Setting Up base for the next 2 weeks
Trip Start
Apr 01, 2008
1
5
8
Trip End
Apr 21, 2008
Ifrane, Morocco
Monday, April 7, 2008
Places to go to and see in Imlil
Firstly is the town centre. It's not anything particularly special and it has a lot of westernised things to it, due to the American University Al Akhawayn, just on the outskirts of the town. The town centre doesn't have much fun, it occasionally has some displays or small festivities, I only saw a 2 week snap shot. The 1 thing that we did see in the central circle was a display of the countries athletic history which was wicked, as all of us were athletes. Unsurprisingly they all love Hicham El Guerrouj ( a true legend of sport ) as he was known to train up and around this area from time to time. The other main things to see in the centre is a few lovely little cafés, and as I've already said about Moroccans, they were happy as Larry and they loved all of us.
Away from the town centre is the Souk- the market- which is a fantastic place. Its like a small concentrated version of the Marrakesh Souk, but they don't sell half the rubbish you'd find out there. The meat and vegetables from here are great, as long as you cook them properly, but for sauces and other staple things, the small hypermarché is best for this. There are a few things you MUST buy. This is the list we all thought was necessary;
- DAN-UP yoghurt drinks
-ADINIKE fake socks, just for the jokes
-THÉ DE MINTE from any one of the cafés
-TAXI JOURNEY to either Azrou or Fes
-SIMON orange juice, like what proper Sunny D was like; full of E numbers
Next on the list of places is the parks, the on that we found best for running and walking around was called Parc la Prairie, it has a little lake in the middle, and at the right time of year, there are frogs everywhere. There is a park adjacent to this one, and just in front of the Royal Palace (which I didn't get to visit), which is called Parc l'Ile d'Amour. This parc is the most picturesque one of the three parks, but also the creepiest at night. The other park area is parc des Ombres Noires which we didn't go to, but I've heard from others that it's a nice little place. The first park was one of the two main places we used for training, the other place being what we called "The Plateau" although other runners called it "The Lake" or "The Loop". This is a dried out lake bed just off the road towards Azrou. It is a very common place for Moroccan athletes to run and has also been a training area for the Qatar national team amongst many others. It is a 2km round loop, which is marked by boards and stones at each important point (100m 200m 400m 1km 2km I think). Its surrounded by forest so rarely gets windy, perfect for running loops of. It can be accessed by car, but it is best to get a taxi to the petrol station and walk the rest, or run it as a warm up, as we did. The only thing you must watch out for if you are planning to run in Ifrane is that the plateau can get very flooded, and become a lake again. I'm not sure what time of they year it does this, I imagine it will be around winter time. You'll see some Moroccan international athletes training here, and see how comparatively rich they are to everyone else. We met a few who were all too happy to give us a lift back in their new Mercedes and BMWs.
The other "attraction" of Ifrane is the famed Ifrane Lion. It's like the giants causeway, and by that I don't mean its a vast natural phenomenon, I mean that once you've gone to see it, you wish you hadn't wasted that time. However it's nice and harmless and it's not that much of a walk away.
Our trip in Ifrane had many highlights, one was the group watching the World Cross Country Championships with all the locals in a café, that we aptly named "Runners Café". We all had 20Dh on a athlete to pick out of a hat, we asked the locals to join in but gambling is frowned upon so we kept it a bit more discrete. My man came 2nd which was a shocker, but we had a great time watching it, on quite a big TV- easily 40'' which is impressive for Morroco. There were many highlights, and a good few things that shouldn't be shared publicly on the internet. Oh, and don't forget, don't drink the tap water, many of the lads learnt this the hard way. Our main entertainment at night was to sit outside the hotel and start a conversation with any passing local, using the traditional "Le Bas" to start all conversations, meaning basically "Alright?"
We went on a few 2 or 3 day trips while we were in Ifrane, which I will go over on other blog posts, most notably to Volubilis, Midelt and Meknes.
