I travel to see that with which I am already intimately acquainted, but to see it again in a different light, to pronounce it seen more clearly or more profoundly, or just more.
J Crumley
Most of the GTAM party wandered up the north bank of the Oued Nfis but I kept up the main road to try and photograph various historical sites. Perched up on a symmetrical cone of hill is Agadir n’ Gouj which, although not very old, catches the eye with its imperious setting. Down by the river below Talat n’ Yacoub (a Wednesday souk) is the Kasbah Goundafa, the main base of the tribal lord who controlled the passage of the Tizi n’ Test. The Goundafa were too powerful to be subjugated by the French so were used instead to control the Nfis and sometimes the southwest. As with the Glaoui, their strength was curtailed by the building of the road: the Corrieyairack of the Atlas.
Cunninghame Graham, hidalgo, traveller, writer and politician, made several visits to Morocco in Victorian times, the most interesting being an attempt to cross the Atlas to reach the fabled and then almost inaccessible city of Taroudant. The story is told in his rumbustious Magreb el Acksa. He travelled across the plains and followed the Oued Nfis from Amizmiz to modern Ouirgane and then rode up-river only to be stopped by the Goundafa, at the Kasbah Tagoundaf which lies further up the Nfis, perched high in an eyrie setting in a side-valley. His complaint that a few hours riding would gain the tizi and a view of the spires of Taroudant should not be taken too literally: the Test is not so easily climbed and Taroudant is still long, invisible, miles away after the 7000 foot descent. This book influenced Bernard Shaw who then wrote Captain Brassbound’s Conversion, a play set in Essaouira and the Atlas.
In their heyday, the Goundafa were used by the sultan to reduce the rebellious Sous province to submission. The rebellious sheiks laid on a great banquet, including one dish known to be a favourite of the Goundafa caïd’s. He grew suspicious, however, when the delicacy was over-eagerly pressed upon him. He declared he would keep it for later and the meal passed harmlessly enough. As soon as the guests had departed he had the poisoned dish set before him and sent for the sheiks one at a time and pressed them to join him in this private treat as a mark of honour. Those who made to do so in all innocence were stopped from eating and sent out secretly but those who refused the honour were seized by the servants and made to eat. Their bodies were thrown to the dogs. At a stroke he had resolved the troubles in the Sous and returned to the thanks of the sultan.
Eventually I left the tarmac road and paddled across the river to gain shady walking up and along to Tinmal. Cycle tracks showed Chris had been through. He was heading for the Tizi n’ Test and Taroudant. When Charles and Co. arrived we drank the small hanut dry before exploring the restored ancient monument which is, strictly speaking, a mosque and one of only two that non-Moslems are allowed to enter in Morocco. In a remote village in the Anti-Atlas, however, I was once taken in hand by a small boy who showed me everything of interest. He pulled me into a cool building and only as I stood in the middle and saw the mihrab (alcove) on the eastern wall did I realise I was in a small mosque. At Imoulas (Western Atlas) when two of us were trying to photograph a new mosque a local insisted on taking us in so we could admire, and photograph, a superbly painted ceiling. What delighted me was that such craftsmanship still exists, even in remote villages. In the towns and busier places if visitors look like accidentally straying into a mosque someone will always give a (polite) call to stop. In some cases there may be warning notices or a bar across, the latter as much to stop stray animals as errant humans.
Tinmal’s fort-like mosque is all that remains of a twelfth century city, part of the expansion of the dynamic Almohad dynasty. This was founded by Ibn Tumert, a Berber from the Anti-Atlas, who returned from eastern travels and set up his ribat. He slowly converted the tribes, beating off Almoravid attacks, but died before he could capture Marrakech. His death was kept secret for three years to help establish his successor, the great Abd el Moumen, who took Marrakech in 1148 and eventually ruled from Spain to the Sahara. He created Tinmal as a great religious centre—but also quietly disposed of Ibn Tumert’s children and relatives to ensure there were no rivals to his power. He was to be buried at Tinmal in a tomb next to Ibn Tumert’s.
The roofless interior is filled with brick horseshoe arches, a bewildering, wonderful geometrical pattern. There is a courtyard and, unusually, a tower over the mihrab niche, where some decorative detail survives. The locals now use the mosque for Friday worship and visitors are not admitted on that day. Nothing remains of the city surrounding the holy spot, other than vestiges of the great wall barring any access from the Marrakech direction. As with the still impressive Almoravid walls on Jbel Zagora, these trace from river to high on the hillside.
Coming out from the ribat a hoopoe went looping off. “Hudhud” the guardien called it. Some of the names of birds were quite onomatopoeic (the cuckoo is oukouk, the chough narrar) while the names of others would fit well in Narnia (the golden eagle is ogab, the bulbul bou laglag, the pied wagtail mizizi and the greylag wiz). When it comes to different names for all the warblers and the like they are simply called ‘little brown birds’, with which many nascent bird-watchers would sympathise.
Paths known and new took us on up-valley from Tinmal. There was some childish chalked graffiti, but in what other country would I see chalked on a wall the English words: ‘I am very happy’? A pleasant path took us angling up the fields to reach Mzouzit where we hoped the small roadside shops might sell drinks. Mzouzit guards the entrance of the Ougdamt valley which runs up to drain the peaks of Jbel Igdat (3616 m) and Jbel Erdouz (3579 m), the highest summits west of the Toubkal massif. This is a surprisingly neglected area with not only huge peaks and tough tizis but any number of criss-crossing mule tracks for high-class trekking. We once made a four-day traverse from Erdouz to Jbel Gourza, the 3000-er backing Tinmal.
Jbel Gourza was the peak bagged in 1871 by Hooker and Ball on the first real expedition into the Atlas with both scientific and exploratory ambitions. Sir Joseph Hooker was director of Kew Gardens, John Ball was also a botanist and the first president of the Alpine Club and George Maw (who had to go home earlier) was one of those versatile amateurs with many interests. He wrote the definitive monograph on the species crocus, for example. He was also a noted geologist and his studies of clay were linked to his family tile manufacturing business. He made a collection of Moroccan ceramics from 1869–71. All were experienced travellers and, despite every hindrance being put in their way, climbed to the Tizi Tagharat (3465 m) above Sidi Chamarouch. (Maw fought to the tizi in a blizzard, alone.) On a second sortie via Amizmiz they managed to elude their guides and climbed a hill they heard as Teza or Tezi (tizi probably, just meaning pass) but from their description is Jbel Gourza, a nine-hour slog for the first Atlas 3000-er by an outsider. Any speculation on this being the hill climbed was removed on our traverse, for the photograph in their classic book was recognised. The buildings on top which they described are still there, although propitiatory bull sacrifices may not be the order of today.
Joseph Thomson (famed for his travels in East Africa) visited Morocco; in 1888 he climbed from Amizmiz to the Tizi n’ Imiri west of Jbel Gourza, thinking that was the watershed, and was appalled to find the Goundafa country lay, not south of the range, but in its midst (the Oued Nfis) with a further crest beyond. Despite an unfriendly welcome at the Kasbah Goundafa, a companion being stung by a scorpion lurking in his pyjamas and being threatened with a sword, he almost reached that southern crest from the Agoundis gorges. He returned to Amizmiz, travelled west to the Assif el Mel and from there doubled back, crossed the Tizi n’ Tislit and climbed Jbel Igdat (the peak of the birds, 3616 m) the highest ascent of that period. He returned by a different pass, the whole being done in defiance of authority and considerable danger. His book is a neglected classic.
Our GTAM route kept to the Oued Nfis, and for one section we were forced to walk on its shingles as the banks were too jungly. We made the most of the band of shade under the Ougdemt road bridge during lunch. By the time we had demolished our runny cheddar and oatcakes, my soaking sandals and socks had dried out. A kingfisher flashed past and a pair of blue-bellied rollers perched awhile, an odd conjunction of brilliant blues. We walked along the road a bit but a loop had us crossing to the quieter mule track on the north bank which ran between attractive villages. The second of these was Ighil, backing a large hollow of intense cultivation, the valley smothered with fields, themselves nearly hidden by riverside poplars, oleanders, olive groves and almond and fruit trees. We undulated on and I was keen to see ahead in case the mules had sneaked past while we were out of sight. We’d just decided to wait when a smiling woman, a sprig of mint in her headscarf, asked us to stop for tea: what a good idea.
We were no sooner settled in a cool room with bright cream walls looking out to a sunny courtyard when I saw the mules come into view on the road over the river so I went out and made sure they saw us. Ali ran over to see what we planned and arrived not even out of breath. Fresh bread and new butter went with the tea, a bit of a female gathering in which we males were largely irrelevant. Monique had a great time and was shown round where we could not intrude. Cosmetics and clothing are a universal female talking point! The young girls of the house were as attractive as ever, in floral dresses over woolly tights, oval faces with such large eyes framed in unruly hair. One girl wore a charm against the evil eye, which proved to be the preserved eye of an owl.
A bit further on I yelled speculatively into the jungle below and Ali replied. We found a way down and along shingle banks to discover camp in a small clearing between walled fields and riverbed. After relaxing over drinks I did a major sorting-out of supplies for the foreseeable future. I’d chosen a bivvy site below a briar covered bank but the wind steadily rose and eventually I had to pitch the tent in self-defence. Conditions had been building up for hours, a meteorological version of Ravel’s Bolero, promising all the evil of that implacable piece; however we escaped the destructive drum beats of the storm that swept most of the country. We struggled to cook and crunched our way through the dust additives of supper.
Charles spent hours whittling a poplar stick, stripping off the bark and carving it to taste. He’d been using another stick but had left it at the ladies’ teahouse. Young Omar stripped and carved a very ornate stick but the next day leant on it rather hard, snapping it. There was a large boulder holding back the river in a deep pool and most of us took the opportunity to bath and wash salt-stained garments. In those little tasks time soon curtains down on day. We had a night of deafening frog calls, glow-worms and lorries on the road passing like science fiction monsters. I found a chameleon and horrified some kids by picking the creature up and letting it perch on my arm. They regard these fascinating reptiles (tatta in Arabic) with superstitious horror. I discovered why: the chameleon once betrayed the Prophet Mohammed to his enemies. The Prophet was hiding in a cave when his pursuers came on an old woman gathering wood on the slope below and, at a promise of great wealth, she twisted her mouth and rolled her eyes towards the cave. She was immediately changed into the beast we know, with its grim mouth and erratic eyes, damned to all the faithful.
“So restful not to have dirty dust blowing for breakfast,” I wrote. With rags of cloud on the peaks the night had been hot so I’d slept naked under my sleeping bag; was it only a week previously I’d been in the bag, wearing thermals? There was time to make porridge (always popular) and enjoy toast and marmalade before setting off on one of the best day’s walking. Monique, however, had spent most of breakfast time cross-legged on a knoll meditating, and did nothing to help pack up and get away. She came trailing after.
A good path undulated on to Azal, and the route produced a variety of flowers we’d never seen before: a sweet-scented clematis and a shrub with a very similar flower. There was bright orange-red pimpernel too and a shrub like a small white-flowering oleander with bladders that looked like green gooseberries. A flycatcher was working overtime in the shrubbery. One village had a pond and a fancy mosque with a star carved over the doorway. Beyond, we went astray as the river had eroded away the path, so we ended up on the shingles again and crossed almost under a well-made suspension bridge leading to Assoul. Here we zigzagged up through the fields to gain the known up-valley piste which comes in from the main road below the steep climb to the Tizi n’ Test. I’d once seen a mongoose there.
The piste made its way through the intensely-red hamri landscape, the soft layered sandstone symbolic of Africa which is always hot and hard on trekkers’ feet. I knew of a small shop ahead where we might just find drinks—if open. I kept quiet so I wouldn’t raise any hopes but the hanut was open and we all bought 1½ litre bottles of fizzy drinks to carry away, and consumed smaller bottles there and then. Men were bringing in sacks of grain and children came with coppers for individual sweets, a scene one sees the world over. A small girl, in tattered colours and untended hair, sat playing in the dust with a piece of rusty tin. We were at the top range for olives, a tree which may have had its origins in the Atlas foothills. Maize (sixteenth century) and potato (nineteenth century) are New World importations.
We soon came to our lunch spot at a bridge over the Nfis, Monique drifting in when everything was ready. She was not making herself very popular. The bridge was typically constructed: trunks across, branches and slabs of stones piled on top and belayed by a steel cable to the bank so even if damaged in a flood, the main trunks would be saved. We’re always surprised this isn’t seen more often but the attitude to bridges is quite casual and, if washed away—mektoub—they are easily rebuilt. The skills of construction, from generations of using local materials, are impressive. We lingered an hour on the hot rounded boulders by the water and paddled blissfully in common content. While novelty tastes, experience relishes, and all of us had had previous Moroccan visits, Charles a dozen or more, including previous treks up and down the Nfis. Black damselflies flickered over the tresses of water crowfoot.
Long poplar poles, stripped of bark, were being brought by mules and piled ready for building use. Large beams are laid across the house walls then thinner, shorter pieces are laid at right angles across them, with any amount of local variation. At Mohammed’s house the cross pieces are what looked like long kindling, in others they use thin branches, in others strong reeds. Over this, layers of mud are pressed, with or without a lining of plastic sheeting. There is usually a slight rim and the accumulating rainwater is led out by a spout to pour clear of the walls. Often the first indication of rain when waking in the morning is the sound of spouting water “like an elephant urinating”, as a disgruntled voice once suggested. Snow is shovelled off the flat roofs as soon as possible to stop them becoming waterlogged and eventually leaking. The four of us once spent a night at the end of a week of rain: great dollops of gritty mud splodged onto the floor all night and we cringed in the drier, safer areas, our sleeping bags covered by the mules’ tarpaulins. Wealthier house owners will now concrete roofs or lay attractive tiling. Boundary walls too are always capped with overhanging stones, leaves, branches etc. as protection against the rain. One November, a gale from the east drove heavy rain against the houses of Mzic above Imlil and about 10% suffered collapse. Mohammed’s is set into an eastern hillside so survived unscathed. As one goes up a river like the Oued Nfis, the size of rooms diminishes in proportion to the size of trees i.e. the size of the main beams available.
If I mention rain rather frequently, its not because Morocco is a notably wet country (in fact, Morocco is a “cold country with a hot sun” in the words of the late king). It’s because these occurrences are unusual enough to be News. Our mantra was: just another bloomin’ sunny day. As we sat by the Oued Nfis on GTAM (and on every previous visit) we were being grilled by sun. For 80 % of the time sunshine is the norm, even in winter. What we recall and often gossip about, in the same way as the locals, are the escapades and sorrows where rain overdid its meteorological contribution. Sun is just sun.
One of the joys of the Oued Nfis is the constantly changing landscape. We entered a delightful section where pines (Aleppo pines, Pinus halepensis) dominated with a path clear. We passed the remote farm of Oukoun, the last height for growing almonds. We had stopped there for tea previously but as the campsite was not far ahead we went on while the muleteers stopped for cups of leben (buttermilk). A side stream had provided water (and a green water snake) previously but was quite dry and we had to fetch water from the main river. We carefully took water from places where there were braidings which acted as filter beds and, we hoped, removed most of the microbes and sediment. We never drank untreated water in doubtful circumstances and tended to boil water anyway, for tea or coffee.
The ground was shaly and mulched with pine needles and the spur by the stream was soon dotted with our tents or bivvy spots. The river came out of a gorge, silvery shining and edged with rosy oleanders in full flower: perfection. I went up the gorge and found a granite-held pool where it was possible to plunge into the glittering water. It was necessary to lie on my clothes as protection against the sun-heated rock. The last rays of the sun spotlighted my bivvy place on the spur and the dusk brought a breeze, warm and young.
Every site up the Nfis was marked as extra good and that was no exception, lying on the tent rather than inside with the stars glittering through the trees and the contented purr of the river below. Bivouacing under the stars we are wrapped in the warmth of wonder, we come nearest perhaps to perfect peace, inhabit awhile the still centre of pure happiness. This was why we journeyed—to pursue the persistent aspirations of our species.
From our spur camp we climbed up to traverse above the gorge where I’d had my swim. There’s an invigorating feeling of spaciousness in traversing high above water level, especially when the view leads the eye through one craggy ‘V’ after another to distant peaks. Our first stop was to inspect an impressive new area of cultivation. A plastic pipe had been slung right across the valley (fixed to a support wire) to tap into a source on the other flank and the water made available from this had allowed the creation of a small farm on the slope below us: there was a holding tank and a score of terraced fields on what had recently been a steep slope of rubble. One constantly comes on such astonishing feats, for which a basic precondition is a country at peace and able to commit life and labour to creativity. (This is in contrast to what one man’s misrule can do, say, to a country like Uganda under Idi Amin, or Zimbabwe under Mugabe.)
Coming round a bend we caused a scurrying and a waving of tails as several ground squirrels did their vanishing trick. Sibsib is the local name for this creature which looks a bit like a grey squirrel, but with a stripy tail. They don’t climb trees but, when scared, go to ground. They are not uncommon, even along busy roadsides, but are wary of humans.
A few more wiggles and we came on the village of Idrarane, the first of a regular series that gives a day’s walking through intensely irrigated and cultivated slopes with many villages of considerable architectural interest. Balconies, roofs with rustic railings and finely painted windows are a feature, with subtle differences in styles making the Nfis buildings an entity. It had some fine dry-stone walling, often several stories high, with the houses enclosing long, shady lanes. If I dropped my box of architectural slides I could sort them out again into their geographical areas. The same applies at home of course: you’re not likely to mix architectural slides of the Yorkshire Dales with those of the East Neuk of Fife but you have to have explored a country fairly well to know this.
We shared the path with cows going to their fields and a colourfully dressed girl carrying a complaining chicken. The air was rich with the scent of lavender, and the path continued doggedly uphill to Lankayt. Leaving the village, a magnificent 200-year-old pine soared into a spreading canopy. There was a good view down onto Souk Sebt which occupies the spur where the Oued Oumsour joins the Oued Nfis (shown in the wrong place on the 100,000 map and not at all on the 50,000). Major paths radiate up every valley and over crests and a piste comes in down from the Tizi n’ Test.
Sebt is seven, indicating a Saturday souk site. (Souks are very seldom held on Fridays.) The piste from the pass means that camions and camionettes can come down to the souk and over the last few years we have watched the steady progress of the building of a new piste up the south side of the Nfis. This ends opposite the last village Agadir, west of Ansiwi, despite what maps state. Very little mechanical aid is used in road building and the skill and speed with which long stretches of walling appear is impressive. Our descent to the souk was a bit of an obstacle course with seguias to cross, path and water for a while being the same. The souk was ghostly quiet and deserted. A shutter squeaking was almost eerie. Only a litter of cabbage leaves, squashed tomatoes and fresh mule droppings pointed to recent activity. Nothing was open on the north bank so we crossed the substantial bridge to the stalls on the south side, one of which had fed and housed us in the past and I hoped could provide refreshments. A quartet playing cards and an atmosphere of decay wasn’t encouraging.
Here too, Monique’s duck-nibbling annoyances finally broke my patience. I exploded, for the only time on GTAM. Many consider me pretty laid back but that is just the discipline from decades of having to be so, looking after hundreds of people, some who could be inefficient and irritating. Long-time friends knew of the volcano—and poor Monique received a high reading on the vocal Richter scale. Mine was the constant burden of ensuring this almost abstract yet so physical ploy kept on the rails and to schedule. In a hard-working team her languid style just did not fit in, and I said so. The muleteers looked a bit astonished. They, to me, are always such an example of happy cooperation. Their friendliness and kindness, among themselves as well as to strangers, are constantly both rebuke and encouragement. I had to live up to them—or try to. I just hope something of their graciousness has rubbed off on me. Anger is always regretted. I had a soft target.
We pushed on, once the muleteers were sure of our plans, to lunch down in the quiet shade of a tree with a view to Ouizammarn. We knew from experience the village would swarm with kids. Sure enough, they turned out in force to welcome us. The kids, far from fearing the camera, were all for posing—for a fee of course, which was denied them. Several older buildings were crumbling away and decorative chevron work and other details were being lost.
Some clouds battened down the heat and we had to toil up the sweep of path to Imlil, the biggest and most spectacular Nfis village. Buildings pile on top of each other with secretive dark alleys. There were several new buildings and the marabout had been rebuilt as a mosque. Imlil had associations with Ibn Toumert. A white flag hung limp from the gibbet on top of the shrine, indicating prayer was in progress. On a rooftop an old man was testing arthritic limbs with his devotions, each repeated bow and prostration quite audible. At least he had the direction correct. In Marrakech, I once observed someone bowing in quite the wrong direction. A passer-by took hold of the figure and rotated him ninety degrees before walking on, neither saying a word, neither interrupting the devotions.