Let it snow...

I am frequently one to rave about the amazing weather we are blessed with in Ifrane; not too hot, not too cold, and usually with a crystal clear sky. With the occasional arrival of bad weather, the old-timers would laugh and say 'you haven't seen anything yet' as we sat in the clouds and the rain whizzed horizontally passed. We heard tales of tremendous blizzards, with roads closed, temperatures as low as -27 degrees C, and snow higher than the windows. Hearing all this we were somewhat disappointed when, having brought a snowboard out with us, there was barely enough snow for one week of sledding last year. It was with this in mind that when the temperature dropped last week I urged the snow to come. Each night the clouds rolled in and it started to snow, but each morning there was barely a dusting.

Friday morning we woke up and looked out of the window into solid clouds. On the way to school there was already a light covering of snow on the ground. We were due to leave for the Spanish enclave Melilla straight after school and it was supposed to snow all morning. Saying that, we weren't too concerned as the snow that was falling was fine and powdery, looking almost like spray snow out of a bottle. We figured something that fine wouldn't really stick.

The snow continued silently. Busy in the classroom with fogged up windows, it wasn't until morning recess that I noticed the gathering piles. By lunch, which I was hosting in the classroom for our only student/parent lunch of the year, to celebrate the end of International Week, it was so thick that some parents were stranded at the university and couldn't get through down-town due to the accidents. 

With an hour of school to go we made the decision that we would at least try to get to Spain. The old-timers said, 'this is the real Ifrane!', and 'if you can just get down the mountain to Imouzer it'll all be clear”. Nick set off to pick up Nate from the Best Western 500m down the hill. On the way back Nate had to walk behind the car and push it up the hill, getting covered in snow and taking the occasional face plant along with it. The journey took just under an hour. With the heavy weight of the week long expectation of Friday night beer and pork in Casa Marta, we decided to press on. A snow plough had gone down towards Fes at 3.00, and leaving school at 3.30 we thought we'd be long down the mountain before a snow plough led a convoy down at 4.30.

Within 500 metres of setting off we had to push two cars out of snow drifts. We figured that maybe having done good deeds that Allah might choose to ignore the fact that we were doing all this in the name of alcohol and keep us out of a snow drift. Our progress soon got halted however, when we reached the lowered snow barrier on the outskirts of town. It was 4.40 by this point and somewhat foolishly we were surprised that the snow plough hadn't been through. An hour later and we were still sitting there, by this point with little way of getting back up the hill into town and with a long line of cars behind us The thought of setting off down the hill in the dark wasn't appealing, but by that point it was too late to turn back.

The snow plough arrived at 6.00. Lights flashing and third in line in a long convoy we set off down the hill. Progress was good and the snowfall lessened. Spirits in the car rose. The snow plough pulled out from the convoy a couple of kilometres before Imouzer, and although it seemed that the snow was actually thicker we thought that as the snow plough had left us we must be through the worst. We were wrong. Imouzer was in chaos. On the other side of the closed snow barrier cars were parked haphazardly and people were blocking the thickly covered slippy road. Waving you through they stand in the way of the moving cars, which are likely to skid into them at any point. It is as if they have never driven on snow and have no idea that you need to get out of the way. Instead they stand and walk in the middle of the road and expect you to jam on the breaks, forgetting that this will just induce a slide. 

Once through the chaos of Imouzer the sight that faced us was not a positive one. Imouzer sits on the edge of a valley and the road winds down out of it with a steep drop on one side. The cars coming up the hill were sliding all over the road and into our lane at times. People were helping push them up the hill with little thought for getting out of the way of oncoming traffic. If no one went off the mountain that day then it's a small miracle.

To cut an already too long story short, the 45 minute journey from school to the highway took us four hours. The snow line was far lower than anyone expected. We crossed the border into Spain at midnight, 1.00 local time, were in the bar by quarter past, and still didn't make it to closing. By the time that we had panic drank ourselves silly on empty stomachs, we had to go home just as the real party was starting.

Our trip to Melilla followed its usual routine, and we set off on Sunday on our return journey with every nook and cranny of car loaded up with pork and booze, telling ourselves that the extra weight would act as traction to get us up the hill into Ifrane. The drive back was uneventful. That is until we reached the snowline. As soon as we hit snow there were cars parked at every angle along the side of the road, people taking photos of each other and their cars in the snow. If this wasn't annoying enough, we started to see cars making their way down the mountain with mounds of snow on the roof and bonnet, blocking the windscreen and limiting the drivers view of the chaos on the road. It took us a while to realize that this wasn't just due to the drivers being lazy and not clearing their windscreens, but it was in fact placed there on purpose. Locals drive up from the city, pull over at the first patch of snow they can find, take all the pictures they can, and maybe get out a stove and make mint tea. Then, before departing, they make enormous snowballs and pile them on their car and take it back down the mountain with them. We even saw a snowman, complete with eyes, mouth and twigs for arms on someone’s bonnet. What they expect to do with the snow I have no idea, but judging by the mounds of it that we kept encountering on the road at the roundabouts, they didn't really think the plan through. 

How long this current batch of snow will last I don't know; it is still up over my classroom windowsill a week later. I know one thing for sure, we are avoiding all travel on roads that we can. Drivers here are accident prone in the best of conditions. With the added hindrance of slippy roads and snow tourists it's like a Demolition Derby. We'll just stay up here and enjoy the spectacular views.

The Bloom

As many of my previous posts have mentioned, our explorations here have led us to see Morocco as a country made up of vast expanses of barren dusty land interspersed with the occasional lush oasis nestled within a hidden valley. On our recent trip north to Melilla we drove through a land so changed since our last visit six weeks ago it was like driving through a different country. With rain comes spring and the ‘bloom’ has arrived.

The road north is a very picturesque route, even when it is dry and barren. Mountains, plains and a lake or two interspersed with the occasional small town. A lack of people keeps the rubbish to the minimum. This is one of the worst countries I have known for bushes blooming plastic bags or the national flower as they are becoming known.

This is one of the dump sites that are all over the place. At least here it's reasonably in one place and not all over the landscape.

Driving through after the rains have passed and dusty rocky slopes have been replaced with a variety of iridescent greens of fresh grass. It has become a Telly Tubby land of rolling green that doesn’t look real. It left me with an irrational desire to jump out the car and skip and roll in it like a 5 year old. Fat happy donkeys wonder contentedly in shoulder deep grass. Wild flowers run riot and as the sun dips the landscape shimmers with gold.

The strength of my reaction to this green surprised me. Having spent a disproportionate amount of my childhood sitting in fields I should be more than used to a little grass around me. We have more than enough rain in Manchester for the fields to be green year round. Living here has given me a new found appreciation for grass. I don’t take it for granted any more. Witnessing hundreds of kilometres of apparently unfertile brown land transform into waves of green billowing in the wind has to be one of the most spectacularly refreshing seasonal changes I have ever encountered.

Melila

I was quite convinced that having already eulogised the wonders of our local Spanish enclave that there would be little to write about on our recent visit. We had already experienced the cheap shopping, the café culture and being ridiculously taken advantage of in a tapas bar, how could we top that?

Ok, so this trip we did not get given ten free drinks in the first bar we walked into, it was only four. However this was perhaps a good thing as after a day of school followed by a 500 kilometre drive, we would never have made it out to do any shopping the next day. As it was we returned to Casa Marta where the same waiter over-enthusiastically topped up our drinks and gave us extra tapas before to our surprise plonking a plate of four steaks and tempura vegetables on the table. When we asked for water in an aim to slow down the alcohol consumption, he laughed and said “I no have that!” with a devious smile. Yet again he was not keen to let us leave without sneaking another drink into us. How often do you have to try and work out a tactical escape plan to pay and leave and avoid the free alcohol? Do we really look that deprived?

Feeling more fragile than we had planned the next day we still managed to get everything done we had intended, this included another ridiculous alcohol shop (we now have about 37 litres… must not panic buy) and a long lazy seafood lunch in the sun. That night we decided for the good of our health we should avoid Casa Marta and find another tapas bar. 

We went to Entrevinos. Reasonably full when we entered we were forced to stand at the bar. After the attentive care of our friend in Casa Marta we felt a little lost in Entrevinos, eye contact was hard to make with the waiter and the tapas situation was confusing. This was obviously not the place where we’d be getting free food and drink. Part way down our first drink the man next to me offered me a chair and bought us a round before he left. We then found a table and were given a steady stream of tapas and then free drinks at the end of the night. Why that man bought us a drink I have no idea. He didn’t talk to us and he wasn’t the manager like I first assumed. We obviously do look that deprived.

Entrevinos was a very interesting bar. For the first hour or so there was a constant stream of model like women coming in in groups. This was obviously the place to be. True this is no great achievement when as yet we have only found two tapas bars in town. And believe me we have tried. At around 10.00 when the place was packed with women, the men started to arrive. They arrived in packs. They may always chose to travel this way or it may have something to do with the fact that a Barca match had just finished. The thing was the long narrow bar was so busy by then that all the women ended up on one side and all the men on the other near the entrance. From these positions they then not so surreptitiously eyed each other up with the occasional brave individual breaking rank and heading over to the other side.  This was still going on by the time we left, hangovers having gotten the better of us.

Yay! There's pig under there...

Living in Morocco has its own unique benefits. These include endless sunshine, great food and quick flights to Europe and home. Sadly socialising and cheap alcohol are not amongst the benefits. Last week we took a much anticipated trip to Spain on an alcohol and pork run. As I have mentioned before, much to the Moroccans dismay and our delight, Spain has managed to hang on to two small enclaves on the Mediterranean coast of Morocco. Although they could do with being a little closer than 450 km away, we appreciate them nonetheless. After our last stressful seven hour drive to Ceuta, for this trip we decided to visit the slightly closer town of Melilla.

Melilla is a 12 kilometre squared piece of land and port which has been part of Spain for over 500 years and is highly contested by most Moroccans. Similar to the other enclaves and all the small islands close to Morocco that are considered to be Spanish, Melilla is somewhat of a sore point with the Moroccan government who believe the areas should be under Moroccan rule and the Spanish should leave. The Spanish are sticking to their guns and are not going anywhere. This decision seems somewhat hypocritical considering their contention over the British rule of Gibraltar.

The drive from Fes to Melilla is relatively easy by Moroccan standards. It is 450 kilometres in sunshine so strong that when experienced in a car without air-con makes you feel like you are being baked in a tin, even in March. However, half of the way you are on a highway that is empty and runs through land resembling the Lake District, and the other half is along a pot-holey but reasonably straight road that is good for overtaking on. Frustratingly, we made it 450 kilometres in four hours and then five kilometres in an hour when it came to crossing the border. It seems that we were not the only people who wanted to go to Spain on a Saturday lunch to do shopping. Surely the cheap shopping isn't cheap enough to warrant an hour border crossing each way? Yes we drove 450 kilometres in search of a Lidl, but we were on a long distance beer and pig mission. The fact that Melilla is one of the most popular places for illegal immigrants to enter the EU added to our queuing time. However, the thorough car checks and six metre barbed wire fences with watch towers seem pointless when people appear to be able to wander through without being stopped.

There are few borders that I have crossed in my travels that give you that feeling of literally entering another world. Obviously you always have that few kilometres or grubbiness and chaos, that seem to occur no matter how wealthy the country you are entering, but usually what's beyond that is reasonably similar to what you have left. Leaving Africa and entering Europe in the space of five kilometres is quite an experience, one that is probably only matched by crossing from Mexico into America. Not only are the streets, buildings and cars smarter, it is almost like the air is cleaner as well. We are perfectly content with life in Morocco, but immediately upon entering Spain you feel you are in a whole other level of civilisation and order. There are road markings, litter bins, long tree lined streets, fountains, parks and ornate buildings, all of them gleaming. You turn a corner in search of a secure underground car park and there one is just where you need it. Amongst all this pristine order stroll stylish families off to meet up with equally stylish friends and spend the entire day sitting at café tables enjoying tapas, wine and beer all the while looking very....well....stylish.

Now I am sure most European countries have there own version of this, but Spain seem to have this one down to a fine art. Long lazy sunny weekend days enjoying small chilled-cheap beers, great table wine and a never ending stream of amazing nibbles that are heavy on the pork. The extent of our longing for pork was such that as a plate of mystery tapas was put down later that day Nick exclaimed with glee “Yay! There's pig under there!” For our first round of tapas we settled in as close as we dared to all the stylish people in a restaurant overlooking a square. Here we were subjected to being taken advantage of as naïve tourists. The waiter, when kindly taking the time to explain the confusing menu to us took our nods not as confirmation of our understanding of product, but instead as confirmation of us wanting to order everything he listed. Unlike the tables around us who were presented with a restrained nibble or two at a time, we were made to look like immense pigs as six large portions of food were brought to our table all at once. While this was all very enjoyable, we hadn't quite been prepared for what was to be the most expensive lunch we have ever had. 

 

 

 

After lunch we went for a short walk before admitting defeat to a full stomach and going for a lie down. In most places going to bed late afternoon is a recipe for disaster, or a missed night at least. In Spain it seems that yet again they have planned for this eventuality. Enjoy your long, lazy and stylish lunch, sleep it off and make your way out refreshed and ready to start your night just about the times pubs in the UK are closing.