20 April Cascades d'Ouzoud

It's happened again, one day, so far, so different. We left the Atlantic coast this morning and five hours and over four hundred kilometres later we are once more in the mountains.
We had an early start this morning. It was a luxury hotel and we looked forward to a good nights sleep, plumbing that didn't chug and whir in the wee small hours. However at 05.30 we were woken by loud conversations in French. We think there were two couples in rooms not far from us who were leaving early and had set alarms. They were actually holding conversations with each other at the tops of their voices, no consideration at all for anyone else who might be asleep. We wanted an early start and we had set an alarm for 06.30 so there wasn't much point in going back to sleep again.
We decided to go back and take the motorway for most of today's journey, then we would completely bypass Casablanca. On the way we intended to drop into a Marjane supermarket we had seen on the way to the hotel yesterday. Alcohol stocks are getting low. However it wasn't where we thought it was, and we weren't so desperate we needed to go looking for it. The driving on the motorway this morning was even worse than last night. Lots of people seem to pick a lane they like and stay in it, or even better have one wheel in each lane, it must be comforting to have the white line under your bonnet. Then of course, if things get a bit dull, there is always the possibility of a nifty bit of undertaking on the hard shoulder. As yesterday, animals were grazing at the verges and people were walking or waiting on the motorway. I'm not sure how the Moroccans classify a 'motorway'. It did get better after the turn off to the airport at Casablanca and we turned south towards Marrakesh so maybe a lot of the traffic was early morning commuters.
The motorway looped round Casablanca and as we saw the cloud of grey cloud (?pollution) hovering over it we knew we had made the right choice in deciding not to go there. The road took us over the 'Plateau des Phosphates' where the landscape was scarred and pitted with slag heaps. It was sad and sinister and reminded us of the west coast around the South African/Namibian border where De Boers have completely remoulded the scenery in their excavations for diamonds. The other striking feature about the scenery today was the abundance of olive trees, some older established ones but also massive new plantations. There seems to be an attempt to create olive farms in even the most hostile environments, small trees hand been planted in little depressions for watering in on dry sandy soil.
John spent a long time with Google maps yesterday evening. Maps have long been a passion for him. He reads them for enquiry and pleasure, much as someone else might read a cookery book.  He has a box with maps for everywhere we have ever been, taken home, mended and stored. Occasionally we will be talking about somewhere we have been and can't remember the precise details. He will get his maps out and pour over them for clarification. So having got quite a lot of the journey over, we came off the motorway at Ben Guerir and took minor roads for the rest of the way. It was a lovely trip as we came through areas which don't often see tourists. We passed a number of small villages, we could clearly see the original mud houses in the centre and then newer ones, two or even three stories, brick built and faced at the perimeters.
We found the hotel for tonight easily, as we came into Ouzoud, and it is charming. I suppose it is a riad, certainly the main house is constructed like one. A wall has been built round it and a number of small bungalows put into the garden, making it a kasbah.
We have a room in the main house which is large and airy as well as being old and quaint. The only thing is, the person, woman we think from our conversations, seems to have a day off. Two young men are 'holding the fort', doing an amazing job, although they don't really seem to have a grasp of which rooms are free and which ones booked. The woman who has the day off hasn't left them the key for the secure internet connection, so even though the router is on we can't get into it.
We came here to visit the waterfalls, 'cascades', and we walked the kilometre or so further down the road in the late afternoon, when we were told they are at their best. We were not disappointed. We were a little bit cynical, having been to Plitvicke in Croatia and Augrabies in South Africa, but these were different and in their own way quite unique. The setting is stunning, so much water crashing down. Our information was correct, they are in shade in the mornings, but as the sun catches them in the late afternoon the rainbows flit and fly between the mountains of the gorge.
A surprising thing was to find that almost all the visitors were Moroccan. They were several hundred people, it's a big area and was definitely not crowded, maybe we saw a dozen people who didn't look Moroccan. We walked down many, many steps to the base of the falls, where some young boys were swimming in the pools and there were some boats which would row you out closer to the falls. We sat at an improvised cafe and drank some freshly squeezed orange juice, so thick it wouldn't go up the straw. It was well worth the journey and I'm sure we would not have enjoyed Casablanca anywhere near as much.
Back to the hotel and a lovely supper, an excellent salad and one of the nicest tajines we have had.
So no internet and we can't investigate possibilities for accommodation for tomorrow night. We think we will head off back to the coast, another long day in the car, bit most of it will be on minor roads. We are on count down to returning to Marrakesh on Tuesday and it would be nice to find somewhere for the last two or three nights which would give us an easy run into Marrakesh to return the car. We think we might give a small place called Oualidia a look, who knows, of we find somewhere nice to stay there it could be our last stop in Morocco.