Today we said goodbye to Josephine, Ben and Fatima at Dar El Hana and set off on our trip through the mountains to the desert. Meeting an Aussie ex-pat in Fes really helped to make the maze of a city more accessible, and after a couple of breakfasts, Josephine seemed more like a friend than a hotel owner. I can highly recommend her riad to anyone wanting to visit Fes!
We were asked to meet Abdel at 9am, and after a quick stop at the pharmacie (my head cold is back with a vengeance, and after unsuccessfully trying to mime that I wanted cold and flu medication to the French-speaking pharmacist, it was easier to hand her the finished packet of polaramine, point at my nose and look pained. Antihistamines will do at a pinch) we were on the road by 9.05. Not bad at all!
Today was a seven-hour drive, so you can imagine we travelled through some pretty different country! We passed through cedar forests populated by gibbon-like monkeys on our way into the Middle Atlas mountains and even saw snow on the ground! It was pretty icy by the time Abdul took pity on us and stopped to get a closer look, neither of us having seen snow before, but nevertheless. Snow! On the ground! Up close!
We stopped in Midelt for lunch at another “tourist-exclusive” restaurant. Pretty impressive looking, but we were a bit worried… However, there was a cat sauntering across the dining room floor as we entered, and it wasn’t as terrible food as the one we went to in Meknes, so I’ll give it something! The mint tea was pretty bad though. How do you ruin mint tea, I hear you ask – isn’t it just hot water with some tea steeped slightly then poured into glasses with fresh mint in them, and then add sugar? Nope, apparently you boil it on the hob for a few hours with dried mint until it’s a bitter, tannin-y yellow mess with brown floaty bits. To give them credit, our waiter saw our faces and replaced the pot with a fresh one, and glasses that actually had mint in them, but it didn’t help too much as the contents of the pot was the same overcooked stuff. Ah well…
Since Midelt is known for its apples, R had a quite nice-looking apple pie for dessert. I had the Saison Fruits, which comprised of two mandarins (yum), a banana (yum), a quarter of a pomegranate (triple yum!) and an apple, presumably one of Midelt’s finest (floury, only managed a quarter of it). So they did redeem themselves slightly with dessert.
The next couple of hours showed an amazing variety of scenery – from rugged mountains and sheer cliffs, to tunnels hewn from the rock face, to the huge dam just before we reached the Ziz Valley. Then the valley itself, which looks like a forest of date palms. No wonder this is the date capital of Morocco! Apparently the King was here in October for the Date Festival!
We continued along the Ziz Valley to reach our hotel for the night, the Ksar Assalassil, a riad which owes a lot to the traditional caravansereil plan! It’s gorgeous! We met our guide for the Ziz Valley here and settled in for the night in preparation for the grand Sahara trip tomorrow.
Two Weeks Away 