While in Fez, we learned that there is a village named Bhalil lying about 40 kms south of Fez. It is known known for its cave houses. Here is a description of the history of these cave houses. “Cave dwellings dating back to the 4th century pockmark Bhalil’s mountainsides and have served as shepherds' huts for hundreds of years, yet some residents have gone one step further and even transformed caves into modern living rooms”(Lonely Planet) We decided to include it in our trip down to our next destination, the Ziz Valley. Bhahlil is located in the Middle Atlas Mountains.
As we drove into the town, which is attractively located on a hill, we passed by the local market and then, as we were coming to a stop in a parking lot, a man approached us offering to take us on a tour of the village. Because we had no idea of where the cave houses were located, we decided it would be wise to have a guide and quickly accepted his offer. Our guide told us his name is Ahmed and started to lead us uphill into the older part of the village where the buildings were painted in a colourful way
The colourful homes of Bhalil.
We passed by some women doing washing and I was able to get some photos of them. As you can see they were pretty shy.
At first we didn’t see the cave houses but as our tour continued Ahmed started to point some out to us . We visited a woman in her beautifully decorated “cave home”.
She was very welcoming and we all sat together drinking mint tea whilst Chris and I took in the environment. It was then that we discovered the main craft the women do in this village is making buttons out of agave silk. This button-making is a very old tradition and requires great skill. The buttons are called djellaba buttons. Our hostess showed us the process, which starts from have a tiny piece of cardboard forming the base upon which the thread is built up to make the button. In a typical day, she makes between 60 and 70 buttons which are then sewn onto women's kaftans usually from the neck down to the bottom on the centre front seam. At the end of our visit, she showed us her little kitchen.
Our demonstration of making djellaba buttons. It is very fine work for sure!
At home in her kitchen.
We continued to wander in the streets and saw numerous button-making women sitting alone or in small groups. Sometimes their young daughters were sitting beside them ..... apparently, the young girls don’t begin to make buttons until they are about ten years old as it is bad for their eyes to start earlier.
An afternoon of button making.
In one area there was a tiny market and I was able to take a photograph of it much to my delight.
It was lovely to wander the streets, and around every corner was a new sight or person to see.
Our guide took us to a local bakery ..... women prepare the daily bread at home and then bring their dough to the communal oven to be baked.
Here are a few more photos from our time in the village.
The village men conversing.
Donkeys are used for transport in this area.
We would like to have stayed longer in this village but we needed to get to Azrou before nightfall so we continued on our way. Our route took us through Ifrane, which is known in Morocco as a holiday resort because of its beautiful setting in forested mountains. We were hoping to visit a particular lake in Azrou's vicinity, but we never found the way.
A very familiar rural scene in Morocco..
We arrived in Azrou in the late afternoon and had some difficulty finding our Airbnb place for the night because Google Maps wasn’t working well. This led to quite a situation! After failing to find the apartment, we stopped on a very busy road and called our host who agreed to come and meet us so we could follow him to the apartment. When he arrived, he stopped his car on the opposite side of the road from where we were parked. He called me over and asked me to get in his car, assuming that Chris would turn around and follow him. Chris, however, did not U-turn because the road was so busy. He drove along the road to find a place to turn safely. Whilst he was doing this, our host set off on the other way, maybe thinking I would be able to tell Chris how to get to our destination. I quickly realized that, in my haste, I had left my purse, passport and everything I own in our rental car. All I had was my cell phone. Very quickly, I began to get seriously worried, especially when — after insisting that the host drive back to where we had first parked — we found Chris was nowhere to be seen and we had no way to communicate with him given he didn’t have a cell phone. It was one of those difficult moments! I had absolutely no clue how we were going connect with him. I got out of the host's car whilst he drove to the police station to report Chris as missing. After I had been standing there for some time, Chris appeared, soon followed by the host who again was on the opposite side of the road. This was exactly how we had started about 20 minutes earlier! Having learned his lesson, Chris U-turned this time in the middle of the street, and we followed our host to the apartment!
I was still feeling highly stressed, but our host wanted to make up for the rather difficult experience by taking us on a little tour of some of the main sights in the Azrou area. One of our stops included a forested area where there were some Macaque monkeys. It was late when we saw them, but we had time to feed them some nuts.
Essendik our host feeding the Macaque monkeys.
It was late when we saw them, but we had time to feed them some peanuts. Our host the took us to a very large, modern coffee shop where he insisted buying us fancy coffees and desserts. I think he felt better after this, and I was feeling more settled.
The next day, we had a fantastic drive down to the Ziz Valley and for quite a long time had a beautiful view of the High Atlas Mountains capped in snow. It was magical to see this and we stopped often to photograph them. I still remember those mountains way over a month later!
Amazing scenery.
A magical view of the High Atlas Mountains after a snow fall.
These skeleton like trees are very striking.
As we were nearing our destination, we had our first view of the Ziz River, which was not nearly as big as we expected (this is in part because of a drought that has been happening in southern Morocco and also because a large dam had been built upstream from where we were). The scenery here is fantastic and — had we been able to do so safely — we would have stopped around pretty much every corner of the road. I was definitely looking forward to spending a few days in the area.
The Ziz River Valley.
We arrived at Ifri in the early afternoon. Once again — as if by magic — we found our Guesthouse even though we had no idea about its location. We simply stopped on the road and discovered the sign for our Guesthouse directing us to the left near the closest mosque.
Our home in the Ziz Valley.
The mosque located right next door to our guesthouse.
We arrived at Ifri in the early afternoon. Once again — as if by magic — we found our Guesthouse even though we had no idea about its location. We were warmly greeted by L’Houssien and were offered Moroccan herb tea, biscuits and nuts as a welcome. One of the things that pretty much everyone says to us that we meet is “marhaba” which means "welcome". It is said with obvious sincerity and is a truly beautiful tradition.
At home already.
We decided to go for a walk across the river through the village of Ifri. L’Houssein guided us across the river in the best place so we didn’t have to get our feet wet. We were grateful for this!
L’Houssein (wearing the tradition desert gandora) with Chris
In the village we met a family who invited us for tea and bread as we watched the woman hand-weave a rug on a loom. It was a sweet meeting. Her son was adorable!
We had a wonderful supper of vegetable couscous which was cooked by our host’s mother. Apparently she makes her own couscous. It was delicious!
After supper it seemed like we would have a very quiet evening, but after a while L’Hussein brought out a couple of drums and some tambourines and castanets, and we then enjoyed an hour of our Berber hosts, a French family travelling in a caravan and Chris and I making music together.
The next night, L’Houssein’s brother joined us after supper and brought out the drums. I was very impressed with Chris’s drumming ability!
After an early night and a restful sleep, we got ready the next morning to head out on a short hike to visit a family of Berber nomads who live in the area. It was a lovely walk once we got off the main road. The scenery here is fantastic. Here are a few photos.
Visiting the family was very relaxed. The simplicity of their life is such a reminder of, first, how little is needed to be content and, second, to be grateful for all the comfort and ease we have in our lives.
Zenab, the daughter, made the daily bread while we were there. I had a feeling of how this act of making bread has been going on for hundreds and perhaps thousands of years.
At one point Zenab had me try my hand at bread-making and despite her showing me the technique, I couldn’t get anywhere near the result she got.
Luckily she quickly fixed my dough and cooked it on a circular iron pan over a wood fire made from little sticks that she went out of the tent and gathered. We were soon enjoying fresh bread, home-made olive oil for dipping, and green mint tea with sugar. There is a whole tea ritual that happens all over Morocco where the host pours boiling water into a tea pot that contains the leaves, then pours a glass of tea and immediately pours it back into the pot and repeats this two or three times; after waiting for another minutes or two, the host begins to pour from about 50 cm above the cup. A good cup of tea results as long as there is a bubbly froth on the surface of the tea. This ritual helped make our time with the nomad family very sweet.
The mother quite often left the tent to keep the little goats out of trouble.
Zenab and her mother.
We spent quite a while with them before we made our way back along a rocky path. There were some beautiful views on the way back.
After resting for a while we headed off in our car to a abandoned that had been abandoned when a dam in the area was built causing the village to be flooded out and its inhabitants moved to other places. The village it was very impressive. L’Houssein showed us around inside the town's ksar. We had a retinue of kids with us that wanted money, sweets and my iPhone!
The abandoned village from a distance. It was quite striking!
Inside the abandoned village.
The old mosque in the abandoned village.
By now the kids had given up asking for just about everything.
The last thing we saw that day was a natural public bath, known in Morocco as a Hamman, that was located along part of the Ziz river where there is a hot spring. During the first part of the day, the hamman is for women and then about 5pm it becomes the men’s public bath. Had we been there earlier I would have joined the women there but we arrived just at the end of the women’s bathing time. The men were all sitting a respectful distance away until the last woman left. I was happy to see a natural hamman as most often they are located within a building.
This photo captures the moment that the last women are leaving the hamman and the men are all coming for their baths.
Tired from our day, we headed back and sat on the veranda drinking mint tea and watching the sun set. We had another fantastic dinner and a quiet evening with L’Houssein. The silence in that area is something that really stands out. Soon we were off to bed as ahead of us we had a longish drive to Merzouga.
We will continue our journey in our next blog post. Thanks for reading about our adventures. Love, Dana and Chris