Morocco Day 5: Journey to the Sahara

​Today was an epic travel day - departing at 8 am and arriving at 6 pm at our hotel.  We traveled from Fes, across the mid Atlas and High Atlas Mountains to arrive in the Sahara desert.  We made a lot of stops along the way, and also learned a lot about Moroccos people, land and culture.

Our first stop was in the town of Ifane - the “Switzerland of Morocco”, and also where the last lion in Morocco met his end, which was commemorated by very cool statue.  The town is known as a playground for the wealthy in the winter, with skiing and other sports, Swiss chalets and pointed roofs, and  lots of lovely flowers.

On the way down the mountain from Ifane, we stopped to see a troop of macaque monkeys that live in the forest nearby. There were several families of them, eating, grooming, tending babies and swinging through the trees.

As we have now entered the Amazigh (known in other parts of the world as Berber) area, we stopped  to meet a herding family by the road side.  We chatted with Aziz about his herd, his kid’s school, his water supply and other services to make his semi-nomadic lifestyle possible. His daughter came out to visit with as well. We also watched some of a neighbor’s goats climbing around on the hillside. 

We descended the mountains and arrived in a caravanserai- type hotel/restaurant for our lunch near the town of Midelt.  We enjoyed the geodes and fossils at the restaurant, and Mohamed showed us features of the area in a map.

Fossil of ancient precursor of jellyfish. 

Back in the bus, we headed into the High Atlas Mountains, crossing Camel Pass at about 6000 feet.  We started seeing date palms soon thereafter, and followed a winding road through rocky cliffs.  It also rained a bit, which was a weird introduction to the desert, but a little sand storm activity made it feel more like we were really there. 

We stopped at an overlook to see the Ziz valley - a very long and very green valley full of date palms.  It was really lovely, even though many of the trees were scarred by a recent fire. The overlook was very windy, so we had a chance to appreciate the many uses of scarves as head wraps against wind and dust. 

In the course off the day we drove through the famous cedar forests of Morocco, over winding and often precipitous roads, up and down mountains, crossing seemingly endless expanses of desert, sometimes flat, rolling or rock strewn, slashed by dry river beds and massive erosion. The isolation of the land was occasionally punctuated by a small village, a cluster of adobe farm buildings or an occasional shepherd tending a flock of sheep with his dogs to scare away predators. This  part of Morocco is a land of hardship and poverty for many of its people. 

After descending yet another long winding road, we arrived at our casbah hotel in Afoud - the date capital of Morocco.  We had tea and cookies on arrival, and checked in to our palatial rooms which presented a stark contrast to the day.  We had a sumptuous buffet dinner before heading to bed.