Sunday 15 April: to Marrakesh and the Middle Atlas

Reveille was early, very early, at 3am and surprisingly all three of us were quickly in the blocks ready for a 4am check-in at Luton for the 6am Easyjet flight to Marrakesh. Our approach took us over deserted towns, and circular fields irrigated by ‘filter-bed type’ sprinklers. All went according to plan and by 10am in warm sunshine I was driving our Hyundai Terracan 4wd out of the airport car park. The road north-east towards Ifrane was easy to find. Once out of the suburban zone the roads became pretty quiet but traffic police were commonplace at the roadsides with the occasional road block requiring all vehicles to stop. Just east of Pont d’Imdahane I was flagged down by police and after an exchange of pleasantries was gently informed that I had been speeding, but the pleasant tone continued and we were allowed to go on our way. Interestingly, a Greenish Black-tip Euchloe charlonia flew across the road just as we were pulling away – a definite sighting! At this point we also noticed the grey 60kph sign indicating the start of the 80 limit…

Lunch stop was in a roadside café in the town of Beni-Mellal where we all sampled traditional tagines, and very good they were too.

Neil took over the driving at 2pm for the second half of what was turning out to be a much longer drive than I’d originally calculated. We pressed-on until spotting a likely location around 50km west of Khenifra opposite the vast reservoir (not shown on my map!). We were all very ready to stretch our legs by this time. The stream bed was mostly dry and Brown Argus Aricia agestis cramera were seen along with Moroccan Orange-tip Anthocharis belia and Small Heath (later identified as Coenonympha pamphilus f.lyllus). The towns we passed through were cowboy-like and the whole area was cultivated to the maximum.

Seven hours of driving from Marrakesh we arrived at the Perce Neige hotel in Ifrane around 6.30pm, sampled Casablanca beer, took dinner in the restaurant at 7.30.

Monday 16 April: Ifrane and surrounding area

The sun streaming through the shutters woke me at 6.40am and I decided to ‘do a David (Dennis)’ and look for some nearby roosting butterflies. Stepping out of the hotel at 7.10 the morning air was cool blown by a brisk easterly, though the sun was warm in sheltered spots. The trees were bare-branched and the whole place had a late winter feel to it. But a short distance from the hotel I found a promising rough hillside with plenty of nectar sources though the air temperature was still too low for butterflies. However, just before 8am I found Moroccan Hairstreaks Tomares mauretanicus taking the early sun, and took several photos. A couple of spurges were also there – one being a Euphorbia nicaeensis and the other like a perennial, running E helioscopia with stems resembling Coltsfoot.

After breakfast, and with our packed lunches, I took the lads back to the spot where much more activity was happening. Green Hairstreaks Callophtys rubi flew with the Moroccan Hairstreaks, also Western Dappled Whites Euchloe crameri, Moroccan Orange-tips, and a small sloping area of ground-level yellow-flowers in full sun provided breakfast for at least 20 Brimstones Gonepteryx rhamni an amazing sight.

Encouraged by this start, Ant took the wheel at 11am to find the nearby Foret de Jaba to the north of Ifrane, but much of it has gone along with any vegetation it may have supported. So we continued through Immouzer making our first stop on a hillside just beyond the town. But it was heavily grazed with no sign of butterflies. Still on the look-out for likely habitat Ant drove through Sefrou turning right on the R503. Some tall yellow flowers in the roadside ditch prompted a stop below an unnamed barrage where we decided to lunch out of the cold northerly wind. The odd white flew by at speed, but nothing else was on the wing. As we sat in silence eating our lunch a Berber boy appeared ‘from nowhere’ and sat some ten yards behind us, watching proceedings. He must have found us quite strange! I chucked an apple to him. Before leaving, we scaled the dam to view the lake but simply peered down onto a green grazed vista which had not been submerged for many a long year.

Increasingly despondent, we drove to the 702 turning west over Tizi n Tretten stopping just over the summit. Nothing. The whole region is either ploughed, planted, or devastated by sheep. There are just no nectar sources. Passing through Ifrane around 4pm we kept going to explore the area around Zaouia de Ifrane but the outcome was the same. There were some nice Adonis in flower – some consolation.

Back at the hotel by 5.30 we decided to cut our losses and try to get an extra night at our next destination in the High Atlas. I made the necessary call and advised our hotel of the new check-out date of 18 April.

Tuesday 17 April: local hillside again, then across to Annoceur

Out at 7.20 before breakfast into another stiff cold easterly. No butterflies. We revisited the site after breakfast for a couple of hours to find the same species as yesterday plus Large Tortoiseshell Nymphalis polychloros and a Striped Hawk moth Hyles livornica. Interestingly, the Brimstones were breakfasting somewhere else this morning.

As Annoceur had been missed by us yesterday, and as it is mentioned in the literature, we decided to pay it a visit today. Turning right before Immouzer along the southern shore of Dayet Aaoua (road not shown on the map) we stopped to watch the dust storm blowing across the lake and opportunistically to watch some Hawfinches in the trees, and Avocets at the waters edge. On the north-east stretch of road before the junction with the 503 we stopped in a shrubby pine wood to take a look after Neil saw a large brown butterfly blow across the road. Apart from a few Brimstones passing through, the only other points of interest were some alpines. Then Neil found a Chapman’s Green Hairstreak Callophrys avis busily nectaring on a low flowering shrub – like a mini-rhodedendron – and we were able to take many photos. Arbutus, the species' host plant was nowhere to be seen however.

Our second stop was off-road on the track that runs south of the Annoceur hilltop Moorish fort in a very exposed and windy spot. I was surprised to catch a False Baton Blue Pseudophilotes abencerragus that disappeared like a bullet on release from the pill-box. A Bath White Pontia daplidice allowed us to take shots as it cowered behind a rock out of the wind and a hawk moth made a studied inspection of Neil. After lunch, Neil and I wandered down to the stream below as Ant sketched/painted by the car, but there were no more butterflies at this place.

On the road again by 2pm we filled-up in Sefrou before taking the road east towards Menzel where prickly pear and agave are used extensively for hedging. People in the towns wore hooded cloaks, like an ancient order of mysterious monks, clearly still in winter-wear mode. We stopped by an olive grove where a stream rushed under the road thinking that the presence of water might just create some decent habitat – it was certainly much greener and more flowery here. Ant and Neil saw a Spanish Swallowtail Iphiclides podalirius feisthamelii on thistles, and a Red Admiral Vanessa atalanta but I missed them. A solitary Moroccan Hairstreak at the roadside made it into my camera (something to do!).

The gorges prior to El Menzel are quite impressive geologically, but yielded nothing new in the butterfly line. The populous town itself was dusty, so much so that they were watering the streets. The local traffic cop pointed us in the direction of more gorges but after a short while we decided to turn back and retrace our route to Ifrane. Two reasons: the habitat continued to be blitzed with no reason to expect any change, and secondly, the round route would be no more than gratuitous extra mileage.

We arrived at the hotel at 6.10pm just as the thunder storm started.

Wednesday 18 April: transit to Ouirgane, High Atlas

Heavy rain continued through the night, and into the morning. With 9 hours solid driving in prospect, we checked-out by 8.40 with Neil at the wheel for the first 3-hour stint in drizzle and through low cloud. Three hours brought us to a roadside café beyond Beni-Mellal where we stopped for a café con latte.

Ant took the second leg stopping for lunch at the grey 60kph sign near the Pont d’Imdahane where we had seen the Greenish Black-tip a couple of days earlier. Some hope in this stony, lunar, windswept place! Having finished our lunch, we set-off on foot in different directions searching for our quarry. Neil eventually came back to the car very excitedly – he’d seen the GB-T down the road. But at that point a specimen appeared around the car, madly pursued for a photo. And then there was another. And a third! They seemed to be assembling in the lee of the car to shelter on the ground in the bit of sunshine that fleetingly appeared. Great photos were taken of this lovely butterfly in what had become an increasingly surreal experience!

I took over the baton around 4.15pm near Tamelelt, just in time to negotiate the centre of Marrakesh at rush hour. The road we sought was poorly signed and we ended up taking the road towards Ouikameden down the rose-lined Boulevard Mohammed VI cutting across to the west to Tahanaoute and thence zig-zagging up the valley to Ouirgane. Latterly the tarmac was only a car width and the 4WD came into its own when faced with an oncoming vehicle.

The drive to the hotel was down a dubious rough track but Chez Momo turned-out to be a gem. And the vegetation was lush and the trees were green, so different from our previous location. Arriving at 6.30pm we dumped our bags in the suite we were to share for the night and quickly assembled for another round of Casablancas. Dinner was beef tagines x 3 in the log-fired traditionally styled restaurant. As we turned out the lights at 10pm we all agreed that this augured well for the next few days…

Thursday 19 April: Ouirgane and environs

Not impressed by being woken at 3am by the sound of clinking bottles as the bar was re-stocked (?) for half an hour, but the song of Nightingales at 6.20 was a great improvement. Up at 7.15 to find no hot water, so we all made do with cold.

The sunny start was promising, and the local bees were keen to share our breakfast honey with us. Today was market day at the top of the track so we decided to head down through the Berber village to the N’fiss Valley below the hotel. I nipped back to pick-up the carton of 50 biros bought to hand-out to the kids and I was quickly surrounded by a small crowd that included some adults. One young girl in particular showed entrepreneurial skills and clearly wanted to corner the market – I dubbed her ‘the stilo princess’.

Unfortunately, the riverside was pretty sterile – spring snow-melt would have washed-away any larvae or pupae – so we reluctantly went back to the car and drove south out of the town.

A short way out of the town we stopped to investigate a dry gully to our left and were not disappointed. The lightly marked Fritillary had been identified initially as a Desert, then maybe an Aetherie, but in the cold light of day we had to settle for Spotted Fritillary Melitaea didyma. False Mallow Skipper Carcharodus tripolinus was a good find, and other species included Brown Argus, Small Heath, Common Blue Polyommatus icarus, Greenish black-tip, etc.,

The next stop was a bit further on at another lhs gully opposite a pumping station which we visited after lunch. Neil snapped what we took to be a Desert Orange-tip Colotis evagore in flight across the road and a bit later we found its LHP in abundance at the roadside, and a solitary larva. After a while we pushed-on to another lhs gully, this time with water in it, but there was little doing other than a Moroccan Orange-tip at rest.

We had ventured no more than 20k up the valley and as we were a bit early decided to find some Gasoil 350 in Asni. Asni didn’t sell it so it was necessary to go on to Tahanoute some 30k/40 minutes from the hotel. Took the opportunity to buy some postcards at the garage – the first I had seen on our travels – and by 6.45 we were into our first round of customary Casablancas. Good to be in single rooms again, even if they were quite cramped.

Enjoyed another dinner by the fire and chatted to Mustapha about many things, including the mentality of Americans, ‘why are they like that?’ he queried, the second time staff alluded to the disaster in Iraq. My light went out at 9.50.

Friday 20 April: Tizi n Test

First woken at 4.24am by a Call to Prayer. Got up at 7am to a partially cloudy but fine-looking day, and still sans hot water. We set-off at 9.30 planning to go over the top at Tizi n Test and down the other side into the very different desert habitat before working our way back. Ant drove today and the summit was reached at 11am with a cold wind blowing and low cloud draping the southern slopes so that we had no view of what lay below. Below the cloud, around 1,600m on our descent we stopped in weak sunshine on a lavender covered hillside which in the Med would have been alive with insects. Instead we made do with a few Small Coppers Lycaena phlaeas. Then Ant spotted a Spanish Marbled White Malanargia ines – bit of a hawk-eye is our Ant – and Neil and I tried to lie prone to get decent photos of it.

A couple of further roadside stops were made on our descent but to no avail – butterflies were very scarce. Reaching the plain where the Agadir road joined ours presented a landscape of bare earth and scattered thorn trees with little or no other vegetation. We stopped to watch some goats grazing high up in these trees and were joined, as if by magic, by their shepherd who materialised from the bush to show us the fruits they were eating. We rewarded him with an orange.

As nothing was happening here, we turned back the way we had come and stopped at a likely-looking bend around half-way to the summit for lunch. The odd Morrocan Orange-tip passed through and a Spotted Fritillary temporarily raised hopes that it might be something else. Then a cry of “Silver-line” from Neil somewhere on the opposite hillside brought the day alive. The habitat was a steep, dry, hot hillside and the fast-flying Allard's Silver-line Cigaritis allardi was a real bugger to follow. It rested at the end of dry twigs or disappeared on the bare rocky earth only to fly off again when we got within 10 feet of it. Neil had first bash at photography and my painstaking stalking eventually led to some excellent close shots lying fully prone, head cocked to one side and sweat running into my left eye.

I took over the driving for the rest of the return stopping a few more times. The first was at our lavender hillside but only a Painted Lady Vanessa cardui entertained us this time although a truck load of singing Berbers made us smile. Two quick stops followed to take spurge cuttings on our descent towards Ouirgane and in grey, cloudy and cold conditions our final stop was by the pumping station in the vain hope of finding Desert Orange-tip. The rain began to fall as we got out of the car at Chez Momo around 5.45pm. Casablancas for Ant and I, and a mint tea for Neil before dinner at 7.30. We each had chicken with lemon and green olive tagines and shared a bottle of Moroccan Merlot. Before lights out at 9.30 I had written my postcards and there being no hot water, chickened-out of a shower.

Saturday 21 April: Ourika Valley

Heavy rain woke us several times in the night and I dozed from 6 to 7am and as usual ran the tap for hot water. Surprise! Piping hot water!! Too hot in fact – maybe we should complain!!! We took breakfast in the restaurant as tables and chairs outside were wet, though it was no longer raining but grey, cloudy and cool.

At 8.45 I drove out of the village in warm sunshine past a few small rockfalls and mudslides through Asni and turning right past Tahanaoute to meet the Ourika road. The Ourika valley was clearly a popular tourist area with many craft shops, cafes and restaurants lining the riverside. Our destination was the small town of Setti-Fatma at the end of the road and we had parked-up by 10.30. It had a frontier town feel to it and was busy with tourists from Marrakesh. A quietly spoken weather-beaten local offered his services to us as we were booting-up presuming that we’d come to visit ‘la cascade’ but I told him we preferred to be on our own and anyway we’d come to ‘chercher les papillons’. Ah, he knew just the place! Eventually I had to halt our walk up the river to tell him for the third time that we wanted to be alone. He said he’d wait for our return then show us la cascade. Perhaps.

On the first steep slope just outside the town we saw Black-eyed Blues Glaucopsyche melanops but couldn’t get anywhere near a photo. A bit further on Ant spotted False Baton Blues and at last I was able to get my shots. Painted Ladies, Knapweed Fritillaries melitaea phoebe, Morrocan Orange-tips, Small Coppers, and a couple of common whites completed our sightings and within half an hour of arriving we had seen the last of the sun, and the temperature dropped. We strolled upstream through Berber passageways and increasingly realised we were wasting our time despite a short distraction provided by a Brown Argus. Back in the village we stopped for a coffee and Neil hit the mint tea again. A couple of dubious minstrels serenaded us – bizarre – followed by an enthusiastic bloke who told us that his wife was a carpet maker and did we want to come to his house to see her at work, and maybe buy a carpet at ¼ the price they went for in Marrakesh. I lied that we’d already been to Berber houses and thanks, but we were pushed for time.

Back at the car our blue hooded guide re-appeared as promised but we told him the cascade was off as the rain had started to fall. Neil took the wheel and at 12.15 we were heading back. As it was still early, and despite the weather, we decided to explore the road to Oukaimeden. Much less populated and quite lush vegetation but still grey and cold. Within 8km of the top we stopped enveloped in low cloud and sleet. This was the perfect time to eat our lunch in the car as the windows steamed-up.

Ant drove us back down through some bad visibility but the local Berbers that we passed seemed to be taking it in their stride. I won’t forget the two shepherd girls laughing together in the driving rain and hail as if it was a pleasant afternoon! The road became dry on the plain and we filled-up the car again at Tahanoute. But as the route began to climb towards Ouirgane we saw the flashes of lightning and black clouds, and before long the roads were brown rivers strewn with mud and rocks and the hillsides white with hail. The windscreen wipers couldn’t cope with the volume of water hitting them. The drive to the hotel was a red torrent and we dashed into the hotel at 4.15. Holiday definitely over! The doors to our rooms were stuffed with towels but still the water found its way through. Time now to pack our bags, have a beer, and get some dinner.

Sunday 22 April: homeward bound

We’d planned to get up at 5am and leave by 5.30 for the 90 minute drive to the airport. Packed lunches had been left at reception for us and the night watchman let us out and I was driving away from the hotel at 5.08am. Next year this lovely hotel and the whole valley will be under water courtesy of the new Ouirgane barrage (in fact, the barrage does not reach the village and Chez Momo is safe!). The car was parked and the keys returned to Europcar by 6.15 and after a slow Ryanair check-in we were on our way arriving at Gubblecote by 3pm.