LAKES & BIRDS

Today was to be an adventure...an unplanned off schedule one!  With our driver, Rachid, we were going to try & find places even HE hadn't been to before!  We left the valley of Azrou with it's stunning cedar forests & headed for a very touristy quick stop...

...in Ifrane, to have our photo taken beside the Lion!!  This statue commemorates that there were once lions in the surrounding woods. Allegedly the last lion was killed in 1922! The species of lion that roamed here was quite big, with a dark, thick mane. According to our guide book, there is a genetic engineering project happening in Rabat to try & bring these lions back from extinction.  Apart from the lion statue, the only notable thing about Ifrane is that it looks very swiss!  It snows here in winter & consequently the houses have adopted the steep roofed style.

                                    

Our mission was to take the backroads & discover the lakes between Ifrane & Sefrou! Some of the lakes , we soon discovered were quite dry.  The biggest one, Dayet Aoua, was full of water, lined with trees & awash with birds!

 



We saw cranes...

...and coots....

...and egrets.

We'd just got back in the car when Rachid spotted this stork's nest on the top of a street light!!!!!

Our favourite discovery was this little treasure.  The road to it soon made it clear that a 4 wheel drive was ESSENTIAL & I admit that I was holding my breathe quite a bit of the way! It was clearly only visited by shepherds & their sheep, but we were delighted to have stumbled across it. It's name is Iffer, which in the Berber language means 'hidden'.

And this is what we discovered on the lake...one solitary duck & lots of water lilies!!

The next lake we stumbled upon was Ifrah & here we discovered a donkey farm!  They look much healthier here than they do on the streets of Marrakech!!

Back on the road & sure enough...Rachid's eagle eyes spotted this farmhouse with a bit of a problem on their chimney!!!!!!

We stopped in Sefrou for mint tea & looked around to find ANOTHER storks nest, this time a more pious stork withy it's nest on top of the local minaret.

A few kilometres north west of Sefrou is a little town of Bhalil, this is where some of the residents still live in troglodyte homes.

We were welcomed into one by a sweet little lady who spoke no English, so Rachid had to translate.  She was looking after the house for her mother who was currently in hospital & proceeded to show us all the photos sent to her mother from tourists who had had their photos taken with her...just like this!!!

The other thing Bhalil is famous for is the making of silk & cotton jellaba (long cloak like gown worn by both men & women) buttons.  the women sit on their front steps socialising & weaving these buttons with the use of two small needles. I enjoyed watching for a short time, conscious that my two male companions were not in the LEAST bit interested!  Then an old lady came up & had a massive argument with one of the button makers.  It was clearly time to finish my purchasing & GET OUT OF THERE!!!!

What an amazing day!