We have had a long travel day and tonight I am in Fez. Our Riad here is very grand and I have the first bedroom for many a night in which it is light enough for me to be able to see effectively. Our previous night’s rooms have had a light in every corner and alcove but even with them all on, they have been very dim. You could certainly not read in any of them.
The Riad is located up a narrow alley way and you would never know that anything this salubrious could exist from outside.
Our trip today was one of continually changing scenery. When we left Mazouga, we found some more sand dunes that looked splendid in the early morning light.
Our first hour of driving was mainly through flat desert country. Because we had an hour of heavy rain yesterday, the rather sparse grass actually looked brighter and greener than before.
Along the way, we passed a very large dam that supplied drinking water to the local towns. It looked somewhat out of place in this harsh and hilly desert environment. Of course, every stopping spot had someone wanting to sell things to anyone who stopped there. There is nothing pushy about these people, but they are an anxious to make a sale whenever they can.
For an hour or so, we traveled through a range of mountains known as the Middle Atlas Ranges. They were very scenic and quite a change from the flat desert country from which had come. Some peaks in the distance were still covered in snow from the previous winter.
After winding our way through the mountains, we found a number of towns where various forms of produce were grown. Many people in these were selling apples, some were selling oranges and others had barrows of pomegranates (although these are pretty much at the end of their season). Some small areas of land had been plowed ready for sowing wheat.
The countryside, then alternated between villages and fields, and at one place where the police pulled over our driver for a routine license inspection, we found a nomadic camp. These nomads are the poorest of the poor. They are constantly on the move and stay in one area for as long as there is feed for the animals. We could see shepherds in the fields, looking after their flocks of sheep or goats. These scenes that they created, looked as if they had come back from those images of biblical times.
We did one little detour along a country road to see an area where Macaque monkeys (Barberry Apes) live in a Cedar Forest. These monkeys inhabit many parts of North Africa. We found a couple of groups of them and stopped to take some photos. As in most places like this, local people were earning a dollar, or two, by selling food that enabled us to entice the monkeys to come closer for a photograph.
For the remainder of the day we drove through a mixture of countryside and villages.
We reached Fez at about 4:30 pm, but it took another hour to get through all the traffic and be met by some men from the Riad, who took our bags up through the narrow alleyways to the building where we are staying overnight.
With the traffic in the hustle and bustle of the streets, it’s clear that we are no longer in the desert. Driving through these street is an horrendous task and I think the best thing that I can do is simply to close my eyes and let our drivers get on with taking me to where we have to go.
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