Mint Tea & Tagine

Leaving the highway behind, you slowly wind your way up the Middle Atlas Mountains. Through the town of Azrou and on up, through the cedar forests. Some of the cedar trees up here are enormous as you can see!!

As you wind your way along the roads you can see the remains of the winter snow, which of course required a necessary stop!!

The landscape slowly changes to rocky outcrops, passing occasional one donkey horse towns that the world seems to have forgotten about…..And then the stunning view of the higher Atlas…towering over the town of Midelt. Now as the guide books tell you, Midelt is not really a tourist spot and most people use it for nothing more than a lunch stopover on their way to the dunes or in the direction of Fez….but we needed a bed and the choices were amongst others a new, flash, fake Kasbah…

nah…not today…..instead we headed a little off the main road…..to Auberge Jafaar in the little village of Berrem, a few kilometres from Midelt….

the road again was bumpy…

and the sign was worn…..

It didn’t look like much, but it was clean, the staff were very friendly and it had some interesting features….

There was the essential mint tea….

entertainment for the kiddies….

and walks….

past really old kasbah ruins…

and views of the mountains…..

Berber carpets and bags for sale, with some rather fine Traditional Wedding Blankets…….

and a dinner fit for a King…..starting with freshly baked Moroccan Flat breads……

Harira soup for starters, this is a traditional Moroccan tomato based soup eaten all over the country. I have had it in most places we have been to and no two versions have ever tasted the same….some have lots of cinnamon, some none…..some with chickpeas and some with pasta, but it is always delicious and filling!

Chicken and Olive Tagine for little people……

And Auberge Jafaar’s version of Kalia, a tagine which seems to be favoured in this area of Morocco, made of kefta and chicken with spicy harissa and tomato sauce. As you will see we had it in a few other places but without the chicken. The wonderful local lady who cooked it sadly spoke no English, my French or Arabic does not stretch that far, and the proprietor for some unknown reason took to speaking German to us, so we were sadly unable to establish more about the dish itself!

It was delicious and far spicier than any other tagine that I have had here.