On Friday we set off to climb the nearest hill to the east of us. We crossed the river bed and then followed quite a wide track as it went round the shoulder of the hill and found ourselves in a lovely little valley full of argan trees and GRASS!!! Ok the grass is quite dry and hay-like at the moment but it must be really lovely in February and March. Anyway I thought I should get to a highspot to get my bearings so I headed up the hill and there I found the walls of an old ruined kasbah built around the hilltop! I guess everyone and their donkey in the village knows about it but it was a brand new and exciting discovery for me. I don't know how old it is but the walls are made the same way that the walls of Taroudannt are built, from compressed slabs of earth. Moroccans have been building large structures like this for over 10 centuries. I found two sides and two square towers at diagonally opposite corners and possibly the places where the third and fourth tower were. I could also find the outlines and wall foundations of at least one stone house built just below the Kasbah. Mohamed says that the villagers talk of houses built by the "Berrrd Kheiss" - Portuguese, who were here abouts in the early 1700's, to the west of the village but I don't know if they specifically mean the kasbah (ok Mohamed is also sceptical that it is a kasbah... but he hasn't seen it yet.) BTW when I got home and looked I could actually see one of the kasbah walls from our house - just hadn't recognised it for what it was.
From the top looking over the river you get a nice and different view of the village and the valley, to the North the hills rising higher and to the east (?) there is a large wooded valley with more hills surrounding... I started for the first time to think about taking a horse out! (I also realise that I am possibly getting my north south east and west a bit muddled.... must get a map.)
Yesterday I went out in the same direction and climbed the two peaklets to the north of the Kasbah - actually all part of the same hill, and on my way back found a nice track that looks like it heads off up the first big hill in the range. I think I might find my way up there next weekend.
I always come back from these walks looking as if I have been dragged backwards through a hedge - which is quite incorrect as I usually plunge through them head first - and covered in scratches. Most of the tracks I follow are made by goats and their goatherders... sometimes with a donkey and sometimes just by goats. As the tracks wind through (and sometimes under) argan trees (prickly), thorn bushes (organic barbed wire) and other just normally prickly plants, it would be a miracle if I didn't get scratched.
We saw a spectacular sunset... though Ruby gets very impatient with me if I sit for too long - it is almost as if she thinks something bad will happen if we stop walking... and when the full moon came up yesterday it was a bright orange. As we walked back home after seeing the sunset I heard the wolves up in the mountains calling to each other. Ruby, thank goodness, was quite unaffected by this.
I will take my camera and post some photos soon.
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