard. Apparently it's a converted farm house - it's massive, so much have been amazing as a farm house! It's the most unusual place, a bit of a rabbit warren, with little hallways leading to open spaces with rooms all around. Then there is another short hallway leading to other similar areas. And the same again. There are stairs leading to the rooftop which gives great views all around the orchard and surrounding area. Just like the ground floor, the rooftop is a maze of different sections with little rooms perched in each corner.
After getting our rooms sorted, we headed off for a two hour walk around the area. We walk out of the orchard area and up onto a desert-like landscape. It's very barren with the odd clump of green sticking up amongst the stoney surface. After about 15 minutes we came to a point looking into a huge canyon and the Flilou river, that flows through it. It is absolutely stunning and came up so quickly as we were walking.
We followed the ridge above the canyon for about 30 minutes until we came across as 500+ year old Berber village. Berbers are the native Moroccans and are the most populous people in this region. The village is home to around 10 family's, with all the mud and clay-built houses joined together.
The children all came running out to greet us, with Bon Jour's and high fives all round! They're very excited to see us. They are such happy little kids and all they want to do is to interact with us. We are definitely novel and unusual looking to them.
A couple of kids are very interested in my tattoo. One young boy wanted to see it up close, but didn't want to touch, while the young girl he was with ran off because she was scared of it. Another young girl wanted to see if it would scratch off, so started running her fingernail across it! Loads of fun.
These people clearly don't have much in the way of worldly goods. It's very humbling and certainly makes us appreciate what we have.
We continue on our walk and meander back through the orchard back to the hotel by 8:00pm. Then it's time for a couple of drinks before dinner.
Dinner was great. The food here is absolutely wonderful, with generous amounts of spice being added to the food - unlike the restaurants we have had dinner at so far. Our group is getting a lot tighter now and the conversations flows more freely. We're very lucky as we've got a good bunch in our group.
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