Arzou

This morning the chickens were really confused, 3:30 wake up call.  Good news is when we fell back to sleep we didn’t wake up for early morning prayer call.  

Another great breakfast, this time with these square type of pancakes that are delicious, along with again the best dates we have ever had.  It has been a great couple of nights in Fez.
 

View at breakfast this morning,more overcast

Donuts anyone

Our driver picked us up at 9:30 this morning, we have a short drive today so we did not need an early start.  

 

fake palm tree at the end to hide antennas

Lots of sheep today

Our first stop was at Ifrane, which is known as the French Alps of Morocco.  Honestly we did not see much French Alps about it.  Maybe we are here the wrong time of year, snow might help.  It looks like a town built by and for the rich, could have been Whistler or Mont Tremblant, it was not built in the mountains as we expected, more in the flats.

Ifrane

They used to have lions here, no more except this one carved out of rock

Next we travelled on to where we are staying for the night.  We are staying outside a town called Arzou in a small farm house.  We dropped off our luggage and headed right out again as there is a market today in town.  The owners also gave directions to our driver on where to find a beautiful lake for after the market.

The market was fantastic, different from any others we have ever been to, a true local market, maybe 5000 locals, and we saw 2 other obvious tourists at one point, that was it.  Just driving to find a spot to park was great, we saw lots of livestock, mostly sheep, and they were double deckers of them being transported.  Our driver found a spot to drop us off where he thought we would be able to easily find him again, plus it was near some trees where we could wait in the shade if he could not find parking close by. 
First stop was Andre wanted to find something to eat as it was now around lunch time.  He was trying to find a high spot that overlooked the market so he could see smoke, knowing they would be cooking near.  We eventually found the spot, and most they were serving fish.  They were frying the fish and we had read to ask for takeaway as if you eat in it is a little suspicious how the dishes are done.  Andre got 2 fish that are weighed with counterweights |(of which we only saw 2), we are pretty sure we were charged the tourist rate, it was 12 Dirham, or about 1 Euro, happy with that.  The fish was very good.
We just wandered the market from here, lots of nice fresh produce, huge carts of strawberries that smelled delicious, and the typical clothing section with knock off stuff from China or somewhere.  The women were doing their week of shopping and getting delivery men with push carts to take the purchases out of the market, this once again made for lots of traffic and congestion in the market which you had to keep avoiding.

Double decker sheep transport

Pass up the sheep

Market day in Arzou

Lunch time at the market

You buy your goods and these guys will bring them to your car/truck/bus/bike or whatever for you, watch out as they just about run you over if you are in the way

Trying to get Wendy to buy this, really nice in 32 degree weather, it is still there

From the market we went on to find the lake that the owner had told us about.  Our driver does not know this area of Morocco well, and it certainly showed today.  The only reason we knew about the market is because the owners of the Riad that we left today told us about the market, and she also told us how lucky we were to be staying in this area, not many do and it is beautiful for the lakes.  So, with huge expectations we head off for the lake.  The first road we try we drove all the way through a back road and ended up back in the French Alp town, so back we go about 5 km to a spot where there are quite a few cars parked.  The driver got out, I don’t think he was convinced this was the spot and off we go down a pathway to the lake.  Two young British girls were walking ahead of us, they told us they had been here for 2 months.  They told us there were 2 lakes at the bottom, so off we go.  We get near the bottom, and asked them where the lakes were, they pointed to one on the left and one on the right, the lakes are hardly bigger than a brook and a very tiny pond, our driver took his sunglasses off to look for them and asked them where they were again.  Quick turn around and back walking up the hill we just came down and another attempt to find the lake.  

This is the "lake" that we went to

We head further back towards Fez where we just came from, I honestly thought we were going to arrive back in Fez, but we came across a sign for a lake.  We head down and the lake is right off the side of the road.  We  are stopped by 2 guys looking for money to enter, the driver asks why we need to pay (all in Arabic but he translates for us later), they were in uniform so it seemed legit and they told him it was to keep the lake area clean.  Well, when we got to the lake I don’t think we have ever seen so much garbage around a lake.  This is quite a large lake and it is obvious that a lot of people use it as a picnic area and unfortunately do not take their garbage out with them, so much for paying a fee to keep it clean.  You could tell our driver was really discouraged, he knew right away this was not the beautiful lake we were looking for.  We stopped to take a couple of pictures of Coots nesting, but really not much else to see, and the garbage was discouraging.

The real lake that we found later

egrets nesting in Ifrane

Back to the farm house at about 4PM and the driver goes in search of somewhere to spend the night, he had not made reservations anywhere.  This has really been a bit of a wasted day, good thing we really enjoyed the market so much this morning.  The discouraging part is we know we have some really long travel days in front of us, and we spent a good part of today traveling for nothing, we think our travel company could have arranged the itinerary better.  Good thing is we really are enjoying the little farm we are on.  They have a couple of sheep, including a baby that will be 2 weeks old on Thursday, a few cats, some chickens (fully expect an early wake up call again tomorrow).  They are expanding soon and going to add a donkey and some goats.  They have some planter boxes out front that they have given up putting flowers in, the chickens and cat have pretty much taken them over.
There are 5 rooms here tonight, us, a British family, an Italian family, and a Swiss woman.  I think everyone else is on self drive, this is definitely more of a self drive place than the fancy riads we have been staying in so far.
We spent most of the afternoon outside on lawn chairs enjoying some down time.  No wifi here so I wasn’t able to work, and won’t be able to post the blog today.  The sun was out and lots of egrets flying by so Andre kept busy with the camera.  Plus it was lots of fun watching the baby sheep chase the cats, or the chicken.  We are in a valley here, and it is really pretty just looking around and enjoying the views.

At the farmhouse we stayed in, they are problems with the chickens in the flower pots, they have given up planting flowers, reminded me of Mom giving up because of the deer

10 day old baby on the farm, they didn't even know she was pregnant

farmhouse where we stayed

Town of Arzou from our farmhouse rooftop

fully loaded donkey

Supper tonight was chicken in some delicious spice blend, some different salads, a pea dish that was a little like mushy peas, and dessert.  Everything was really good again.
It will be an early night tonight.  Tomorrow we are off on our camel trek for the night, and I am sure will have no wifi again, so lots of catching up will need to be done in a couple of days.