Kebabs & Chasms

Today is the day all the sheep got it and were turned into kebab. Before I had gone 100m, I saw 4 in various stages of being dispached. And this continued for the next 3 hours as I passed through village after village. Everybody who could afford it was getting ready to make mutton kebab for the next 2 weeks. Pretty much the whole family stood around as the head of the family performed his duty on the poor beast. Last night in the market, the knife sharpeners were doing a brisk business. By my reckoning, 2 million sheep met a sudden end today.

Decided to go over the High Atlas again and head for Fes in a couple of days, but this time over a smaller road. Peter said it was a beautiful pass with a good asphalt road. He was right about the beautiful pass, but the road has suffered a lot with the rain and snow melt. Lots of mud, stones and rocks have have been washed down. In one place the road was scoured away completely. Some bits were even frozen solid. You got to take it easy as you do not know what is around the corner and if you get too near the edge, then only your favourite God is going to be any help. No stone walls or armcor barriers up here.

But there was no other traffic. Today is like Xmas day in Ireland. Everybody dressed in their finest and going to visit relations & friends. Swap kebab for Turkey and there you have it. Nobody was on the roads and it was an amazing difference. No acrid fumes, no smoke haze, just me and the road and I needed all I could get. It took about 5 hours to get 140k or so to Demnate and I was bloody cold by the time I got there. Someone switched off the sunlamp and turned on the freezer half way through the day. Had to pass 2 cols over 2200m and there was some snow about but the real cold came from the wind up top.

On the way down, I passed by this natural bridge. This is a rock bridge formed about 1.8M years ago. There is even a road over the top. I decided to head for some famous waterfalls near Orzoud and got as far as the village but decided tokeep going as there was only 30 mins of light left and another windy mountain pass to cross. Amazing road which I will have to come back and do in daylight. All the best sights are in your mirrrs and that is not a good thing to be looking at when you are on mountain roads.