We had an easy travel day from Fes to Azrou today. The weather is cooler than yesterday by about 10 degrees. 97 versus 87. The bus station is an bustling place. There are men standing around trying to guide you to the various private bus companies to buy a ticket so that they get a commission. We had sorted it out yesterday, so we knew the counter and time of departure. We paid an entire 18 dirhams (about $1.80) for the two hour trip. They had one of the touts show us to the bus, so our luggage stowage charge was an extra 5 dirhams for his help. Always a charge for everything in Fes.
Along the route we passed many orchards of olive trees, a shepard boy herding a flock of sheep, many fields of wheat that were being hand harvested and tied, stands along the road selling pottery, minerals and rocks, and a number of fruit orchards. The bus didn’t stop too frequently but it did stop when someone along the side of the road waved it down, or when someone asked to get off enroute.
We went though the town of Ifrane. Its claim to fame is skiing in the winter and its bigger claim to fame is an American style university taught in English. The university is based on the King’s ‘tolerant Islam’ and the acceptance of all faiths. The guys on the train had told us about it. It is expensive about 7000 USD a year to attend and prestigious in the country. They have exchange students from out of country that attend. The town looked alpine and had the standard chalet roofs one would expect in a snowy region. This looks quite different from everything else we’ve seen here. Most people were in western clothing. The landscape changed from orchards to cedar and pine to add to the sense of changing culture.
The town of Azrou is small, about 50,000 according to the guide book and a half hour from Ifrane, but from my perspective it looks closer to a town the size of 15,000. I guess people live close together here.
We met two other English speaking travelers and exchanged travel notes over mint tea while waiting out the afternoon thunderstorm. One is on his way back to the states after spending six months in Paris studying French. The other is from Austrailia, has been a cook in Scotland, saves up until he has enough money to continue traveling. He’s been to Turkey, Nepal, Thailand, Bulgaria and the list goes on. His opinion is that this is one of the tougher countries to travel in due to the constant hustling. I think he will tag along with us as we head further south.
The hustling has gone away in this town. It has a line of cafes, two internet cafes (a kid and his dad are playing Balder’s gate on the computer next to me), an electronics store, teleboutiques (for those without phones at home, or those that need to make a copy or fax), gsm phone store, and an open produce/meat market. We bought a couple of postcards from a guy that has an extended inventory of carpets if we are interested, and from the market, two apples and a newspaper cone of peanuts for our long bus ride tomorrow. This is a nice town to chill in. The big thing to do is to go out trekking from here to see the Barbary apes. We don’t have sleeping bags, so we are just passing through on our way down to the Saharan sand dunes.
It still is amazingly warm, even in these hills. We crashed for an afternoon siesta and woke up in that muggy soggy state that you end up in when it is too warm in your room. We are near the mosque, so the call to prayer in the morrning will be waking us up as the sun comes up tomorrow.
The outside of Moroccan towns are not very pretty. The life of a house goes on inside around interior courtyards and so does the decoration. It is not really possible to tell a high-end home from a low-end one from the outside. Everything has the flat roof pink, yellow or white exterior with a good layer of color changes that come with years of existence. You get a glimpse of hibiscus plants in bloom that have overgrown the courtyards, but that is about it.
The men really have a corner on holding cafe tables for mint tea, smoking and chatting. The women have a room upstairs, but we haven’t ventured in to check the upper floors. As a foreign woman, I get the luxury of sitting outside with Derrell, and I don’ get much attention and haven’t had a raised eyebrow yet. It sort of is proof that Moroccans are friendly. There isn’t a sense that you are held to their customs, but you do get a sense that they will never quite puzzle out why you would really want to sit at a cafe in the afternoon with a bunch of men. After trying out the cafe perch for the afternoon, I think they have something good going. Much better to be sipping hot mint tea in the afternoon heat than washing, cooking, cleaning and shopping.
Anyhow, it is just getting dark and a sprinkling of lights are coming on in the city. Hopefully, the rain doesn’t return and we can go on an evening stroll. There isn’t much else to do in the evening. There is no drinking which makes the streets extremely safe. Without TV, people come out on the streets enmass. And the weather is warm, so it is an excellent time to pull up a park bench and watch the evening go by. Now only if the rain stays away, mate.
