Imagine… gazing on an entirely new scene; strange birds, unknown plants; and of beholding, as it were, another nature, and a new world. There is a kind of supernatural beauty in these mountainous prospects which charms both the senses and the mind into a forgetfulness of oneself and of everything in the world.
J J Rousseau, 1761
Trying a new way through this other Imlil I became disorientated (mislaid rather than lost) but was rescued by a troop of pleasant kids who greatly enjoyed looking through my camera lens. Most were in decayed djellabas, with their heads shaved and pumpkin faces split by huge gap-toothed grins. While heads are still often shaved as a medical precaution, the religious-based habit of leaving patterns and tufts of hair has largely gone. There used to be regional variations (just as there were for tattoos on women’s faces—also a dying tradition) and my informant was only half-joking when he said a tuft was left so Allah, if need be, could reach down and haul the child to safety. The kids said the mules had gone over a bridge and up the piste so I waited above the bridge for the others but out-voted, we kept on along the mule-track. As the mules were to stop as soon as possible beyond Imlil we went carefully, but after the first long straight the valley became craggier and we began to wonder if we’d missed the camp. Eventually the blue dome was spotted on the far side and a small path took us down to the river opposite the site.
We’d seen two snakes on the path and, from what I’ve read, the western end of the Atlas seems to have more snakes than many areas. We saw few scorpions on the other hand. Camp was in a walnut grove: there were both older trees heavily laden with green nuts and several younger frail-looking trees. The grove was backed by the new piste (two cars passed!) and caves could be seen in the crags. Hosain and Omar went off to Imlil for fodder, I worked at turning packets of tomato soup into something palatable and Ali made the regular pot-tagine. The site was another extra good one in our estimation.
I went to look at the cave above the seguia and, in doing so, spotted a treecreeper stuttering its way up a trunk, then flying down to work up another, and another: as busy as a mouse. On about the fourth tree, the bird disappeared round the back out of sight and I waited for it to reappear, only to receive a shock. The bird that came back into view was several times bigger, tail pressed to bark and bill questing for food—the treecreeper had metamorphosed into a woodpecker. Something similar had happened a few days earlier when a perky wren went scolding off round a bend in the river only to suddenly reappear as a dipper.
The Nfis valley is too good to rush and our days were intentionally short on walking to be long on enjoyment. A few more villages lined the rolling river before the next major landscape change. Agadir is the last village of the Ejanaten, as the locals call the villages ranging up from the souk, and knowing the village from several visits I was hoping a certain shop would be open. It was. Drinks and Taggers time, those chocolate biscuits Charles and I had been addicted to. (A newly constructed piste now links the villages, sad news for trekkers but undoubtedly appreciated by the locals.)
We weren’t really surprised when Monique said she wasn’t going any further. She’d stay in the village and work village to village back down the Nfis. Her gear was ahead on a mule, of course, and we said someone would bring it down to her. She found a mule in the village at an inflated price, an irony not lost on us as she’d been complaining at what we paid our muleteers (the official rate). We parted as graciously as we could.
We followed the path which was also a seguia, just keeping ahead of a minor spate created by someone opening a sluice to change the irrigation pattern. We crossed the boulder-strewn side valley leading to Oumzra and zigzagged up to the main valley track by a farm to begin some more determined uphill work. The rising sweep was through dry scrub, but ending on a prow with a view both up and down the valley. Adrar n’ Oumzra (3451 m) looked dramatic from there and was scrutinised closely for another trip (Insh’ Allah). We couldn’t spare the time then.
That time came after GTAM when four of us met on the Tizi n’ Test summit (Ali from Taroudant, the rest of us from Asni) and backpacked the crest to bivvy on Timesguida n’ Ourkalt (2899 m). We had a spectacular view of the Flillis peaks, descended to the Nfis and went on up the Tiouyaline side valley, too steep and difficult for mules. We bivouacked about 300 m below the summit. The weather had been perfect for days so we were equipped with minimal gear. Ali had not even brought a bivvy bag. Rain seemed to be as likely as Tamri refusing food or Taza laying an egg. However, settled for the night on the platforms we’d levelled, it snowed: wet, slobbery, clinging snow. Ali wormed in under a rock, Peter snored all night and never knew of the conditions (he was in a decent Gore-tex bag) but Liz and I lay and shivered hour after hour in squalid misery, unable even to see the time. They were long hours that night and Oumzra escaped once more. We retreated for further days of perfect weather, camping the next night at the Imlil GTAM site and having a huge bonfire after dark.
We bagged Oumzra on a second attempt, reaching the peak by the side valley from Souk Sebt, walking up past Igg to camp beyond Zrit and, after a recce day of poor weather, carrying a high bivvy again. We abandoned prepared platforms to go for it there and then as conditions looked so threatening. Oumzra gave an excellent climb and Peter, Ali and I exchanged hugs of satisfaction on the summit. Aït Idir Mohammed and Stewart Logan (aiming for a Millennium tenth round of the Munros) were also in the party. The tents were blowing like spinnakers on return so we raced into Zrit in search of digs. Ten minutes later the street was a thigh-deep rush of water as the storm of storms arrived. We eventually escaped from Souk Sebt by camionette up to the Tizi n’ Test and Ijoukak—fourteen of us, all the baggage, and three mules, on board the pick-up.
We exchanged greetings with a boy striding past with a sheep at his heels, looking just as if he were taking the beast for a walk as one might a pet dog. Flocks of sheep and goats in Morocco are of course still led and not driven: man, boy or girl, with bread in satchel and a can of water slung over a shoulder will be out on the hill with them all day long. They seldom set out before the sun reaches the azib or pen where the beasts are kept overnight. Their shepherds are their protectors and friends. The Bible is full of references to shepherding of this kind. One of the hidden stages of any society’s progress is when men stop leading sheep and start driving them.
A wall was an unusual feature on the spur and enclosed what was probably the last farm in the valley. Workers were heading steadily up-valley, and when a gaffer on a mule passed with his brolly held aloft, I quickly followed suit with mine and enjoyed overtaking to see his expression. It was an extra hot area as the landscape was harsh granite, the path often composed of white sand which had weathered off the bulbous rocks. We lunched in the shade of massive walnut trees as we wanted to be sure Ali knew where to camp. He came on ahead, singing away, and we had no problem pinpointing the required stopping place: the spot where Tony had jumped into the river last time. He had done this fully clothed to show the qualities of the new Pertex-pile garments, a performance that had been mentioned frequently since then by the local lads who witnessed the strange event.
There was another steep pull, then the mules would have to make a long detour as the Nfis runs down through a deep-cut gorge, passable only for confident pedestrians. On one Flowers trip everyone came down that way including Mary, a lively septuagenarian who was only a fairly modest walker but she was happily taken by the hand by Aït Idir Mohammed and toddled along with great aplomb. When we traversed over the final rotten screes to regain the track she was tired enough to welcome the offer of a mule ride, but the casual effect was lost when she climbed onto the beast and ended up facing the wrong way.
We scrabbled across the rubbish slope to the gorge to pick our way on the angled granite slabs between the near-impenetrable verge of scrub and the sheer drop to the growling waters below, titillating and exposed but with the gritty granite giving a grip almost as sure as Skye gabbro. For the first time since Toubkal, I donned boots instead of my sandals. Just how a bit of knowledge eases progress can be seen in the fun John Willison and Clare Wardle had here. He wrote:
‘We enter the Nfis Gorge which produces a beautiful river with perfectly formed pools every few metres. Not on the scale of the Tessaout Gorge but much narrower and the river undercuts both sides for long stretches and rather than climb out in the hot sun we first paddle, then wade and finally it is a case of actually swimming. I try to keep my sack dry so when Clare plunges into our fifth pool, I opt out and climb high. This turns out to be not much fun: loose rock, gritty holds and slippery wet boots do nothing to help. In fact it gets a little desperate and I find I can only go on up rather than rejoin the river; I shout to Clare my intentions and scramble for another quarter of an hour to the top of the gorge. To my annoyance I find a mule trail. I descend the next gully back into the gorge, shouting all the time; no sign of Clare, and as the going looks rather easier I carry on up the river. Half an hour more, I decide she must have stopped earlier, so I go right back to just above the pools; still no sign; time for lunch. Problem: I have the stove and the jam, she has the fuel and biscuits. It has to be sardines and jam—not my favourite meal—and I suddenly discover, having removed my boots, that my ill-chosen lunch spot is the home of a colony of large ugly spiders. I fight them off for an hour or so and then decide to go back along the river, leaving my pack under a rock. It starts to rain of all things, and the spiders are coming out in hordes.
‘Four hundred metres down stream, I see a large bit of orange plastic that wasn’t there last time; as I approach it becomes Clare’s bivvy bag, and I surprise a very unhappy Clare underneath. She too has been up and down the sides of the gorge calling for me and had given up hope—I had presumably fallen off some climb and lay in unhelpful pieces at the bottom. She is rarely so pleased to see me; we walk back to my sack and try further on, but another series of pools sends us up the next gully. At last the mule track is gained and we walk on well into the evening, stopping in a sandy sparse copse with piles of dead wood. It’s a lovely camp and we curl up in our bags beside the fire with an all-in-stew, playing the recorder to the distant animal yowlings.’
The slopes on the south of the river rise to extremely wild and rocky peaks. Looking to them Ali told us of a recent fatality when a bee-man, searching for wild colonies, spotted the nest of the rare, protected lammergeyer and, with old prejudices like a Highland keeper, tried to reach the nest to kill the young birds. One of the parent birds attacked the man and he lost his hold and fell, many hundreds of metres. Even with local guides the authorities took three days to reach the body—or what was left of it.
Once the main section of exposed gorge was passed we stopped for a swim in some of the granite pools (decorated with trailing white crowfoot) which reminded me of the golden granite waters in the streams of Ben Starav. The white mare’s tail of a waterfall wavered in a dark slot. A path led us up a northern tributary, at one stage being simply a tree trunk wedged across the steep slope. Cairns ended the complex return to the path where we could see in the dust that Ali and the mules had already passed. A delightful wandering route through the dappled shade of the evergreen oaks of the Tiziatin forest led us to the camp.
This time it was my turn to jump fully clothed into the water. I was only wearing light trousers and a T-shirt let me add but we all (even Omar) had a swim and washed garments as that would be the last chance before the serious ending. When I found a large scorpion under a flat stone I wanted as a doorstep (to keep sand out of my tent) there was a general shift from bivouacking to tenting! Charles had some strange burrowing wasps on his doorstep. A dragonfly kept dipping its rear end into a pool in an exotic flying dance: egg-laying we supposed. A fire of juniper wood led on to a lingering supper under a large oak tree. We were aware of the Oued Nfis largely behind, the plateau ahead and the ridge beckoning beyond. We’d not have a fire like that again, nor indulgent swims or comfortable easy days. In my log, the previous three sites had been marked as especially meritorious—but then the next six would be as well. Ali alone seemed a bit subdued and I was also aware of the certain problems ahead. Had I been too hard on Monique because of this nagging problem? The others said not. Ali was our concern. We would finish a good piece of adventuring despite his fear and uncertainty—all together, tails up.
The Oued Nfis drains what the map indicates as the Plateau du Tichka which is really a saucer-like hollow within a mountain rim edging into the west. The outer rim is often steep or sheer so easy access is only possible in a few places. Fed by melting snows and springs, there are plenty of verdant meadows and these and the riverbank are a golden glory of jonquils in the spring. Later in the year there is a flush of orchids and a blaze of alpines. Herds are not allowed to graze its grasslands until high summer in order to preserve the richness. Many of these extensive green areas have azibs beside them. This remote upland, with its atmosphere of Conan Doyle’s Lost World, would be our last Nfis romance. The plateau widens to drain into the Tiziatin forest where we camped. This huge oak fastness (with some juniper and ash) was once the lair of bandits and wild beasts with the rugged mountain slopes pressing in like a vice. Then follows the explosively rich valley we’d ascended with its succession of friendly villages and the lush pine forest before more ordinary riverine meanderings and habitations by the Tizi n’ Test road. The river breaks out through a last gorge near Ourigane (now with a dam under construction to form a huge reservoir) to reach the Haouz plain southwest of Marrakech. Peyron describes the plateau as ‘remote, lonely and somewhat mysterious—an unlikely place for the High Atlas’.
A steep path took us out of the forest before swinging north along a tributary that drains a huge area dominated by Amendach (3382 m). Although the highest peak of the plateau, it is often overlooked due to its remote location and the presence of the more obvious Imaradene (or Tassiwt, 3351 m). The whole northern rim is cliff-bound from which ragged peaks rise with climbs and near-inaccessible summits, some not even named. The major Tizi Asdim lies in this northeast corner, providing access to the Peyron-praised Seksawa, the country of the M’Tougga who lorded it over the Tizi Maachou pass linking Marrakech and Agadir. The modern road is only a few decades old, and before that one took the Tizi n’ Test, or went via Essaouira. New pistes have now been driven in from the west but no road comes near the plateau so it remains inviolate, a very special place, pure and unpolluted.
When we came to a stream junction we had a view of the domed bulk of Amendach up its length and decided we would climb the peak straight away rather than wait until the following day as envisaged. Our only regret was Ali’s absence; it was not often that we had the priority of exploration. We made our way along the steep glen to scattered azibs set on spacious meadows: a delectable spot. From there we followed a long ridge up the mountain, plodding steadily or scrambling up scraggy granite for two and a half hours. I drank something like four litres over the day. ‘Ever-widening views and the summit one of the best here and of the GTAM. The whole plateau on display and away to Oumzra, Igdat, Erdouz, Angour, Sirwa, Aklim, the Tafraoute peaks, big Moulay Ali, Awlim and Tinergwet, Tabgourt, rocky Jbel Ikkis and others to the north on which even Peyron is brief yet must hold a major climbing area to equal any in the Atlas’, I enthused in my log that night, adding ‘Mountains make for poetry in our prosaic lives’.
The 100,000 misprints the height of Amendach as 3882 m and although a big, bulky hill, that extra 500m remains wishful thinking. We lunched on the summit among granite boulders, prickly scrub and bright flowers. We were determined to see over the northern rim, a fine-looking ridge to Oumzra and Igdat (what an alpine expedition that would be under snow). We headed down to reach a small stream whose banks were buttoned with blue carduncellus heads and—as we found when taking off footwear for a paddle—various other prickles. Amendach links with the northern rim, and from the tizi a trickle runs west, then south, to become the river we had ascended from the Nfis. We crossed further down and continued on a rising line beyond to the Tizi Agourzi (3007 m). We were astonished to see a clear path descending the other side, in a continuous series of zigzags with some built-up contortions to break through the upper crags. It probably allows the herds of Azrou Mellene and other villages north to gain grazing access to the plateau, a monster ascent on an astonishing pass, an inspired practicality which never ceased to amaze us in the Atlas.
We climbed Azrou Asdim which had brutal cliffs to the north with a jumble of some of the rockiest peaks in the Atlas crowding beyond. “Oh to be twenty years younger”, I sighed to my older companion, ‘Où sont les neiges d’antan?’ (Where are the snows of yesteryear?) We dropped down to add the nameless peak, a sort of southwest Top overlooking the Tizi Asdim, ascending by an ordinary easy slope only to find the ground cut off sheer beyond the perched summit. The Top appeared a fine prow from camp that night, which we reached at 1615 having set off at 0630. I think we were as mentally drained as we were physically.
A small diversion took us to a col but to reach the actual Tizi Asdim there was a Hobson’s choice of going over an intervening bump or descending nasty ground to below tizi level and joining the trans-tizi path. Flanking across was not possible. Charles went the former way, the rest of us went down the screes and rubbish, hard on the knees and requiring constant concentration. The walk up the path to the Tizi Asdim was a weary toil in the heat, which always seems harder in a world of grim granite.
John Willison and Clare Wardle descended north from the Tizi Asdim to Aguersafene and then kept determinedly west to reach the main Agadir-Marrakech road. They then more or less hitched to Agadir as Clare was not at all well, barely able to eat or walk. They were just dumped on the coast somewhere south of Agadir and walked for three hours before a kind driver drove them right to the promenade itself.
‘We park ourselves in cool white chairs outside a beach café, transfer most of what remains in our sacks to the nearest bin, then I stagger to the sea while Clare sleeps in the sun. What it is to be clean, to be totally immersed in the substance that has been our lifeline over the weeks; I thrash about in glee, to the horror of the other tourists, then rush back to Clare leaving most of my clothes in the sea. Clare can just manage a glass of milk. I order the entire selection of coupes on the menu, prawn salad, fruit, on and on for hours. We have fun in front of the restaurant mirror – neither of us ever believed that we looked as dishevelled as the other. Things come to an end after my sixth coupe, and we begin to think about going home.’
On the Tizi Asdim I hung myself out to dry like a cormorant until we saw Charles safely over the hill and descending to the tizi. We then continued on a good path for what we called Guenfis Meadow, after the azib of that name, where light and dark dots were surely our mules. Graeme and I talked our way ‘home’ with Tony and Charles coming along behind. In the light of evening the meadow was a dazzling viridian. As we arrived, a mule from the azib broke loose and chased our pair all round the meadow. “An amorous male”, Ali grinned. Chased by its owner and our whooping assistants, the randy visitor fled over a softer patch and went head over heels. It was caught, chastised and ridden away. The flocks of sheep were led in to the azib and one of the shepherds opened his bag to present me with some bread, the gesture more appreciated than the bread itself which was well past its use-by date. Clouds billowed about to dramatic effect and the slope above was snowed with the dancing heads of thrift, always white in the Atlas (Armeria alliacea). The mules had a session rolling in the lushness followed by a noisy ear-flapping shake. They had their noses in their individual bags of grain while we ate.
We have long been impressed with the extraordinary provision the donkey has been given for its sex life: an organ of unusually large proportion for a creature of such modest size but whose amorous capabilities are flaunted and trumpeted with no inhibitions at all. That night’s escapade brought the subject up—and the opposite case of the camel, a lumbering giant of a beast with the most pathetic equipment. As usual, there was an explanatory legend.
When Noah had built his ark and was taking in all the creatures of creation, two by two, male and female, his down-to-earth wife voiced her concern about what would happen if, as was likely, they all mated and produced offspring before the voyage ended. The weight and volume would sink the ark! The animals were told to wait outside while they discussed the problem and, not being in England, the beasts all milled about on the plain instead of queuing politely at the entrance. At last they decided what they’d do and Noah stood on the step, yelled for half an hour to get silence, and explained the problem to them. Would they agree? There was bedlam but eventually common sense won and they went along with Noah’s suggestion. As each male animal entered the ark he unzipped his genitals and handed them over to be hung up in neat rows near the door so they could be reclaimed on leaving. They were strictly detailed to make their exit in reverse order and, after the long boring trip, they were only too glad to queue in docile fashion to reclaim their belongings—which most of them quickly put into use once ashore. After all, ‘be fruitful and multiply’ was the standing order.
The donkeys had been fooling about as is their wont and seeing only the ponderous camels left they barged past them so as not to be the last off the smelly ark. Noah handed out the next set from the near-empty store and the donkeys went off in glee for they’d been given the camel’s huge genitals by mistake. Which is why they have behaved as they do ever since—and why the poor camel, coming last, despite all his pleadings, had to make do with what was left. He’d quite refused to begin with and had started to descend the gangplank, nose flaring in high dudgeon, prepared to do without, but Mrs Noah, horrified at what the Lord might say at the extinction of one of his creatures, rushed out and zipped on the pathetic remnant. That is why the little donkey has something so disproportionately big and the snooty camel only has a tiny bitty stuck on behind. Probably explains too why the camel is such a disagreeable beast.