Safe Return Doubtful

I’m in the Zaër hills in the north west of Morocco. The landscape is one of gentle hills, much greener than further south in the winter at least, and much more suitable for outdoor activities. I’ve found a permaculture farm (agriculture that regenerates the land) that takes guests in rooms as well as in campervans, the building made from earth bricks made where the building stands. 

It’s quite isolated, with only a rough six kilometre rough track to get here, my vehicle being about the maximum size that could for round the sharp turns and through the streams and small rivers. It’s the best stopover place I’ve used in Morocco, and will go down in the annals as one of the best of all time. 

It’s been four days of driving about three hours a day to get here though. From Agadir I headed to the High Atlas near to village of Ouirgane, which I reported on in my last post. It materialised that the pass I had taken was indeed considered as a closed road, though no one had got round to telling me, and there were no signs.. 

Though the view of Toubkal and the Atlas were incredible the following morning when the sky cleared, it is winter here, and any outdoor activity is restricted due to the effect of the rain and melted snow; there are frequent landslides, and the result  means many of smaller roads and tracks are blocked. I found a trail for that morning though, and met two young Swedish girls staying in the nearby hotel. They were travelling Morocco for two weeks, getting around by taxi. I was interested to know how much the country had changed for lone travelling females, as I remember that when I was first here, thirty five years ago, it was unpleasant and difficult. I had thought it had changed a lot, but the girls told me they had still experienced some unwelcome advances and hassle. It’s easy to see that also, as they openly say they feel safer walking in even this rural area, with me, rather than alone. 

From Ouirgane I took the slow road heading for Marrakesh, but didn’t go into the city, rather to a campsite in its western suburbs run a single French guy who worked at the French school teaching PE. He was 60, so we had quite a bit in common. He was counting down three more years until he could retire, and spent his long summer holiday of two months in France in his own campervan while the temperature in Marrakesh hit close to 50C. I know quite a few of these sort of people in International schools, stagnating in easy jobs, doing the bare minimum, counting down the days, life in effect, on hold. It makes me pleased to have got out when I did; I refer particularly to my penultimate job in Porto, which was so easy that I bored me intensely. The guy who took my place, who ironically I found, for the recruitment company in Sedbergh I did some work for, is just like this Frenchman in Marrakesh. He’s still there.. counting the days down.. 

For the Frenchman, keeping the campsite was his real interest, even though it brought in far less money than his teaching job. He kept goats, chickens and sheep on his small plot of land, and pruned his trees in the three days a week he didn’t work at the school. 

After a day here I took the motorway, a toll road with gentle prices, to Settat, about 250 kilometres south, and an olive farm I had located that took campervans. This was a sixty hectare (about 70 rugby pitches) piece of land on gentle hills run by a Canadian / Moroccan couple with a young family.

It was a good place to stay for a night, with an exploratory wander for an hour through the olive trees in the evening just after I arrived, and then a longer wander this morning. This is a much more fertile region, and consequently wealthier, though the majority of the landowners of the most useful land has money invested from overseas. In this case the olives are processed, bottled and exported from on site. 

This morning I drove west, the first half of the three hour journey on the A2 motorway, almost deserted of any cars, the other half on hugely potholed roads with the usual crazy Moroccan traffic, donkeys, street dogs, three wheelers, motorcycles, children on their way home from school, and consequently extremely slow. The last twenty kilometres however, was a pleasure to drive, as I entered the Zaer hills. This would be an excellent bicycle ride, and the roads by contrast to those earlier, are almost empty.

The scenery is appealing and I’m looking forward to exploring a lot more in the next few days. I plan to stay for a few days, it’s a busy weekend of European rugby (8 live games..) and this farm has a really pleasant tranquil atmosphere to it.