Hotel Panorama
As I rode out of Marrakesh, I looked wistfully across at the mighty Atlas Mountains, their tops glimmering and glinting with snow beyond the dusty roadside fields. I wouldn’t be going back home that way, but had decided to head north instead, skirting round the tourists huddled over trinket stalls in Casablanca. It would be quicker to my next objective— the Rif mountains and the Mediterranean.
But that road, the old highway to Khenifra, offered unexpected delights. It passed through a landscape that was a cross between Switzerland, Arabia, Provence and Holland. I rode, eyebrows raised, along almost-empty roads through rolling countryside with unending olive groves, poppy-spotted meadows, rivers, lakes, orange and lemon trees by the thousand, mountains, nesting storks and villages of brilliant red houses. Morocco? You wouldn’t believe it unless you saw it yourself.
All this was backdropped by thickly grassed paddocks full of fat cows, headscarfed women lazily raking hay and the super heavy scent of fruit blossom round every corner. I wound up the road out of one small town, through alpine meadows, past the barrier that closed the road during the snow season, and into a forest of cedar and holm-oak trees hanging tight over the narrow track. As I crawled up along the valley rim hundreds of metres over the town and the lattice of stone-fenced fields below, I gasped at idyllic views of distant hills out across the valley. It was surreal. Instead of Africa, it could have been the Lake District.
Completely taken by the scenery, I decided to stop in Azrou, a small market town south of Fez. A worker lounging outside the fire station gave me the heads up on the best hotel for great views. Called, suitably, Hotel Panorama it turned out to be a delightfully alpine-looking place with wide pitched roof, tiny wooden balconies with cutesy window shutters, perched on a ridge overlooking the centre of town. It could have been Zurich.
The foyer was empty, but a man in a blazer, Henri, arrived after a few moments carrying an iPad. I asked if there was a room, he consulted the iPad and nodded. “Two-seventy-five dirhams including breakfast.” Good rate. I asked for a room with a view and was shown to a room with a balcony — and a view of the car park.
I asked about the valley view, but Henri said there were no rooms available facing that way. But, if I wanted a great view advised Henri in a delightful mix of French and English, all I had to do was: “take the road out of town towards Midelt, then go right after the Afriqa petrol station, follow the snow road up past the tree line onto the upper ridge”, and the world’s best vista would be mine.
It was still early afternoon, so I dumped my baggage in the room, jumped on the bike and headed up the hill. I rode past the Lycee, and up into the forest. The road twisted and wove between steep banks up the valley, offering as promised superb panoramic views that more than compensated for the hotel car park. As the road got narrower and bumpier, I saw flashes of ruined buildings on my left through the trees.
I pulled over at the entrance to a large flat area threaded with paths, remnants of low blue and white painted buildings, ornamental kerbstones and signposts — but all shabby, crumbling and in the process of being dismembered and absorbed by trees and creepers. A faded sign indicated that motor cars needed to keep to the one way system, wherever that was. Once gaily-painted buildings were made even more poignant by spotted and flaking primitive-style murals of kids playing tennis, canoeing, rambling in the hills, riding trains to distant towns and cities.
I ignored an “Access Interdit” sign, jumped over a tumble-down wall and walked into what had obviously once been a significant holiday resort. It was utterly silent, utterly empty, fallen trees crushing buildings and rubble scattered everywhere. There was not a breath of wind; everything was still, amplifying the dejected feel. I wandered about the ruins, took a few photos.
Then suddenly, and you probably know what I mean, it felt like somebody was watching me. Not exactly hairs tingling on the back of my neck, but I knew I was not alone. I looked around. Nothing moved, there was definitely nobody there but I still had that feeling.
Then a low rumbling noise started from not far from where I stood. A massive black wild dog crouched unmoving by a wall, baring its teeth and growling menacingly from the back of its throat. It was looking directly, unflinchingly at me.
I’d heard about packs of wild dogs in Morocco, and knew they were famous for attacking anybody and anything that trod on their turf. The black beast by the wall hadn’t moved but was still growling and baring its teeth as it continued to try and outstare me. It succeeded.
Out there in the forest miles from anywhere didn’t seem a good place to get into an argument with a big, strong, territorial and possibly hungry wild dog so I grabbed a stick and backed off slowly. The dog stayed where it was and stopped growling but never once blinked or took its eyes off me. This was its place, not mine.
I jumped over the wall and fled back to my bike. At the road, trembling slightly, I met a young man with a bicycle. He told me he was the gatekeeper of the place, the ruin. Just like his father had been before he died.
“I was born in the camp here,” he pointed. “This place then was very popular, it was always full of young people.” He explained it had been a Retraites pour les Jeunesses, a youth holiday camp for urban working class youngsters. He told me how it had always been bursting with visitors in summer when the kids finished school term, was full of life and noise. But it hadn’t been used for decades. “Now it is just a ruin. Nobody comes here.” The camp was slowly mouldering away until the authorities in town decided what to do with it, if they ever did.
He seemed a bit down and I could understand why. We stood looking at the remnants of his youth there amongst the trees, abandoned, doors hanging open, shutters slack and paint peeling off in moss-coated strips. It oozed tragic nostalgia; it reminded me of looking into a grown-up child’s bedroom, years after they have left home.
Later, back in the town and well away from any slavering mastiffs, I wandered the streets admiring olive displays and looking for postcards to send back home. As I did so I started sneezing violently; I realised it was dust gathered on the postcard racks making me sneeze. It appears that not many people visit Azrou now the holiday camps are all closed and the jeunesses stay in the cities to get their entertainment in other, less outdoorsy ways.
That evening in the Hotel Panorama, I dined alone on the most exquisite river-caught trout ever, in a totally empty dining room and attended by the head chef himself. After the meal, I took a walk round the hotel. There were about 30 rooms, all locked and empty, mostly with balconies looking out over the valley.
Downstairs, a fire burned in a massive open fireplace — just for me, the only guest. I warmed my toes as I looked at the map and planned my next day’s ride to the Roman ruins at Volubilis. The place used to be home to 20,000 people all busy growing and sending produce back to Rome to feed the empire, but it has lain abandoned for the last two thousand years. Much of the central forum area with its columns and beautiful inscriptions is still standing however: isolated, empty, a testament to the faded ambitions of human endeavour.
As I sat by the fire, I raised a sympathetic glass of after-dinner port to the Romans. And to the departed jeunesses.
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