Between Ifrane and Azrou at Gite Ras El Ma
Breakfast was nice and supplied by our hosts as the price of the room included both breakfast and dinner here. Just as well really since we can hardly just walk to a cafe to have breakfast! We were half way through our breakfast of coffee, fresh juice, moroccian pancakes and coffee when our guide for our day treck in the mountains showed up and joined us.
On leaving our Gite our hostess offered us some walking sticks. Now I thought what the heck if I’m going to do this I might as well have some accessories.
So complete with stick I started out up into the middle Atlas. So the goal for the day was to head out to the mountians, that are all around us, go for a pleasant walk to see some of this beautiful countrysied and perhaps see some Barbary Apes that reputidly live in the ceder forests in the Middle Atlas.
Some of the trails we walked were not really trails. I think even a goat would have looked sideways at some of the not-trails. I’m glad I decided to walk with the ‘accessory’ because I was certainly using it not far into the trek. sections of the trail were covered in hundreds of small loose rocks. It wasn’t a case of placing your feet carefully to avoid going A over T due to encountering a loose rock. It was ‘which of these loose rocks looks slightly more stable than the others?’
Of course that mostly didn’t work and while I managed not to fall over I think the only thing that saved my ankles as the boots and the walking sticks. About half way through the day I realised that I had not done up one of my boots tightly enough but the damage was already done by that point. As promised we saw the Barbary Apes. Not just in the area where they feed them to attract them for the tourists but scattered through the cedar forests.
At one point I though we were just a little unfit since the ‘nice little day trek’ did not seem all that little to me. Then our guid commented that we were good walkers and we’d walked about 16km which was normally done as a day and a half trek. Generally because other tourists keep wanting to stop and rest and take photos all the time. I think Louise and I had the same thought ‘We had that option?’
We walked to the top of a cliff which hazd an amazing view of Azrou way down below in the distance. I remember thinking ‘oh crap, I have to walk all the way back there?’
Louise sat down well away from the edge and announced she wasn’t going anywhere, she has a bit of a hight problem, I kind of pointed out she had too because we had to walk down into Azrou to get a taxi back to the Gite. You’ll be pleased to know Louise is not still sitting on the cliff she did get up and walk back down, carefully not looking over the edge.
On the way down it was over rocks once more and Louise having a sneeking suspision that this was not really a walking track we were on asked if after the rains etc this was a dry waterfall. Guide smiled at Louise and her brilliant deduction and agreed that yes it was a waterfall. Louise and I just traded glances. It was a quicker way to get down than we went up I guess!
We finally made it into Azrou walking through the back of the town and it took me a moment to realise we were walking through the middle of a graveyard.
Thankfully we did not have to walk the 8km back to the Gite but took a Taxi back. Oh alright it was a ute and we think it was a friend of our guide instead of the taxi we were meant to take. Still we made it back with only one stop due to the engine overheating. Still our driver was prepared with several bottles of water on hand to pour over the engine.
Back at the Gite we discovered there were other guests staying the night. It was a great night with half the room speaking French and the other half speaking English. Dionner was beautiful once more starting with Moroccian soup, then Lamb and quince tanjine with cuscos desert followed by fruit. Overall it was an enjoyable evening.
