Next day we left the sanctuary of the Carrefour carpark and headed for the hills. Literally. We drove up into the rolling, cedar-covered hills of the mid-Atlas. The air was cool and fresh. Flowers were in bloom. The fields were lush and many of them ready for harvesting. Mark had a few places he wanted to visit. We followed him to a lake where we fed the donkeys. Then to a deep fold in a steep valley where a multitude of cold, clear fresh water springs erupted from the ground. A series of little shelters were built next to them so that you could sip mint tea while dangling your feet in the icy torrent. More lakes. More rivers. Then a tight squeeze up a track through immense cedar trees and we emerged by an enormous lake in the centre of a nature reserve.
In the morning, Mark left to head north for his ferry and we wandered a short way down the road. A little track took us into a clearing between towering cedars. It was so nice there that we stayed until the next day. The smell of the trees was intoxicating and a myriad of small birds fluttered in the branches. We used the shadow of one of the trees to estimate how high it was. A little trigonometry revealed it to be 34m. A properly tall tree. Most of the trees were a similar height.
We were killing time. Our ferry was cancelled. We had nowhere in particular to go. Lock down restrictions in Morocco were being eased but how much this meant we could travel was unknown. I have booked another ferry on the 13th of July but experience proves that we have no certainty whether this will actually happen. The best plan we have now is to head roughly southwest staying up in the cool mountains. Morocco can be fiercely hot in the summer and just now, there is a little heatwave going on. The High Atlas and the thin coastal strip are pretty much the limit of where we want to be.
A series of delightful winding tracks led us south through the hills and onto the main road to Midelt. We found another lake and stayed there for a couple of nights. During the day, flocks of sheep were brought down from the surrounding hills to drink. We also saw ponies heavily laden with firewood. Further down the road we came across the Hotel Meteorites. The very friendly owner was happy for us to camp there and refill our water tanks. I spent the afternoon doing a bit of maintenance on Baloo. Later, after I had walked the dog, we went into the hotel bar and had a beer. First beer in a bar for months. It was delightful.
