AdventuresintheMaghreb

This past weekend, I spent a glorious few days in the Middle Atlas Mountains (about four and a half hours southeast from Rabat, check out the map for a general idea).

Two friends, Emily and Hannah, and I left Arabic class on Friday morning and headed to the train station to catch the 11:00 train to Meknes. About an hour and a half into our journey, the train chugged slowly to a stop, and we heard cries of “En panne! En panne!” Oh dear. “En panne” happens to mean broken. A group of men instantly gathered by the head of the train, smoking their cigarettes, gesticulating at the engine, and nodding sagely, which is so typically Moroccan that I found it irresistibly funny. Luckily we were soon moving, and arrived to spitting rain in Meknes. We caught a grand taxi from the station towards Azrou, and were soon enveloped in glorious rolling hills, beautifully cultivated fields, and spectacular views.  I spent most of the ride trying to come up with a parallel to the landscape that I was seeing – the olive groves of Greece and Sicily, the highland hills of Scotland, the craggy mountains of Wyoming and Montana (none of which I’ve actually seen in person!) – but I finally had to conclude that I was somewhere completely unique.

A panorama from our stunning drive from Meknes to Azrou.

We arrived in the Berber village of Azrou that afternoon, and checked into our hotel, whimsically and romantically named “La dernière lion de l’Atlas,” or “The Last Lion of the Atlas.” Amideast had given us the name of a contact of theirs who lives in Azrou, Lotfi, so we met him at a café to introduce ourselves and talk about an itinerary for the weekend. He turned out to be a fascinating Renaissance man: a high-powered Moroccan businessman – turned carpenter – turned cultural exchange non-profit manager. As he walked us around the pretty town of peaked roofs, bright-eyed toddlers swathed in bright wool blankets and slung over their mothers’ backs, and Amazighe (Berber) women with tattooed foreheads and chins to identify their tribal affiliation, Lotfi talked enthusiastically with us about everything from political exposés of corrupt politicians, the situation of single mothers in Morocco, and his children’s clever attempts to thwart his fundamentalist brother-in-law from radicalizing them. Everywhere I go, I learn more from talking to Moroccans than I ever do by looking at scenery, and we were so fortunate to have Lotfi as a guide and resource throughout the weekend.

The day was chilly and overcast, and as we walked to dinner at an inn on the top of the mountain, lightning crackled overhead and we stopped a few times just to marvel at the boiling clouds and the darkening sky. I spent the whole day grinning like a fool just to be away from the city and to be surrounded by crisp mountain air and vast pine forests. We feasted on fresh-caught local mountain trout for dinner, and went back to our inn eager for the next day.

We woke up early the next morning and bundled up in fleeces and hiking boots in search of our breakfast. One wonderfully refreshing characteristic of Azrou is that the town is far enough off the beaten path that people who stopped us in the street to chat were genuinely friendly and welcoming, rather than threatening or harassing. The town was definitely more conservative than Rabat, but we also had more freedom in some ways. We bought fresh pastries at a pâtisserie and sat at a café to drink coffee, something that is definitely off-limits in Rabat. After breakfast, we met Lotfi to start our day. We had originally envisioned that he would recommend a guide and some sites to see, but of course this is Morocco. Lotfi not only planned our entire day, he found us a car, volunteered to be our driver, and invited his friend Khaleed, a Berber mountain guide and head of an ecotourism non-profit. The five of us set out in a tiny Peugeot sedan up winding trails into the mountains.

Our first stop was to see the famous Barbary apes, a species of macaques native to the area. The government has set aside a small number of monkeys in a forest reserve as an exhibition, in order to prevent overenthusiastic tourists from bothering the wild population. These monkeys were quite used to humans, and came right up to us to eat peanuts out of our hands! My favorite was a tiny baby monkey clinging to its mother’s back, who suddenly jumped ship in order to catch a peanut flying through the air, and landed on his startled father’s back in one smooth motion.

My new friend, who followed me around the whole time we were there!

We then headed out of the forest and up a winding mountain path, which we soon left in favor of off-roading. We rattled and jounced over the rocky terrain, got stuck in the mud quite a few times, and finally got out to begin our hike. The entire region is volcanic, with rocky fields that suddenly give way to magnificent cedar forests and craggy gorges.

Hannah, me, and Emily at the beginning of our hike

Khaleed, wiry and tough in a leather bomber jacket, spoke in rapid-fire French as we hiked, explaining the different plants and animals found in the region, the problems with desperate villagers clear-cutting the cedar trees, and how to find a rare type of fungus even more expensive than white truffles in Europe. We walked through the misty forest, skirting our way around rocky cliffs and trying to get above the fog to the stunning view of the valley below. We were at about 1,800 meters altitude and all thrilled with our adventure. The setting was perfect for letting your imagination run amok, and I kept expecting to see Robin Hood with a bow and arrow peering from behind a tree or some fantastic creature out of the Lord of the Rings racing through the woods.   

Breathtaking

I could almost forget that I was in Africa, except for little things like scorpions(!)

This is about as close as I was willing to get!

 Our next destination was a picnic lunch at a bird-watching outpost by one of the largest freshwater lakes in North Africa. It was COLD there, probably around 40 degrees, and we happily ate fresh figs, spicy fish, and freshly-baked bread, and drank clear, bone-chillingly cold mountain water. 

Picnicking at a gorgeous lake for lunch

We shared the remains of our lunch with the two hopeful sheepdogs of a Berber shepherd who was grazing his flock nearby. This area is one of Morocco’s most underdeveloped and underpopulated regions, and is mostly home to nomadic Berber tribes, the original inhabitants of Morocco. Berbers (their name for themselves is Amazigh, or Free People), are primarily shepherds, and build temporary shelters on their tribal lands as they raise their flocks, migrating from one grazing area to another. Many of them look quite different from the ordinary conception of Moroccans, with lighter skin, finer features and some even have blond hair. We spoke briefly to the shepherd, praised his herd of sheep and adventurous little brown goats, and heard about his new baby son. Khaleed translated since the shepherd spoke a Berber dialect which I didn’t understand a word of.

We got back into the car and drove higher into the mountains, passing through tiny villages where a car was enough of a spectacle that the village children would come racing out to wave at us. We stopped at one point and shared chocolate croissants with two tiny girls in colorful kerchiefs, who gave us shy, awestruck glances and hid behind the pack-laden donkey they were driving as soon as we were back in the car. I would love the opportunity to come back and get to know this region and its people better.

I still can't believe that I was here looking at this!

One of the coolest stops of the entire weekend was at Ras el Maa, the headwaters of over forty rivers in the region. We scaled our way up slippery rocks to reach a tiny Berber village literally built through the rushing sources. The rain of the past few days had turned the normally clear waters into Willy Wonka’s chocolate river, and they roared deafeningly past.

We explored different tiny streams, some salty-tasting and some sweet, depending on the minerals they flow through in the mountains. A Berber woman invited us into her home for tea, and we sat on the floor in her living room, which had an entire back wall open to the river that flowed inches away. We drove back to Azrou through more of the glorious countryside, and crashed at our hotel after a very full day.

The next morning we caught a bus to Ifrane, a town known as the “Little Switzerland” of Morocco, which was a winter retreat for the French colonial government and is now the ski playground of the king and his family. It was very surreal after the warmth and color of Azrou to be strolling down tree-lined boulevards, past carefully manicured parks, and through neighborhoods full of chalets that wouldn’t be out of place in a wealthy French town. Ifrane is also the home of the prestigious Al-Akhawayn University, where Morocco’s elite send their sons and daughters for an American-style education. Even with our tales of a fictional friend who was meeting us, the guard wouldn’t let us into the campus to walk around, which was disappointing. But I was very glad that we spent the weekend in Azrou, which was infinitely more interesting and real.

We caught a taxi to Fez and travelled the three hours back to Rabat, most of which I spent talking with an American couple who had been visiting their grandson at Al-Akhawayn. The husband, who proudly announced that he was 84, regaled me with tales of his adventures in the navy in WWII, detailed his and his wife’s upcoming 60^th wedding anniversary, and gave me a desire to see all of the places they’ve seen! It was lovely to be home and feel comfortable in a city that I know, but I can’t wait for our next adventure! All of the Amideast students are taking a group trip to the cities of Fez and Meknes, and the roman ruins of Volubilis this weekend, so I’m sure I’ll have more stories soon! Love to all!  

p.s. All of my pictures from the weekend are here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=111848&id=676158521&l=cbbab85dd3