Country scenes in Morocco
Countryside near Ifrane, Morocco
On our tour of Morocco we were constantly amazed at the appearance of the country. It was not at all like we had imagined. Many times we remarked how similar parts of the countryside was to South Australia.
Other parts were very different. The photo above was taken near the skiing resort of Ifrane. Now we don’t have ski fields here in South Australia – it very rarely snows here – but we do have rolling hills like those we saw in this area. The tree clad hills were so similar to those in the mid north of our state or even parts of the Adelaide Hills near home.
Not what I expected in Morocco
Forest road in the mountains near Ifrane, Morocco
This is certainly not the typical scene I expected to see while on a visit to Morocco. Our tour took us up into a mountainous area near the ski resort of Ifrane. The forest area was beautiful, not unlike that in the Adelaide Hills here in South Australia, or the area around Mt Macedon north of Melbourne – or perhaps even the Katoomba area in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney.
The main reason our tour took us to this area was to see the monkeys that are resident in this forest.
We didn’t see the monkeys – but the scenery mostly made up for our disappointment.
For those who are interested, the animal in question is the Barbary macaque which is found in various habitats in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco and Algeria. A small population of unknown origin can be found at Gibraltar, the only wild population of monkeys in Europe. You can read more here.