Tuesday, Berber Market Day in Azrou

Zagan the motorhome’s sharing the entire domain of the Emirates Euro Camping (N33.443252, W5.190994) with two other motorhomes, one of which is Jules and Phil, the other is a French rig with a 6 year old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel in tow. The sun’s shining and the sky is pure blue, but snow is forecast for the next 3 days. We’re about 1300m up here, and there’s a snow gate between the campsite and Azrou about 3 miles down the road. A lorry fitted with a snow plough passed us earlier on, so it looks like the white stuff’s coming and it’s time to move on.

It’s Tuesday today, Berber market day in Azrou, which was worth hanging around an extra day to see. It was cracking, an authentic and immersive experience, with only three Europeans to be seen, us three. Yep, only three of us made it in as Ju’s still fighting off the Fes Flu. She held guard in the van, keeping Charlie from wreaking havoc in the souk.

Azrou’s a Berber town, so should really be written ⴰⵥⵔⵓ in the Berber language of Tamazight. If, like me, you’re a little confused at this point, then I’ll try and explain. Morocco’s population is largely made up of Arabs and Berbers, with some areas having higher concentrations of one group or the other. I can’t tell the difference between the two, they appear to seamlessly integrate, and I’m relying on guidebooks and Wikipedia to tell me which area I’m in. Until relatively recently, only Arabic and French were used, and the Berber language was persecuted, but it’s now been accepted as an official language. We don’t see much of the Berber written word knocking about the place, which is a shame as it looks incredibly exotic: Tuesday looks so much better as ⴰⵙⵉⵏⴰⵙ.

None of us speak a word of Berber, but that didn’t seem to matter much down in the market. The three of us rode into town on our bikes, passing ladies carrying bags and the occasional donkey streaming into what turned out to be an enormous souk. Azrou’s lower than the campsite, so an easy downhill roll, but a bit of a sweat back up again. Arriving in among the melee we made a rapidly-aborted attempt to take our bikes through the gate into the market, finding it rammed with people, animals, hand carts, motorbikes, vans, tents, you name it. Having secured the bikes to a fence, we were fully confident they’d be there later on (“trust in Allah, but lock up your bike”).

Into the souk again, the sight of an expansive animal market drew me in, GoPro in hand. Robed men struggled past holding the front legs of a couple of reluctant sheep. More sheep were roped together by their necks, the heads tightly together in a wooly rugby scrum, their faces surprisingly accepting. Men stood around each group of sheep, each of their faces enigmatic, promising stories of a life unimaginable to me. The sight stretched into the distance.

Further on down the dusty, rock-strewn hillside we came to an eaterie. A tent with rough-hewn wooden poles and an open side, out of which smoke from a long charcoal BBQ was being blown by a large fan. Parts of cow carcass, still on the bone, hung from the tent poles, and as orders were taken, meat was sliced, placed into a mincer running on a noisy generator and rendered into burgers. We returned later on and ate, 20Dh each (about £1.80) for a flat bread stuffed with burger on a metal plate with two small piles of spices which served in place of a sauce. With a shared pot of green tea (10Dh), we ate and stared at the goings-on around us.

This chap insisted I take a photo of him pouring tea!

Before the vittles we toured the whole market, a couple of hours of looking. I used our camera to overtly take pictures until being reprimanded by a large chap behind a stall, who shook his finger at me: “interdit”, forbidden. I put the camera away, but couldn’t help grab a few more photos as we walked. As ever, the very best images were never going to get captured anyway: the faces of ladies for example. Or the sight and sound of chickens having their throats cut one by one, and being popped without ceremony, flapping and twitching, upside down into containers where their life blood seeped out and into the earth below.

Phil finally bought an electrical extension cable, having viewed about a hundred of them, dispensing with each in turn due to quality failures, an unduly high price, the vendor’s unwillingness to negotiate or a whiff of some falsehood or other penetrating his haggler’s sixth sense. His approach to dealing with vendors is to make them smile with mime and antics, and it works magnificently. I’ve never seen so many Berber teeth! Jules went into a frenzy of fruit and veg buying, while I made do with a few tangerines and some thick socks as a present for Ju. Some vendors spoke French so we could understand the prices. Others didn’t, so would either show us the price from the coins they had, or would lean over and pick the right coins from us, or we’d hand over a note and get the change back. It didn’t take long to build trust they charged us the same as everyone got charged.

Although I’ve seen all aspects of this souk before, they were all spread out. Chicken murdering: Fes, Morocco. Sheep roped up: Douz, Tunisia. The selling stuff not even worthy of calling scrap or junk (an empty aerosol can which had been squashed or a snapped circuit board?): various places in Morocco, Tunisia and Ukraine. But this place brought all of these things together. That was a great day down in Azrou, and a shame Ju missed it, but looking at the map it’s quite possible we’ll come back this way, crossing the High and Middle Atlas via Midelt, so we’ll get another go at it!

This chap was flogging something to do with the female reproductive organs, and kept pointing to a schematic diagram of them in between shouting at his fascinated all-male audience

I’ll leave you with a few more photos of the Azrou souk, I hope they give you some flavour of the place.

Cheers, Jay