After waking early to check on the progress of the children and their skiing, we snoozed for a bit, buried under a thick blanket. The call to prayer from three different neighbouring mosques ended that and we got up to get our pre-trip breakfast.
Some unattached children wandering the gardens were not happy that we got fed first, but those that plan ahead eat first! A slightly odd selection of olives, dates, omelette, muffin, orange juice, coffee, toast, butter and apricot jam made a comprehensive meal and we were ready to start our adventure!
A happy coincidence (possibly contrived!) meant we had the same driver as the day before, a lovely young man (Yassine) who had told us that he had got married 6 months ago. He gave us a tour of the King’s father’s palace as we drove through some ridiculously tight gaps and arches in old walls, with bikes squeezing through in the opposite direction. We had briefly discussed the Moroccan education system and the traffic rules after watching a family of four on a moped. Apparently only the driver needs a helmet so his wife and two toddlers don’t need to bother. Amazing.
Our first outing in daylight, we saw a lot of rubbish – it’s everywhere. Yassine said that the reason there was so much rubbish was because villages are required dump their rubbish in specific collection places (which basically means at the side of the road), for the government rubbish workers to visit and burn/collect. But they don’t burn/collect frequently, meaning it blows everywhere. And it is literally everywhere. We’ve never seen a place so littered with rubbish. He said his village was tidy but the one near our hotel is particularly bad. He said that the ‘wild’ dogs were becoming more of a problem and that at night people were scared to go out. There is clearly a link between food rotting on the streets and these wild/feral dogs happily breeding. We saw lots of puppies today.
We covered how Yassine’s marriage was arranged (by his parents), where he went on honeymoon (Northern Morocco), the fact his younger brother had already got married (same way) and has two children, his older brother (who is 39) teaches Philosophy, saved for 15 years to buy the materials to build his own house and has no immediate desire to get married – but when he does he will choose his own wife. He owns a car as well.
We talked about the education system (private vs public), the languages taught in school (Arabic and French in public, plus English in private), and the steps required by law to marry a girl who was under 18. This was a surprising conversation and required Googling when we got back to WiFi. Yassine is 31 and has just married an 18 year old girl “from the mountains”. They are living with his parents and he is the only person who has ever asked me how long it took after my marriage to produce my first child. His brother lives next door in the house he has just built, on land owned by his parents. You don’t buy here, you build on land gifted by your parents, with land being divided and subdivided through generations – and they live on that plot for life, upgrading their house over time (or maybe building a newer house next to the old house, using the old house for storage). We have seen more ruined houses than ever before and most occupied ones are single skin concrete block, inexpertly constructed and looking very precarious.
Yassine didn’t need to go through this process (phew…) but if you DO want to marry a girl under 18 the law has now changed to make it harder. First you need to get a letter from a doctor (he didn’t specify what this was for, but Google says Islamic law requires the girl to have started menstruating) then you have to take that, the girl and her father to a judge. It is apparently advantageous if the prospective husband earns more, owns a house and doesn’t live with his parents. All of which logically makes him older.
We managed to continue making conversation after this bombshell.
He told us he has 37 cousins who are about the same age as him. He couldn’t believe how small our families are. His mum is one of 6 and his dad was one of 5. Apart from 2 of his mum’s sisters who moved north when they married (because the woman moves to live with the man – always), everyone else in his direct and extended family lives in his village. He had a small wedding party – only 200 people, but he said if he invited his whole family it would have been more than 400 guests!!
He didn’t seem to mind being pelted with questions and asked us plenty in return. He is a mine of local information.
Our trip today was planned to take us to see a waterfall called Cascades Ourika in the Atlas mountains. Yassine asked if he could take us to some interesting places on the way. Of course we said yes! Our first stop was a pottery warehouse. We wouldn’t have found it or been brave enough to go in by ourselves but the owner gave us a personal demonstration of how he makes the items he sells. His pottery wheel had a direct drive with the table his clay was on so he had to push it away with his foot to make it spin. It immediately made me want to put in a geared link so he could just press a pedal; surely less repetitive strain on his knee. I imagine, given he told us that he had been doing it for 44 years, that he would have been dismissive of such a suggested improvement so it is probably a good idea I didn’t mention it. The sheer volume of goods was incredible and the size of the kiln and the amount that had been chipped or cracked of damaged before it was fired: astonishing – probably more than one hundred thousands items, mostly, but not all, pottery.
We bought a mini tagine with a Berber pattern for about £3.50. We didn’t have any small enough notes, so the owner told our driver to come back later to pay for it!
The next stop was an all-women co-operative, making argan oil cosmetics. Yassine was greeted like a favourite uncle by the toddler outside: his legs firmly hugged and his sunglasses stolen. We were sung to as we walked in (Keith particularly enjoyed this attention!!) and then a very composed young women explained the process of de-shelling, cracking and extracting the “almond” from the centre. I think we would call it the kernel, but it did look like a skinny almond. The shells are fed to the animals, the outside of the nut is used as fuel and the waste from crushing the kernel to extract the oil is made into a paste that is used in the hammam bathing ritual. No waste at all! She demonstrated each of the oils, creams, shampoos etc, explaining what properties of the ingredients were good for psoriasis, eczema, hair loss etc. while we drank mint tea and tried the peanut butter and edible argan oil (if you are interested, they roast the kernels to make food grade oil). There was a moisturizer made with honey that smelt delicious, so I contributed appropriately to the local economy. Afterwards a guide told us that locals used to benefit from the goodness of argan oil, but now they cannot afford to buy the raw nuts as cosmetic companies have pushed the prices up.
Having retrieved Yassine’s sunglasses and given back the toddler we carried on our tour.
Next on the agenda was a traditional Berber (Northern African tribe who pre-date the arrival of Arabs) house that has been turned into a working museum. The owners’ children, nephews etc.. showed us around whilst one of their sisters was brewing the tea, baking bread and cooking a meal in the open kitchen. The house was bigger than I had imagined but the rooms were quite small. It is built, not from stones they could get from the river, but with sandstone that has better heat insulative qualities than granite, which absorbs the heat and so in summer would make the inside of the house intolerably warm. They had doors made from olive wood and cedar and very little else. There was a bedroom and a parlour or receiving room for guests) but clearly the family lived in the kitchen. The door from the street belied the open courtyard with a grain mill and working areas as well as the family’s hammam (think sauna) chamber for their weekly sweat bath and mud scrape.
We had seen damage from a recent flooding event caused by a heavy rain storm as we drove along the valley, but this was the first time we had been close to the diggers and men clearing the path of the water and removing large boulders that had become dislodged.
The Berber house was the last stop before we arrived at the last village accessible by road into the mountains. There are 28 more villages between the one we stopped at and the highest one. Our walking guide said it would take about a day (walking) to get to the highest one and that the government are only now looking at building a road.
When we arrived, our guide was out on the hike, so we had a drink while we waited for him to return. We are obviously trying to avoid tap water so the menus are a minefield! There was only fruit juice to choose from, so I had lemon juice and Keith had pineapple juice. They were both delicious but mine was packed with sugar so I was buzzing when we set off.
The hike had some steep sections and the path was not at all clear so the guide was a good idea. We were better equipped and fitter than most people trying to get to the waterfall so we passed quite a few people going up (walking in fashion trainers, flip-flops, etc..). It is distressing to see the number of items of rubbish in what should be an area of outstanding natural beauty. There were quite a few stalls on the way up selling oranges, sweets, nougat and drinks, but not many people appeared to be stopping.
The waterfall was pretty and not particularly busy, with a café and toilets right next to it. Keith attracted quite a lot of attention with his cameras, but the guide collected us when he had finished and we carried on our trek. We carried on around the valley instead of just going straight back down, which I was pleased about as some bits of path were very sketchy. The views of the village were good from the path and our guide could show us where he lived. We saw and heard robins, sparrows and blackbirds on the way down but Merlin (bird song identification app for those who don’t know/care) couldn’t cope with our location.
Back down in the village we thanked and said goodbye to our guide and got some lunch. Yassine seemed happy reading his book in the car while we ate chicken kebabs and a chicken tagine. Very tasty.
Another bracing trip to a Moroccan public bathroom and then we set off back down the two way, single track road that they are mending in a dozen places, with vertical cliffs up one side and river the other. The trip home was much quicker as we didn’t stop and we could focus on squeezing Yassine for more information! He drove a different route into the city, taking us past his village.
Back in the hotel, I went straight for the pool. The car was uncomfortably warm in the late afternoon and we had both become sweaty. The temporary manager (Tom) assured me the water is heated but I would call it refreshing! Still, a quick dip and a big drink restored me enough to enthuse about our three course dinner to the local staff. The “boy” had lit the fire in our lodge when we got back, so it was pretty cosy and bed called. The night sky is dark here – lots of visible stars!
