Forest, Apes, Plains, Thunderstorms

Today we left the cities and ventured into the wilds…not really, but into far less populated regions. We headed to Midelt, a town in the high plains between the Middle Atlas and the High Atlas Mountains. Midelt is a town of 50,000+ inhabitants, but you’d never know, as they’re spread out far and wide across the plains, for this area is the commercial center of a larger agricultural hinterland.

Morocco, like many other countries has an extremely diverse geography and moving from one area to another can almost be like moving from one country to another. Our trip to Midelt took about 4 hours (with a few stops along the way). One of the first stops was the small ski resort town of Ifrane. Exiting the van, we thought we’d ended up in a European city as the town is known for its steeply pitched red roofs reminiscent of the Swiss alps. 

This was a quick stop in the town/tourist center to grab a bite to eat and snag a postcard. Then it was back in the van to head into the forest. Apparently this area is also popular with extreme sports, as we were paused several times waiting for bedraggled marathon runners to cross the terrain and pass in front of our vehicle. If you’re gonna run, the scenery makes this a pretty good place to do it. It was gorgeous and reminded me of being back in Yosemite or up in Zakoplane, Poland.

Another quick stop was near Azrou to see the Barbary apes that live in the forest. Due to tourists feeding them, the apes no longer fear humans and instead hang out near the roadway waiting for snacks. There are locals that try to sell you things to feed them, but these snacks not part of the apes’ true diet and therefore not recommended to purchase. Even without the contraband, we were able to get some stunning shots of the apes and even got to watch one small family’s baby drama. The baby was riding Mom’s back and crying so mom ran to dad, handed off the baby, and basically went “Here you take Little Johnny so he’ll stop crying”. The dad pulls Little Johnny to his chest and trots off. About three minutes later, mom, dad, and baby are all together and the parents are cleaning Little Johnny. It was a good show.

We got to Midelt in the mid afternoon and relaxed for a bit waiting for the heat to die down and for the thunderstorm to pass. The storm was similar to those on the East coast where humidity causes electricity in the air and you get a sudden down pour with some thunder and lightening, and then all is good again. 

The highlight of the day (besides the baby ape) was going on a nice guided walk around a series of local agricultural villages. Khalid led us along the small irrigation channel between apple and olive orchards, and then into a series of small towns; along a mini Grand Canyon, and finally across flat plains back to our van. 

The orchards are lush and take advantage of the rich soil of the area. The product being grown can change over time, but the area has always been used for agriculture. Along the waterway were also a bunch of plants from poisons (oleander) to psychedelics (wormwood) to herbal (River mint and dandelion). 

All of the families in this area work the orchards and farms, which requires a lot of hands. The solution is to have larger families to help with the chores. Many of these offspring found the white tourists in their midst to be the best entertainment they had for the evening and would follow for a bit or shout “Bonjour” and then hide if we tried to engage them in conversation. It was kind of cute. 

The whole area is very reminiscent of the Southwest region of the US, with buttes, open plains, canyons, and adobe homes. The towns are pretty small (maybe a hundred homes) and the homes were created using traditional adobe brickwork and local sourced wood (that the villagers would walk hours to chop and collect). I almost thought I was back in New Mexico teaching about the Ancestral Puebloans and hunting for petroglyphs.