Rif rhymes with kif, the local name for marijuana, which is the ,ain traditional crop here so there is this sense that some varient of John Denver is singing about getting high. But I spent last night on one of these farms in an isolated part of the mountains. The government has recently forbidden its cultivation...so production has simply moved further East. But this was a farm stay arranged by a non profit group trying to bring additional resources into these rural areas. So we looked at the agriculture, the small pottery business run by the woman of the house, did some hiking, and had by far the best food I have had thus far in Maroc.
This morning we hiked out about three hours, eventually coming out at a Sunday souk. The souk is held appropriately in what is now a town called Souk El Har or Sunday Souk. It is located on the local highway right at the dividing line between what had been French and Spanish controlled parts of the country. We checked out the scene and then crowded into a collective taxi for the ride back to Chaouen. The town is positively crowded with Spanish tourists here for the Samana Santa...kind of like a reconquista this time with tourist pesos instead of troops.
