From Desert to Forest

25-Oct-23

We woke up early to catch the sunrise over the desert then rented ATV's to zoom around the same dunes a bit before heading out... surprisingly more comfortable than riding a camel 🙃

The two shops they took us to today were a date shop (which was delicious) & a furniture maker that specializes in using local stone imbedded with fossils. During the Ordovician Period, Morocco - like much of the Sahara Desert - was a large ocean thriving with prehistoric sea creatures. It's not the most ethical trade but those rich fossil beds are big business in Morocco & for local Berber tribes trying to make a living. 480 million year-old ammonites, orthoceras, & trilobites are most common & that's what we saw at the furniture factory.

Block of stone with orthoceras fossils (like squid with shells)

Polished nautilus fossil

Mix of orthoceras & trilobite fossils

They showed us how they carve the stone: once the block is cut out of the ground, they shave off later by later to reveal the fossils below.

Trilobite 

Brittle stars

Crinoids, prehistoric precursors to sea stars that have a flower like 'head' & stalk to anchor them to the sea floor.

More detailed crinoids with feather-like feeding appendages.

Heading west back over the mountains, we stopped at D'Ifrane National Park in the Middle Atlas Mountains. It was established only 20 years ago to protect the country's largest stand if Atlas Cedar and the endangered Barbary macaque. I'm not sure how well tourism is helping to protect them, since people were buying peanuts to have feed them 🫤

Forest cat!

Barbary macaques

The 'alpine' town of Ifrane was created as a ski resort by the French when they ruled this part of Morocco in the 1920s. The town was used as a prisoner of war camp in WWII, during which time a German prisoner carved a stone lion statue - supposedly to earn his freedom - that represents the last wild Atlas lion killed in the forest in the 1920s (now they only exist in zoos). We were told all Moroccans take their photo with the lion when they visit Ifrane, so... when in Rome!