Snow Monkies

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Idaho may have snow snakes, but Morocco has snow monkies!

We left Khemisset relatively early, after juggling around some of the weight to help out the poor little Golf. I still think Hichem should give it a name, it certainly deserves one after all we put it through. Hichem's brother SiMohmmed (one of four in the family) drove his car with us, and he took one of the barrels of olive oil and some of the other packages. The TV was replaced by Aziza, who was much more fun to talk to and more comfortable to lean against.

The scenery leaving Khemisset was probably the prettiest I have seen here in Morocco. The hills are green this far north, and the road wound among them showing me picturesque views that reminded me of the hills of northeastern Oregon around the towns of Flora and Troy. The red mud and cement flat-roofed houses gave it a distinctly Moroccan flavor though. And the road was lined with sheep. I suspect that every sheep that still needed to be sold before L-eide was herded along the road in hopes that a traveler would buy it on teh way to the big holiday family gathering.

When we got to Mknès we stopped to pick up another family member and juggled the passengers around. Aziza was sent to SiMohammed's car and Maryam sat in back with me. Hichem was sick of driving so SiMohammed (not the brother with his own car, but the husband of Hichem's sister Khadija) took over and Hichem rode shotgun.

We started heading up into what looked much more like mountains than the Swiss green hills of Khemisset. The green gave way to bare rock fields and I tucked my coat tighter around me though the sun shining on Maryam's side ot the car was so strong she hung up a scarf in the window to shield herself from the rays. Soon I was trying not to bounce in my seat as I saw my first Moroccan snow on the northern facing slopes. Getting closer to Azrou the fields and surrounding peaks were covered in the sparkling white of day old snow with a fine sprinkling of hoarfrost on top.

It's funny how decieving snow can be, how easily it can disguise a landscape. Looking out over the fields of snow, framed in barbedwire fenced built of uneven posts and branches, I saw southern Idaho - perhaps close to Arco. There were no flattopped houses to remind me what country I was in, though when I was a man in a pointyhooded jellaba walking beside his overloaded donkey I had to give up my fantasy and the sounds of the radio and voices of Maryam, Hichem and SiMohammed flooded back into my consiousness. I am definately in Morocco. And I do love being here, though a little fantasy once in a while does help me stay balanced.

The next past was probabmy the funnest - I saw Barbary apes for the first time! They're really not as big as I had thought, which is probably why i can't help calling them monkies. We stopped at a fairly typical toirist-trap rest area to stretch our legs (and it was full of tourists, though all were Moroccan). I was trying to figure out if the giant fossils of shells were blatently fake, or might be authentic, when I noticed one of the big evergreens on teh side of the road shaking violently. There was no wind. It was an ape shaking snow down onto an unsuspecting tourist. I immediately liked the apes and wondered if I could start a snowball fight with them - and if people would take it wrong and think I was being cruel to the wildlife. I really just wanted to see them pelt the tourists from the branches with snow.

If I had had a video camera, or even a functional regular camera, I might have tried it. As it was I just watched them dig around in the snow for the oranges and bread people threw at them. One of the larger ones came right up to me to sit in the spot of sun I was standing in and almost sat on my foot. So much for calling them wildlife. They're more used to people that most cats are here.

The rest of the drive was quite uneventful and we arrived in Errachidia in time to sit around for hours at Hichem's family's house eating piles of cookies and other sweets and drinking pot after pot of very sweet tea. L-eide isn't for another three days, and I'm afraid my teeth might rot before we leave Errachidia next week. I hope I brought enough toothpaste.

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