Once Ramadan was over the Moroccan government encouraged Moroccans to travel within the country to assist tourist businesses. The first excursion we made was to Khouribga, a modern town about an hour’s drive east of Casablanca.

This photo was taken from a car some miles south of the town and explains the reason for the town’s existence – open cast phosphate mining. If you have GoogleEarth, look at an aerial view of the area to the south and east of Khouribga and you will see the enormous extent of the devastated landscape. There is a railway line to Casablanca to move the end product for export, so there are no lorries on the roads.

Clearly this is not a tourist or holiday destination, so why did we go there? We did have a good reason as Jamel has an older sister Semira (who actually introduced Jamel to Assia in the first place), and her daughter Selma, husband Ayub and 4 year old Yahya live there.

This is their still unfinished house on the western edge of town. Ayub works for a phosphate mining company and they moved to this house about a year ago. They hope to finish the top storey later this year. The lady in black at the gate is Semira.

Assia, Jamel, Semira and I went to stay with them for about a week in the second half of May.

Until the French started mining the phosphates in the 1920s, Khouribga was just a dot on a hot, not very fertile plain. It is still hot, but now has a population rapidly approaching 200,000, and has building plots laid out to accommodate many, many more. It was notable how few beggars and apparently unemployed people there were in comparison with other places in Morocco.

Serviced building plots and roadways

This is typical of many towns in Morocco, as their very young population needs housing. It interested me that every house in an urban area has to have a pharmacy within 300 metres. So you see small pharmacies surrounded by very little housing. They are open for business as the government subsidises the first 7 years, on the assumption that the houses will all have been built by then and the pharmacies (which are all private businesses) will be self sustaining.

Jamel, Selma and Assia

This is just about the only place to visit – the park in the centre of town. Every evening it is well frequented. In the background are some quite nice flats with cafes and small shops on the ground floor, and behind the camera is a large supermarket and a small retail park.

Yahya in the front yard

Leaning against the wall is an old bike than I used to explore Khouribga. It was stuck in one gear and the brakes were only about 10% effective, but there were no hills and very little traffic during the day, so it was safe enough. The main hazards were donkey carts, boys kicking footballs about and older youths racing horses bareback. There were some quite nice residential areas, but nothing very interesting.

This is just about all of the front yard and the back yard is similar but flat. Note the steps down into the house, which is built partly underground to keep it as cool as possible. Most of the time we were there the daytime temperature was about 34C (93F), and it was only May, so all measures for cooling are essential.

Selma (who has the longest, most genuine laugh I have ever encountered) works as secretary to the regional head of Health and Yahya goes to nursery school, so the excursions were limited to the four of us and Ayub. Not that the car would hold more than 5 anyway.

On the Saturday we went east, firstly to Fquih Ben Salah about an hour away. This was to visit the weekly market. We didn’t get there until about 10 am, far too late to see any animals (as at Had Draa) and the rest was not dissimilar to the weekly market at Oued Laou.

Turkeys on sale in the market

We started by having breakfast.

This is a permanent structure. We bought some meat in the market and gave it to a stall just outside to be grilled. The lady behind the counter on the left sold us mint tea, and we had brought our own bread and some cake.

Nothing deters Assia from searching for bargains, so we spent some time afterwards in the market before driving further east to the town of Beni Mellal. On the edge of town are some famous gardens at Ain Asserdoune. They are not extensive, but after the flat, hot plains en route they were an unexpected sight.

Time to introduce Ayub, seen here at Ain Asserdoune. Contrary to appearances he is of entirely Moroccan heritage, and the only person in his family with his colouring. It is some form of genetic tweak, and I saw two other examples (both males) whilst I was in Morocco. it causes him lots of problems as he is often assumed to be a foreigner, and usually loses out on any bargaining as a result. But he is very cheerful about it, and occupies what spare time he has running basketball training for youngsters.

Assia and Semira at Ain Asserdoune

It was about 100F when this photo was taken, so Semira was not very wise to be wearing black! Behind them is the main water feature in the garden – it has a small pond feeding the cascade.

Looking up from the garden, past the blue jacaranda trees, one sees the Kasbah, built on a very defendable hill. It is possible to walk up the hill, but in that heat we drove there.

View of Beni Mellal from the Kasbah

The Kasbah is just a shell. On the bottom right is Ain Asserdoune, and the town (which supports the agriculture on the irrigated plain beyond) is about twice what can be seen in this photo. Behind the Kasbah, the foothills rise quite steeply to the Atlas mountains.

We then returned to Beni Mellal for lunch.

Centre of Beni Mellal (taken from the car)

This photo gives some idea of just how close the mountains are. After that we returned to Khouribga. A very hot journey of nearly three hours with the air conditioning in the car not working.

I originally intended to describe our subsequent visit to Ouzoud in this post, but have just decided to make that a separate post as there is much more to report.

Ouzoud is a genuine tourist attraction.