Fes to Ifrane
A few kilometres on, we join a bigger national road. We stop at one of the roadside market stalls to buy fruit and veg but everything seems to be quite dear. We walk from one trader to another to compare prices but they are each as expensive as the other. We try to haggle but the traders, with friendly smiles, hold tight against us. We don’t know when we’ll get to another market, so we buy just a few items for at least the same price as they would be in Spain and drive off. We still need to learn a thing or two about haggling. Number one is probably that as foreigners, you will never get a good price in a hurry.
The moment we enter the outskirts of Fes, we get tailed by a motorbike. You are looking for international camping? Follow me. And he scuttles off. We follow google maps on our phone and for a while this coincides with where he wants to lead us. But then we turn off. A minute later he’s again at our side. You are going the wrong way, come with me! But for once we have our mind set on a particular spot for the night, where we can have electricity for the computer, a washing machine and a hot shower. Maybe we should have followed him because the Diamant Vert Campsite is nothing to write home about – not particularly welcoming reception, intermittently working showers and a broken down washing machine! There are some workers on site, cutting trees and doing general repair work and they seem to be the only friendly people around. We depart again the next day, having managed, for the princely extra sum of 60 Dirhams, to squeeze our washing into the daily workload of the laundry that deals with the sheets etc. from the many bungalows on the site.
We leave around lunchtime in the direction of Ifrane, along a well-built national road that feels like a motorway after our three days in the middle of nowhere. But here too are roadside stalls with the produce having changed to apples, nuts, figs and dates, or occasionally a bumper crop of Pomegranates.
Entering Ifrane is like entering a European alpine town. . The houses here are totally different to anywhere else in Morocco – they have very steep gables and look more like the houses of an east German village or maybe Alsatian, than of African style.
There are xmas decoration of sorts, except they’re not: a blue smurf with a Santa Claus costume and festive lighting but with the five pointed Moroccan star instead of the star of Bethlehem. We find our parking spot by a Mosque and have another early night.
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For more photos of houses in Ifrane, click here
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