Morocco.... A love story - (Day 6)

I read the itinerary for Day 6 - Cross Middle Atlas Mountains, Drive to Erfoud.

Sounds like a quiet day, right? Well it turns out I was wrong.

We said goodbye to our hotel in Fez after breakfast and headed out. Abdel continued educating us on Morocco while we rode. The wide variety of knowledge he has about his country is heartwarming. It's obvious he really loves his country.

Random things we learned while driving.

• The King's advisor is Jewish.

• Mlah (or Mellah) - Salt or Saline. Jewish communities were called the Mlah (where the salt or saline area is)

• Berbers - They are thought to be indigenous of North Africa.

• Berbers are known to raise animals. They are not into agriculture due to the land (desert)

• It is normal for a Berber to be very concerned when their sheep are sick. However, if their child is sick they have the mindset that they will gt better and they shouldn't worry. Sheep can sell for $800 - $1,000 so losing sheep is bad.

• When you see an Oasis, know that it is owned by someone.

• If you eat a date from someone else's tree as you are walking, that is fine. You cannot take any you are not eating though.

  
  
  
  

  

As we were driving along, we passed this writing on the hillside. I asked Abdel what it meant.

He said the three words stand for Allah, Homeland, King. Beautiful! He said to represent Allah with your hand, you should have your thumb and pointer finger touching and your other three fingers raised. Kind of like when we make the hand sign for "OK".

The first stop we made for the day was in Ifran. Ifran is a Moroccan ski resort and just lovely . We stopped at a coffee shop and just hung out for a while. Very quaint little ski resort town.

We hit the road again, curious to see what our next adventure would be. Well, we found out fairly quickly. Abdel told us our next sight may or may not be there. Of course, everyone's curiosity went up. As we were driving, he was looking out the window and finally said, "Oh, they are here". What did we see? Baboons! They live in the trees just off the roads. They know that people will feed them though so they come out of the trees a lot. Not always though so Abdel was not sure we would see them. We kind of got suckered into buying peanuts to fee them but it was worth it. They were definitely used to humans!

As we continued on, I was in awe of the beauty of Morocco. We were driving through the Mid Atlas Mountains and each turn was another stunning masterpiece of landscape. The mountains looked like paintings. My photos do NOT capture the magnitude of their beauty. We found out that one our goals was to find a sheep herder on our side of the road that we could safely pull over and talk to.

We finally found one and Abdel got out of the bus to see if the sheep herder would be willing to talk to us. He was in agreement so we all got out of the bus to go talk to him. Well, actually, Abdel spoke to him and translated for us. The shepherd was a Berber and only spoke Berber. We found out he was in his early 20's and taking care of the sheep because his father was sick. He was so friendly and so willing to answer questions. And take photos!

I had noticed the shepherd had braces. Later, I asked Abdel later how a berber could afford braces. He told me people often put things in their mouths to make people think they have braces, which would be a sign of money. Kind of like being one of the cool kids.

The remainder of the day was filled with beauty, laughter and friendship. We made it to Erfoud later in the day and had a nice relaxing dinner and evening.

Jim and I went to be happy and sleepy. Life is good!