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The Atlas Mountains -
Birds and Booze
After chilling out in the sleepy
town of Essaouira, we headed for the Atlas Mountains. These are
located to east of Marrakech so it was quite a long drive to get to them
from the coast.
We only has a couple of days here
and stayed at a lovely hotel called La Bergerie which was nestled in a
valley and surrounded by olive and almond groves. The scenery reminded me
of the Alpujarras in Spain where I used to live.
Luckily the hotel had a swimming
pool as we arrived in the middle of a heat wave! Whilst Marrakech was hot
at least we had air conditioning there, not so out in the sticks! It was
over 30C a night and not a breath of wind. Our room had a private garden
so we slept with all the windows open and no bedclothes on, not realising
that the gardener began work quite early in the morning. I think he got a
bit of a shock - we certainly did!
He, and the other gardeners did a
lovely job on the gardens though. You could walk along paths edged with
flowers and herbs, gently aromatic in the hot sun intermixed with some
interesting rustic sculptures.
As we'd had a wonderful lunch on
the way there we just relaxed the first day and booked a hike for the
next morning. As we only got a couple of hours sleep we had mixed
feelings about doing the hike, but as the guide had turned up we thought
we might as well go. Sayeed, our guide, assured us it was an easy hike
across the hills to a local village and then a stop for lunch in a local
house. Enough said, we were on our way!
The scenery was quite stunning with
the brick red earth making wonderful formations from water erosion.
Above us eagles and falcon circled,
looking for their lunch!
After crossing the first set of
hills, we suddenly came upon a football pitch - seemingly located in the
middle of nowhere. This must be one of the remotest pitches in the world!
You just can't get away from it can you!
We walked alongside acequias,
traditional irrigation systems which were full with water even at this
time of year. In the hills we could glimpse some incredible houses which
must have amazing views.
As we proceeded along an almost
dried up river bed, Sayeed suddenly started shouting "roller, roller".
Well we could hear a machine working off in the distance so we wondered
what the fuss was about. Then we saw two flashes of blue fly across the
gorge.
Although they looked liked
kingfishers to us, they were in fact blue bellied rollers. Stunningly
beautiful birds.
Thanks to
http://www.colszoo.org/animalareas/aforest/broll.html
for this picture!
Next we came across a frog. We had
met up with these the night before when as we were having dinner, we
found that the ground was littered with them. Very dangerous - for them -
if you didn't have a torch!
After a few hours we reached out
destination, the village. Here we came upon some traditional house
building, where mud is packed within a frame and then tamped down to give
it a solid structure. Now we knoew what the holes were that we had seen
in the walls of many st4ructures, including the medina walls in Marrakech
- they hold the scaffolding supports to steady the frame.
Next we were shown into a local
house where we met Brahin and his wife Fatima. Farah cooked us a
wonderful meal - tagine of course and served copious amounts of mint tea.
Brahin kept us entertained with his stories and then decided that he
wanted to marry me! However, in modern times he is only allowed one wife-
Phew! I think Fatima really has her hands full with him.
We had then intended to walk back
to the hotel but Tricia had developed a blister, so thanks to the wonders
of modern technology - a mobile phone - we were picked up and transported
back by taxi!
This left us to relax by the pool
for the rest of the afternoon supping cold beer- its a hard life!
At one point I looked up from my
book only to see my that my shoe had moved across the lawn and was being
chewed by a wonderful puppy - Kena. She kept us entertained as nothing
was sacred!
The food at the hotel was
absolutely wonderful and enough to feed a small army. We washed it down
with rose wine - my favourite was Siroua. We did get a bit of a shock
when we got the bill though - we had spent 76 euros in two days and we
hadn't really drank that much. Being a Muslim culture, alcohol is
expensive, so be warned. A spirit will be around 6e, beer 5e a pint and
wine around 15e a bottle.
So ended our trip to Morocco. It is
a wonderful country with some lovely people and scrumptious food. I will
be back!
Corinne Sellens
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Fraggle's Travels
