El Kalaa des Mgouna, Morocco, Saturday January 10th

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Youssef collected us and drove us to his house where we left our big packs. We would stay there on Sunday night and leave early for the bus on Monday morning. We had the inevitable cup of tea before we left.

It was exciting to be scrambling down the hill and onto the road, setting off on a two day trek into beautiful country. The distances were realistic, with about 16 km today and 19 or so tomorrow, and with our recent walk at the Todra Gorge, we knew that we could handle them. It was cold to start with but we walked at a brisk pace and I was soon stripping off. The area is really lovely, with the bare mountains showing every kind of geological change. The light shining on ridges and casting other areas into shadow and the changing colours of pink to almost red gave us constantly interesting views. We walked along the river and through the gardens. Youssef said that the gardens no longer support Berber families and that they have to buy some provisions from markets. Men were working in the fields, turning over the ground with short handled spades with the blade at an acute angle. Tamarisks were grown to be coppiced, and they and the prunings from the olives and figs provided fuel for cooking. Lucerne, wheat and various vegetable crops were grown between the trees and roses. The men’s puppy followed us until it was driven back by Youssef.

An old lady sat at the doorway of a walled house and yard, and Youssef asked her if anyone was home. The family was out working in the fields, but we were able to go in to use the toilet. When I held out my hand in greeting to the old lady she ignored it. Youssef told me that she was blind, so I reached down to her hand and took it as I spoke. She spoke to me in Berber which I didn’t understand. There are four forms of the Berber language in Morocco, and everyone learns Arabic at school. Children start on French at third class level in primary school and on English at secondary school, called college here. Many older people speak only Berber and Arabic. We left the old lady sitting on her step and continued on.

We passed by a village where we could hear the sound of a celebration, which Youssef said was a wedding. At last we came to a house that seemed to grow out of the gorge wall. We entered and met some friends of Youssef’s. We were taken around to a locked building which had rugs and cushions in it, as well as a strange little tree ornament. Youssef’s friend brought us some tea and mostly we were alone drinking it. We didn’t realise that this was the lunch stop since it was quite early. Once Youssef said that we would be having lunch, I reminded him that we did not eat meat or fish. The man brought in a delicious Berber omelette and bread. Knives and forks are not used here. The food is presented on a communal plate and pieces of flat bread are used to scoop it up. Through the window we could see a woman digging up carrots in the garden on the flats below. She gave them to Youssef to deliver to her mother up in the mountain village where we would be staying the night. Youssef’s friend is also building on areas for tourists to stop and eat at and also an area for a craft shop.

As we left, we passed a woman washing the clothes in the canal. There is a great system of canals everywhere, with water taken from the river upstream and fed through very small canals to irrigate the farmlands. I was so busy watching her that I slipped and fell quite heavily. I scratched my thigh and tore a hole in my pants. Of course I said that it was nothing, and walked on.

Youssef helped me in the tricky parts where it required a very long step or the ability to walk on a ledge or near vertical rocks. Keith had no problems at all and enjoyed any parts that were challenging. We crossed the river on rickety little bridges a couple of times and on rocks at others. Youssef took a long cane from a pile and broke it and cleaned it to make me a Berber walking stick. It was excellent, being very strong but light. Eventually we left the canal edges and gardens and returned to the road. Although not as interesting, we did pass through villages and see more people. Women and children were carrying great loads of wood and animal feed on their backs. Some men were working on canal repairs. People were walking along the road and some were simply resting beside it on rocks. The mountains continued to dominate the scenery and along with the river, and at one stage the confluence of two rivers, provided constantly changing and mesmerising vistas.

Another stop was at a village café where we had more cups of tea. The owner was a tall, gaunt man in a dark woven cloak. He sat opposite his shop in a patch of sunshine against a low wall. He wiped the nose of his young son now and then; a boy we had guessed to be about five years old but who the father said was eight. Nearby a group of girls was playing soccer, practising some pretty nifty footwork. Youssef told us that there is a women’s soccer team in Morocco that does quite well.

Youssef asked Keith for some money to pay for food for later, so Keith gave him part of the fee. I was a bit embarrassed at that show of lack of faith in our guide, but I know that not paying until you have received services is what the guide book advises. When Youssef returned, he made a plate of sardine, tomato and onion salad which he offered us. I reminded him that we are vegetarian so he ate the salad alone. During this stop Youssef spent quite a lot of time chatting with his acquaintances. We could not understand what was being said and Youssef did not include us with any translations. About every half hour throughout the day he would ask us ‘Ca va?’ or ‘Happy?’ which after a while began to get on our nerves. He did answer our questions but most of the conversation he initiated was directed at ways to make more money out of us, such as suggestions for him to take us to the desert or on extra trips here and there, or that we should stay with his friend in Marrakesh.

We set off again, this time with the road climbing higher and higher and eventually passing under a short tunnel. The water fell in noisy cascades down below. The rocks were amazing, looking as if they had been neatly laid as bricks. The whole area was an erosion lover’s dream, showing the effects of water and the extremes of temperature. It was late afternoon and any warmth from the sun had long since gone. We climbed up a hill for a view over the village in a valley while Youssef stopped for a rest and a smoke. Just as we climbed down a country bus came along so Youssef flagged it down. It seemed to be full already, but we were wrong since we and a few more passengers further on were squeezed in. It was a mini bus, probably for about fourteen people, but the back area was full of bags of wheat or some such. That did not stop it transporting twenty people including the driver and four children, and a sheep. I couldn’t see anything but Keith was near a window and said that that was just as well, since I wouldn’t have liked the long, steep drops from the road to the valleys below. Youssef chatted to a man beside him all the way.

It was nearly dark when we arrived at our destination of Timetda. Youssef’s friend, another Youssef, also got off, since his family home was there too. We walked across to an earth walled house, beside a spring that fed a pond for animals to drink at and an outlet for people to collect water from. Youssef I (our guide) had told us that we would be staying with his family so we assumed that this was his house. Youssef I told us that Youssef II had invited us for a cup of tea. We entered a little courtyard with buildings around it. An elderly couple was sitting in a little, dark, smoke filled room where the fire was being coaxed into life. We were introduced to them by Youssef II as his grandparents. Next we were taken into a large room where both Youssefs laid out carpets at one end and gave us cushions to sit on and blankets to wrap ourselves in. It was icy cold and even two blankets were not warming me up. A lady and her daughter brought in the tea. I think that she was the widow of an uncle but I am not sure. At this point Youssef I said that we would be staying here, and that it was the same as his family’s house. Youssef II was as student in Amsterdam, studying geology and languages. He worked as a guide and a driver in the holidays and would continue that work when he finished. He spoke English but we spoke French with him at first to include the other Youssef in the conversation. Youssef I said that it would be better if we spoke English so that he could learn it. Youssef II explained that the Rose Valley has excellent examples of different periods of geological history in the rocks, and that the ‘bricks’ we had seen, the tilted sections and the gorge were all of great interest to geologists. Each year tours of geology students come here. He said that there were many Moroccan students at his university in Amsterdam, including some girls.

The two Youssefs offered us a taste of the fig wine that they were drinking; a clear and strong alcohol that they downed in small swigs. They were both smoking kif (hashish), as Youssef I had been doing for much of the day. He had told us that it is good for the health and has no consequences of impairing your judgement such as alcohol does. It just helps you to relax. We had thought of all the studies in Australia that have led to drug testing as well as alcohol testing for drivers, since it does impair judgement. Youssef I is a taxi driver as well as a guide.

It was not quite the evening with a Berber family seeing the way of life that I had expected, since we were apart from the family in a room with just the two guides. I asked about the bread making that Youssef I had mentioned as being something we would see, but it had finished while we were having the tea. We did see the semi-circular earth oven that it was made in and the tray it would have sat on. The bread is round and flat but does have some yeast in it, and is stored in a plastic basket under cloths. A pot of couscous sat ready on a little stove.

The lady brought in an earthenware container full of hot coals to warm the room and Youssef I started to prepare a tajine for our meal. A tajine is the name of a shallow ceramic dish with a conical lid. It sits on a ledge on the pot of coals and is cooked from below, with the steam aiding the cooking. First onions were cooked in a little oil and then spices and salt were added. Meat went in next and was cooked for about a quarter of an hour, being turned over every now and then. The meat was then piled up to make the inner core of a pyramid of vegetables – carrot, potato, green pepper and tomato, which were added according to the length of time that they would take to cook. It seemed to take forever to prepare and even longer to cook, but time goes slowly when you are sitting about listening to other people talking in another language and feeling cold. We asked what the lady had been talking about with them as she used the bellows to heat up our coals. It had been about the two marriage proposals she had received during the past three days and that she had not yet chosen.

I asked Youssef II if there was somewhere that I could put my long johns on under my pants, and he took me by torch light into another room where the lady and her daughter sat around a fire. He shone the torch on me so that I could see what I was doing, and I am sure that he took me into the one warmer room, but it felt strange to be taking off my pants in the presence of others, particularly of a man we had not met, who also came in. It is the only time that I have felt embarrassed to have a spot light on me. Still, I was now so much warmer that it was worth it.

We ate some vegetables from the tajine and a couscous and vegetables dish that the lady had prepared. It was a very nice meal, and we had enjoyed the soft singing of some traditional Berber songs while it cooked. After more tea, it was time for bed, with the blankets and rugs being consolidated on one side of the floor for us to sleep on and under. We asked where the toilet was, and then it was time to sleep. I wore all my clothes, my hat, scarf, gloves and shawl and it was still a while before I warmed up in bed. Keith was cold all night and found sleeping on the floor uncomfortable for his back. I was not so uncomfortable except when I rolled over onto my injured thigh which had quite a few lacerations on it.