|
Santa of the Sahro-Christmas in the
Jon Millen talks about our annual Christmas expedition jaunt to the Jebel Sahro in Morocco. It was a few nights before Christmas, but it was certainly not as quiet as a mouse… walking down into the smokey-barbecue scented dusty market place and perpetual circus that is the Djemel ef' na., in central Marrakech, a little man was offering an interesting Christmas present for anyone who collects train sets: A circular railway line where George Bush in a tank, chases Bin Laden around on a skate board. It is perhaps the funniest present I have bought for £3 and expresses something of the fact that this slightly progressive Muslim country is perhaps still the hippest place to be in Islamic Africa, as it had been in the late 60s. Since my last visit it seems that money has flooded into the nation. Huge 'yuppi-esque' housing estates have spawned out of the desert, especially on the airport and Asni roads. Judging from by the fact that most are empty and seem to be priced beyond the reach of the local inhabitants; they reflect a pre-speculated boom in the area; a hope fuelled by the shear number of new 'low cost' flights coming into the city, with stories of footballers seen partying in the nightclubs of the 'Hivernage' district, and the popularity of the expensive boutique Riad hotels in the centre.
The journey to the Jebel Sahro starts with a dramatic passage across the High Atlas plastered in winter snows, over the Tizi n Tikta (2200 m high pass) and then down into the Atlas's rain shadow and the drier lands stretching into the Sahara Desert. Blocking the way is the Dades River and the Jebel Sahro mountains. One passes through Quarzazate, a town built largely by the French to subdue the surrounding lands of the Ait Atta tribe who offered stubborn resistance to colonial rule until they were sniped and bombed out of their Sahro base in the 1930s. Quarzazate is also 'Sahara Wood' - so many films have been filmed here from 'Lawrence of Arabia', to 'Kingdom of Heaven', 'Cleopatra' and 'Alexander The Great' and there are dedicated film studios. The drive continues onto a gravel piste to Ait Youl - a collection of houses made of pressed mud brick. Some of the wealthier ones are now cement and plastered.
A fresh dump of snow in the high Atlas has veneered the North facing slopes of the Sahro and the consequential melt water has meant that the little rivers are fuller than normal, but rarely very deep. Nevertheless Omar, the Berber guide and his crazy cook companion Mohammed, go to great lengths to make sure that feet do not suffer more than the occasional dunking, by moving great rocks around to construct stepping stones at every opportunity. These sociably good intentions are somewhat reversed by the two chucking snowballs or water at people sometimes as they crossed, sometimes making them put a foot in the drink in the panic! There are few settlements scattered along the way, you meet little farms with carefully ploughed and irrigated fields, and terraces of Almond trees. There are stands of date palm , often standing next to the dissolving, crumbling remains of old Kasbahs that have been abandoned long ago.
There is no room in the Inn, apart for a bit of singing, dancing and an evening meal for a change under electric light, so our dome tents fill the courtyard. The night comes as a dark veil studded with iridescent sequined stars, and the cattle are definitely baying. The only thing however, that is about to give birth is my huge kit bag filled with the standard Christmas assortment fayre. I have asked everyone to leave a sock out side, fastened to their tent strings, just in case Santa obliges these regions of the Sahro with his presence. I am rudely mistaken thinking that they would put out clean socks. Staggering out the tent at midnight, I realize that some of the slowly frosted woolies had been worn for at least three consecutive days. No matter, Santa has his work to do!
Christmas Day and the landscape quality reaches its climax walking up steeply onto the rocky escarpments above 'The Camel'. We traipse through fresh snow and up to a high pass, the Tizi-n-Ouarg for a lunch of hot lentils and salad before an ascent of Kouaouch, with a short scramble up to the summit. This at 2600m is our trek high point. Views in all directions are breathtaking as it is so clear, and the patches of snow add a fresh definition and purity to the natural crenellations of the landscape. We descend in golden snow filled twilight, passing a couple of cols to arrive at our 2100m camp in the almond terraces at Almoue- nouareul and a very cold night where we huddle in the mess tent for as long as we feel we can spare the warming gas of the hurricane lamp. A couple of the ladies have nestled under the berber blankets in the cook tent and are having a sing song and pan clatter - percussion as we settle down to a Christmas night pub quiz challenge. There is a giant Toblerone at stake here after all!
Our final campsite before Ait-Youl is a lesson in the self sufficiency of some of the families living in the region. We are around an old well head with a petrol driven irrigation pump which feeds into the fields resulting in great crop diversity and animal husbandry. They even have beehives. At dusk the hillsides are strung out with animals - little black blobs from across the valley, as one of the young girls brings all the goats in to be corralled. They will have spent the whole day out seeking grazing pastures, and you may notice her going out with them again in the morning, chasing them barefoot , up and down the crags. You may also notice in the evening other daughters driving donkeys into the 'farm' laden with cut grass feed. You may then see the girls making bread in the external bread oven, such families always appear to be challenging the harsh environment in which they live. Another gentle riverbed crossing walk brings us back along the last few desert kilometers to the gite in Ait Boubka - Ait Youl for lunch. It is quite a shock to leave the quiet Sahro and hear traffic once again. Tour Information: Jbel
Sahro |
Jon
in The Jebel Sahro
Luckily there has not been much
evident redevelopment within the walled 'Medina' - the old part of the
city. So many of the sites still have that dusty, smelly mediaeval feel
about them that I remember from my first visit twenty years ago. One thing
that has changed are the 'souqs'; the maze of markets that thread from the
Djemel ef na to the Ben Youssef Mosque. They haven't so much physically
changed, still there are the spices, olives, sweetmeats, ceramics, olive
fruit bowls, Tuareg jewellery, Berber rugs, leather satchels, djebellas
and pointy toed slippers; but these days less of the hard sell, less of
the chase and less 'Faux' guides to sponge off you, although still
crowded, it just seems more relaxed.
From the village, once the
Mules are loaded up and the Dades river has been crossed on a precarious
birch trunk bridge, ones back is finally turned on civilisation for over a
week as the walk traces an anti clockwise circuit through a normally arid
landscape, etched with narrow river gorges and dotted with wells
supporting communities of Ait Berber people and their goats and sheep
herds. Some of these people migrate with their animals from the higher
Mgoun Mountains into the Jebel Sahro as the winter advances, making use of
scant vegetation. This 'gorge'-ous landscape reminds you in places of
those old 'Marlborough' wild-west advert posters; there are rock towers,
mesas and sheer cliffs all over the place. It is a geological dreamscape -
the rocks are largely ancient Precambrian lava flows and there are veins
of mineralisation that the local boys will exploit to find interesting
crystals that you can buy on the tour for a fistful of Dirhams.
One such place is the Kasbah in
Assaka-n-Ait-Ouizzine, where we camp atop of the terraces on which in
another season the mules are led around a vertical pole in a time honoured
tradition, threshing the barley, camps are often much to the amusement of
the locals who are as curious to see us as we them. Their afternoon
activities of clothes pounding in the local stream are usually suspended
at least for a while !! This is the biggest village that you will visit on
the trek (except Ait -Youl, where you started) and it offers good
opportunities for photography and observing local life as the locals take
the time to observe you! You might go out and visit a local house in the
afternoon, eat some of the dates that are stored clumped together, and
drink tea brewing on charcoal embers kept alight by ancient bellows .
Often little children will want to practice their English or French on
you, they will be scuttling back and for the from the prefab primary
school in the village.
The walk from the village
continues its rock hopping and stream crossing way along a river valley
and slight gorge which eventually opens up to a high plateau speckled with
tiny farms around the village of Ihazzoun-n-Imcas . There are large rock
walls and distant vistas of high mesas. You could almost expect a nasty
Cretaceous dinosaur to pursue you from out of a side chasm. The following
day the real badlands are reached, the rocky tower of 'Bab- n -Ali', The
gate of Ali, a crumbly mixture of mudstones from whose reasonably safe
flanks the lay of the region can be fully appreciated.
The next day is Christmas Eve,
and yes we have a few palm trees, mules and a couple of shepherds watching
their flocks and it would take no imagination whatsoever to think this was
the Holy land. Even Venus - The morning star - is on hand low in the sky
to complete the allusion.
Dawn. The sun strikes the
escarpments of Tassigdelt-Tamajgalt behind Igli which glows like molten
copper. This brief 'Alpenglow' is beautiful, but most of the group have
missed the scene having elected to recline until breakfast. There isn't
much amusement with the little stocking fillers that Santa of the Sahro
has provided, It dawns on you that some have come on holiday to avoid the
commercialism and to forget! No bad thing however as the cheap trinkets,
are soon sported by the Berbers, oh well, at least the various cakes and
chocolates will make a welcome addition to the afternoon tea!
Boxing Day activities commence
with a traverse of a couple of high passes and through a couple of
shivering pastoral hamlets. The second pass; Tizi-n-Timircht brings us
back to northerly views towards the great snow encrusted Mgoun Mountains,
and we descend following river valleys, and stream-hopping once more,
beside the little villages from where children wave and the more energetic
beg for sweets.