We are parked up tonight at a campsite just outside Azrou, we arrived yesterday after driving over the Middle Atlas from Midelt. As we climbed up, peaking at 2200 metres it started to rain and became considerably colder, the snow gates were open but there was still snow lying around us. The landscape reminded us of the Yorkshire Dales or the Lake District. We dropped down into Azrou and the weather could only be described as miserable but we parked up, turned on the heating and settled down to waste an afternoon watching a movie. We enjoyed Captain Phillips despite the sub-titles for the Somalie actors being in Japanese! We would have enjoyed it more had a sudden rush of water not splashed onto my neck and over the bench seat. We've had a small problem before with the roof light leaking but nothing like this. Water was running down almost continuously and as is was teeming down outside I couldn't get on to the roof to see where the problem was. Captain Phillips was paused several times as we manoeuvred a bucket under the leaks and eventually I taped a bin liner over the roof light, cut a hole where the water was gathering and placed a bucket underneath. At least the water was now falling into one spot and we could hear it dripping into the bucket as we lay in bed last night.
This morning it had stopped raining and I took a look but couldn't see where the water was coming in. Paul came to my rescue and we dismantled the rooflight but still couldn't see any breaks in the seals. Eventually I taped the whole outside perimeter with glazing tape, courtesy of Paul, we re-assembled the rooflight and now have our fingers crossed that it's leakproof until we get back to the UK when I can carry out a more permanent repair. I have to say it was fun standing on Paul's kitchen table which was balanced between our work top and a collapsible stool balanced on our bench seat!
Repairs completed Paul and Chris offered to drive us in their van along the tourist trail through the cedar forest to the south of Azrou so we quickly packed a picnic and set off and what a great afternoon we had. The forest changed from Holm Oak to Pine to Cedar and other varieties that we couldn't identify. At 2000 metres there was snow on the ground but it was warm in the brilliant sunshine and the views through the trees into Azrou below were stunning. We came across a troop of Barbery Apes who were foraging by the roadside and as soon as we stopped they took to the trees but for five minutes or so we watched them swinging through the trees, stopping occasionally to look back at us before dropping into the snow covered ground some 50ft away and disappearing into the forest. A mile or so further on we came across another troop of about twenty Apes picking over stones looking for food on a hillside about thirty metres from the road. We stopped and we were far enough away that they didn't seem bothered by us and we felt so lucky to have seen these animals in the wild. As we left the forest we passed a couple of picnic places adjacent to the main road where local folk were feeding some of the Apes who had grown used to this type of contact. We didn't stop.
There's a lot of fruit grown in this part of Morocco and today we passed small farms all of which had a cherry orchard and a couple of places with larger orchards. It must be beautiful here when the trees are in blossom. Even the site we are now on has cherry trees planted all over the site.
If you look very closely you'll see an ape up this tree:
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