“Rain pushing in from the west is expected turn to snow on the leading edge, with the potential for accumulations of several cm, especially on hills. For Wales and SW England the snow is expected to begin on Sunday, whilst further east it will begin on Monday morning. The public are advised to be aware of the potential for disruption to traffic.”
For once we're not saying 'Poor them' and congratulating ourselves for being well out of it. We're in Azrou in the Atlas mountains and we've got snow too.
From Merzouga we drove north through stony desert and over the High Atlas range at its lower eastern end. As we climbed into the Middle Atlas on Friday (27th Jan) we could see dark clouds ahead and approaching cars with wet snow on their number plates. The landscape suddenly became wetter, we saw green trees and sodden meadows, snow lying in shady spots and lots of muddy farm dogs. For a moment it was like coming home.
We got settled into our campsite at Azrou, got cosy and watched the snow fall in big flakes. The next day as the ploughs and gritters reopened the mountain road we retraced our steps into the cedar forests just south to join the locals enjoying the weekend winter wonderland.
The cedars of the Middle Atlas produce the timber of choice for palace doors and ceilings, which we've come across repeatedly. After so much desert, they are a refreshing change of scenery.
This forest is home to some friendly bands of Barbary Apes, a popular tourist attraction for visitors and Moroccans alike.
While the road was open and well gritted, some vehicles were struggling so there were a lot of hold ups. Most of the people in the queues seemed pretty patient and content to wait, take photos of each other on mobile phones, have snowball fights and give bread to the monkeys (we'd responsibly brought them some apple and banana, which was also popular).
Johnny Monkey Eats Bread:
In the afternoon we took a loop through Mischlifen, which was marked on the Michelin map (and signposted from Ifrane) as a ski resort. When we finally found it, it was clear that building a ski hotel must have been one of the last things the French did before Morocco won its independence.
The local entrepreneurs were out in force here, as they were all over the mountains, giving horse rides, selling sweets and drinks, renting out skis and home made sledges.
What they weren't able to do was get the ski tows working (they've not worked for years, people seemed surprised at the very idea). Any attempt to ski would have meant trudging up the hill then skiing down into a dense throng of tobogganers and picnickers so we decided to give it a miss.
Next week we're planning to visit three interesting cities grouped closely together; Fez, Meknes and Moulay Idris. After that, there's only the Rif mountain range remaining between us and the ferry back to Europe.
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