The Facets of the Middle Atlas

After a night at a very nice campsite near Azrou, with chickens, rabbits, ducks, all kinds of birds, and a pink chick, we venture onto secondary roads for the first time. I really want to see the Barbary macaques with the children, but where they apparently always see them, we only find garbage dumps. So we continue, already over 1500m above sea level (we are starting to feel at home) we drive through cork oak and cedar forests, which alternate with wide open plains. There is no one anywhere, shepherds with their flocks are everywhere, and sometimes every 100 meters children stand by the road. They live in tents made of tarpaulins and get water from a well.
And suddenly, completely unexpectedly, in the middle of the road, a Barbary macaque. We stop and see more and more of them! They jump across the road, climb trees, carry their young on their backs, and groom each other. We are thrilled to be able to observe this and Armon waves to each monkey individually as we continue driving.
We find a quiet place for lunch, barely 2 minutes there, the police come and ask if everything is okay. We confirm and they advise us to travel through civilized areas on main roads next time. We nod and then decide to go to the next campsite instead of wild camping as we had planned.
The landscape becomes more and more spectacular, the roads worse. We are very moved by the poverty here and at the same time fascinated by the beauty of nature.

After almost six hours of driving, the children have been sitting in the front with us for a long time, we reach the campsite. We are greeted by a peacock and are relieved that everything went well and plan a car-free day.