11 hours crawling north

Today was a contrast. We awoke and watched the Sun rise over the sand dunes. We always knew there was a price to be paid for the desert visit, and that price was a seven-hour drive North. As the day wore on the price suffered from an inflationary rise.

We drove through valleys of dates and then orchards of apples. Then ever upwards into the mountains. Our path was watched over by packs of wild dogs – lots of dogs – waiting expectantly for the army lorry that drops food for them. As we got higher we reached the snow line. It’s Sunday and every Moroccan within 500km has brought their kids to play in the snow.

All was good until we started to descend. Along with thousands of locals in cars, bikes, buses, lorries and every other vehicle. The roads were soon jammed solid with people making the two lanes into three, or four, or five by pushing past. Chaos ensued and we hardly moved for hours. Our 7 hours, turned into 11 hours with one brief stop. By the time we rolled into Fes we were absolutely exhausted (and that was just sitting through it, our lovely driver Samir was doing the hard yards).

We were met in Fes by a man in a Fez (seriously) who led us through the Medina to our hotel. The hotel is beautiful and looks to make up for the day, not least because it has that rarest thing in Morocco, a bar.