Road to Fez

(Click on to enlarge, back arrow in top left to return)

Leaving Chefchaouen for Fez we thought we'd try some small roads on the map. The one we tried led us into beautiful countryside where there was a mule for every man, woman and child! The people we passed were friendly, smiling and waving. Except one teenage girl. We slowed down. I had the idea to offer her a lift (we'd picked up a few people during our car journey). She stopped dead in her tracks and quickly turned back the way she'd come. She looked frightened. I felt stupid. Of course, a girl or woman could never get in a car with a stranger.

We saw several fields that were separated by cactus hedges - many with agave. But no tequila!

The country road led back to the 'main' road about 20 km from Fez. Then just before a right curve in the road we were directed off the road onto another country road. Lots of Arabic explanation! We went through stunning hilly farmland. Olive trees planted on steep slopes. Grazing livestock. And mules.

When we returned to the main road we were about 25 km from Fez! The reason for the detour became apparent. The road continued through steep farmland and we passed three or four spots where the road was crumbling away downhill. No markers or warning at all. We came around a curve and the two lanes became one and the downhill lane was a sloping hole! It would have been deadly after dark.

Fez is very impressive on first sight. It is built in a hilly area and the two towns - the ancient medina and la ville nouvelle - are completely separate. There's lots of green space between them and the countryside is visible from both.

I find parts of the medina claustrophobic and dirty. Most pathways are about four feet wide. When a mule or a man bearing an oversized load comes through the only thing to do is flatten yourself against the wall. Lots of mule and horse dung and rotting vegetables. Mules up close give off a powerful odour! Ian still sees beautiful things.

A 13th century madrasa's (Islamic school) new "pupils"

A rare find: Pizza & beer!

The drug that keeps us going

Ian writes:  In Morocco, like everywhere, you can finding lodging from dingy hovels to Five Star  monotony.  We opted for riads, traditional townhouses with rooms facing onto an inner courtyard in the heart of the medina. Occasionally, we stayed at kasbahs, forts or citadels renovated into small hotels,   

While often lacking heat and enough light bulbs, they are full of charm and character and I love them.  Some are truly gems when the owner has enough funds and style to bring the old brick and tile to life.  A few nights, we swapped lodging for publicity photos.  Here’s a selection…

Riad Doha in Fes

Djane Kasbah in Tamegroute

Djane Kasbah

Kasbah Tobkal in Imlil

Dar Imlil in Imlil

Roman Ruins and The Blues

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Meknes

The farmers south of Meknes make good use of the rocks that are everywhere. We saw long narrow rows of rocks - about fifty feet long by three feet wide by two feet high - topped with straw and covered with bright yellow tarps. I pulled over to take a look. The air was pungent with onions. At first I thought they were growing onions in straw but then I realized they were storing them in straw.

The closer we got to Meknes the more agricultural it became. Grapes, olives and green stuff I couldn't identify.

We stayed at the Majestic in Meknes, a 1930's Art Deco hotel with Escher-like black and white tiled floors. We were all a-twitter because we'd read that restaurants in Meknes sold wine. Alas, the place that sold wine was so awful we couldn't stay and fled to the regular rotisserie-chicken- and-eau-gazeuse kind of place. The city overwhelmed us and we left the next day.

We stopped to visit Volubilis, the Roman Empire's most remote outpost abandoned by the them about 280 AD. The location is spectacular - rolling green hills with a view of the twin hills of Moulay Idriss, named for Morocco's most revered saint.

We spent a couple of hours poking around the ruins and watching the beautiful blue sky turn dark grey. We ate lunch in  Ouazzane and saw the sky open and the rain pour down in sheets.  

Chefchaoun, the blue city or Morocco's most beautiful city!

Our first night was at the Rif Hotel or more aptly named the Riffraff Hotel. Dismal! But very colourful!

Supper was inedible. The first time in my life I've taken one bite and said "I can't eat this!" It was bitter fish. But they had beer which was a first. The server seemed genuinely sad that I couldn't eat the fish.

We've moved to Dar Gabriel, very aptly timed because today is the feast of Saint Gabriel, I think. It's cold though and I'm wearing many layers of clothes as I write this.  Ian went out awhile ago to take photos.

Heading North through Sandscapes

Was Bin Laden hiding here? (Click on to enlarge, back arrow to return)

After the sandstorm put us off desert camping we decided to start heading north. Hindsight is 20/20 – we should have stayed where we were because now (March 23) we’re North of Meknes freezing our butts off! A bit about the trip north ….

Back up the Vallee de Draa and a right turn onto a secondary road. We saw crested waves of windswept, treeless, flat-top green rock hills. The green comes, not from vegetation, but from minerals in the rock – most likely copper? On the other side of the road were big pink sandstone outcroppings on the rolling rocky green plain with  black and beige hills behind them. It was midday so not a good time for photos.

We stopped for lunch in a place called Anif. Our expectations were low because Anif was a tiny dot in a very small font. The main junction was crowded with tour buses so we went down the road a bit and chose a place that looked deserted. We walked in … ‘Hello?’,   ‘Bonjour?’,   ‘Hello?’ … just about to leave when a guy came and seated us at a table outside three feet from the road.  Long story short – excellent chicken brochette and almost no traffic! As we were eating, a bunch of businessmen came out and got into 4x4’s and drove off. ‘Where did they come from?’ After lunch I discovered a huge meeting/wedding/conference room, hotel bedrooms and loos upstairs. A very happening kinda place!

Spot the coffee!

Two long distance bicyclists showed up looking for accommodation. They were from ‘Canary Icelands’. (I guess the ‘s’  in island is confusing for non English speakers.) One of the cyclists told me about his dream to cycle from Alaska to Mexico and asked me about the best time to do a trip like that. As if I’d have a clue!

There were lots of decals for cycle races on the restaurant/hotel windows. Even one from Deloitte. The  owner of the establishment chatted away with me about Vancouver and the 2010 Olympics. He was very proud of the fact that a Moroccan (albeit a resident of France) won a medal.

As we were about to leave he was chatting with a couple of friends who were walking by – a young man and an old-ish, traditional looking woman. He asked us if we were going to Tenghir. Yes. Would you give Madame a lift?  She got in and shook hands with us.  She was the third hard working woman that I shook hands with. Dry doesn’t come close to the texture of their hands. They are accustomed to using henna, not in pretty patterns, but full coverage so the dark palms are a surprise. But the hardness and strength!

Madame stayed silent in the back and so I thought I’d try to make small talk – in French. No way, Josie. She spoke Berber louder and louder thinking we’d catch on. Then she gave up and gurgled something under her breath .

She adjusted her black veil around her face and made a noise (funny how words you don’t understand are simply noise) to indicate she had arrived where she wanted to go. She got out and blended with the crowd of other black veiled women. Then a man appeared at our window thanking us for ‘taking care of the sister of my mother’. Shokran, shokran.’ and much touching of his heart. I think there was an offer of mint tea but we were gone!

Well-pruned orchard

Gorge Time

There are three gorges in the area Southeast of Marrakesh – the Dades Gorge, the Todra gorge and the Ziz gorge. Water flows through each of them and although the available cultivatable space is narrow and hard to work there isn’t a square inch that isn’t growing something to eat. In a few spots we saw men wielding heavy wide hoes tilling the earth in readiness for planting. Even if they did have a horse and  a plough they probably couldn’t get them into the small spaces.

The gorges reminded me of Utah the difference being that they are filled with people and the houses are built on the edges of the gorges. In the event of an earthquake they would tumble into the river below.

Reeds are used in construction. Long stalks are laid down horizontally, tightly side by side to form a base then concrete is spread over them. We saw the cut ends of the reeds like pan pipes peeking out under the concrete and the roof tiles.

We stopped for coffee in Tinghir before heading up into the Todra Gorge. The brand of coffee I like is called Carrion which doesn’t seem a good name for anything you’d want to swallow!

The Todra Gorge is spectacular. At one point we drove between cliffs about 200 feet high on both sides. Naturally there were carpet salesmen lined up against the cliff face! Beyond the carpets the gorge opened up and we saw some rock climbers with an instructor showing them the ropes!

We kept going north. We had conflicting stories about the quality of the road but the consistent advice was that if there is water you can’t pass. Up, up, up into the High Eastern Atlas. It seems deserted but we always saw a few people grazing a few goats and sheep. Who knows what the livestock are eating!? There are sharp, jagged rocks everywhere.

There was water on the road in several places where the river crosses the road. It was only 3 – 4 inches deep. The flat-roofed, one story mud houses with small windows and ornate metal grilles looked deserted. I think if you don’t need to be outside working you stay inside out of the wind.

Castles Made of Sand

A constant sight amidst all the barrenness was the red and white mecchano-like fifty foot telecommunication towers. It seemed there was one on every hilltop and knoll in southern Morocco. When we picked up the camel-herder cum carpet salesman we were surprised to see him pull his cell phone out from the depths of his blue robe. We asked him if he had an email address where we could send him some photos. He laughed and said something about being a nomad and having a cell phone was as tech-y as he was going to get. The nephew of the hard-handed woman knew we were coming because he got a call to expect us.

After Midelt we knew we were getting out of the desert. Cows, black and white dogs, pine and juniper. The dogs were so cool just sitting on the verge of the road eying everything that went by. Up, up, up onto a plateau and no more trees just swampy green land and some snow patches then rocks, rocks, rocks with bits of grass in between.

We picked up a young boy with a school bag. I tried to speak to him in French but all he said was ‘a l’ecole’. It seemed to us that we were far from a school but at a small road he asked to get out and someone was waiting for him. Then we picked up a man with Parkinson’s and he got out at the Ifrane Ski School!!

East from Marrakesh

Drumming session with Berber hosts (click on picture for full screen)

Imlil

Imlil is in the mountains south of Marrakesh. Ian had a job to take some photos for Mountain Voyage. MV is a British travel agency that does treks into the Atlas. Over the years it has also built and operates several boarding homes for girls so that they can attend high school in Asni. If the boarding homes weren’t there they would be herding goats and having children by the time they were 16.

Mountain Voyage owns or has an interest in several hotels in Imlil. We were surprised about them needing more photos because they have some beautiful glossy brochures and booklets.

Abdou became Ian’s assistant for the day, carrying the tripod and marching Ian up and down hills at a brisk pace. I joined them later to go up to the jewel in the crown of their hotels, Kasbah Toubkal. According to a poster we saw it is among the world’s best 100 hotels!

The walk there went through the village and of course we had to stop to look at carpets, slippers, jewelry etc. I couldn’t resist some red leather slippers but I did resist the carpets!

Ait Ben Haddou

We rented a car for our ‘grand tour ‘. Getting out of Marrakesh was scary. There isn’t a lot of traffic but what there is, is chaotic and unpredictable.

As we drove over a pass in the mountains we saw lots of roadside stands where men were selling rocks, pottery, fossils and minerals. We stopped to look at some popsicle coloured geodes. The blueberry ones were lapis, the lime green were malachite, the grape were amethyst! “Did you hear that the word gullible has been removed from the dictionary?”!

The sun was setting and we were looking for a road that went off to the left according to our map.  And there it was. We turned left. There was a young man by the side of the road and just to be sure we asked him if it was the road to Ait Ben Haddou. “Oui, Madame.” As we started to go he stopped us. It was a donkey cart road. He told us there was another road and if we would take him he would show us the way. As soon as he got in I expected him to pull some geodes, dates, or a carpet out from his jacket. But no, he was just a nice guy wanting a lift.

The Kasbah we were looking for turned out to be a gem and the people running it were wonderful, though I suspect them of being a cell of the FLB – Front de Liberation des Berbers!! Every time they got a chance they slammed the government and ‘les Arabs’.

Our host invited us for an outing to an oasis. On the way there we saw a weird site. The two lane, modest highway suddenly grew into an eight lane highway with gutters, drainage and extravagant lamp posts. We turned off the road into acres and acres of wide newly paved streets, round-abouts, gutters and drainage, lamp posts and nothing else! It was vacant and had a decidedly abandoned feel to it. According to the revolutionaries of my imagination it was built over 3 years ago for the King’s visit then abandoned.  

At the oasis, we had mint tea with a  desperately poor Berber family in a mud hut.  Where’s that guillotine? 

This region is the ‘Mollywood’ of North Africa - “Lawrence of Arabia”, “Gladiator”  “Cleopatra”, “Babel” and I’m sure many less notable films. Easy to see why with stunning red canyons, the big sand dunes and crumbling “Kasbahs”. We looked up the meaning of Kasbah today and it’s original pre-tourism meaning is fortification or administrative centre.

Aside: One of the reasons we were so slow is that we were waylaid by an insistent hitchhiker. He stood in the middle of the road and held up his hand. He was resplendent in blue. He is a camel herder and was on his way home to Agdz after 25 days in the desert. 

He wanted to offer us some hospitality and asked us home for 'the a la menthe' so-called Berber whiskey. Home turned out to be the biggest carpet and souvenir shop I've ever seen! We broke down and bought one but swore to each other that we will not accept anymore invitations for tea.

We were on our way to the desert but being the slug-like tourists we are we stopped a couple of hours short at a Kasbah surrounded by gardens, a camel enclosure and an ancient Islamic library next door!

The owner is a lithe and lovely 70 year old German woman with shocking red hair. The story was a bit convoluted but it seems Doris and her Moroccan partner (a handsome man about 15 – 20 years her junior) started the business 15 years ago. They were business partners and lovers. She declined to marry him in order not to lose her widow’s pension. Meanwhile, her lover married.  Doris says the three of them remain friends. They live in the same house together. We had homemade jam that Doris says “My partner’s wife makes it.”

Our plan to see the Big Dunes and sleep out under the Saharan sky were dashed today by high winds.  The fine sand whipped across the highway and blurred any views.  The sky was dull beige. So retreated back to Doris’ garden.