No post yesterday because I was out in the Rif mountains away from the internet cafe's of Chefchauon. We just got back a few hours ago from our 2 day mini trek. It was really good and I'm glad to have met people who wanted to do the same thing. We started by just calling up the guy listed in LP as in charge of this stuff, met him for a little discussion about details, and the next day headed out with our guide. We met Mohammed at the Parador hotel at 8am yesterday morning after having a hurried but good breakfast in the square in front of the Kasbah. After picking up some bread, water and chocolate for lunch, we headed out of town by going up through the cemetary and past the Auberge into the forest. I was carrying my full backpack minus my heavy France and Spain guidebooks which I left for free at our hotel. The other two guys put all their essentials in one bag, and also left their combined inessentials at the hotel. This way they could trade off the pack during the hike. The weather was perfect for trekking -- both days it was sunny but cool. In the morning or in the shadow of the mountain was the best temperature. I can't imagine doing this in the summer because it would be HOT. The first day only went from 8 until a little afternoon, but it was straight up the whole way. The LP calls this section "gruelling." We had second breakfast at the top of the first pass at 1800m, in a nice foresty part where you could camp, and from where you can see the Mediterranian sea. The way down from the pass was a 4x4 road and we had a couple Landrovers pass us in both directions. A little further down, we ran into some hash smugglers with little backpacks who wanted to know if we saw any police on the way. Mohammed didn't mind helping them out, and we didn't have any problems. So at about 1pm we arrived at the first village where we would be staying the night. It was only a couple buildings surrounded by little fields for growing Kif (Cannabis) and farm type stuff. The room where we would sleep was reserved for trekkers and was nice enough. We paid 100 Dirham (~$15) to stay the night which includes dinner and breakfast the next morning. For the rest of the day we just sat around doing nothing but playing with the village kids. They didn't speak a lick of English or French and only a bare few words of Spanish. Actually this was true of everyone we met in the mountains. All the kids shout "Hola!" (Spanish) to get your attention then either "1 Dirham" or "Stylo" (Pen in French) to tell you what they want. We didn't give them either even though they tried to pick it right out of our pockets! It was pretty fun anyways -- we just spend the whole afternoon just playing around in the field with them. They really liked my sunglasses with the orange coloured lenses -- I'm surprised I got them back at the end! Also it was funny because four out of the eight kids were named Mohammed! After the sun went behind the mountain and it got cool, we headed back to our refuge (the kids weren't allowed in there). Next we got a tour of the hash production operation! These guys are not drug dealers or anything, they are just farmers, and the overwhelmingly prevailing crop is Cannabis. During the Winter, the plant is not growing so I think they are busy processing the harvest from last season. All throughout the day you could hear this whack-whack-whack-whack sound from the lower level of every building we passed in every village in the Rif. This is the sound of the guy with two sticks hitting a bag of leaves sitting in a silk type screen. They do this for a long time until all the dust falls out the bottom and the hash oil remains between the bag and the screen. You can see the Cannabis dust just lying around in piles everywhere but the plants and the processing all happens discretely (except for the noise!) indoors. We were allowed to go down to the lower level of our refuge to see the process in action. There were two guys down there smoking Kif and doing what I just described above. The rule was just no pictures. The other rule was no "business" as our guide called it. Even if you get up close to the production, and even if you smoke some when offered everything will be super safe and you'll have no problems so long as you don't buy any thing. This is why Mohammed doesn't like when his clients buy because it can only lead to problems. What are you going to do with a Kg of drugs anyway? You can't smoke it all in Morocco and you definetely can't bring it home across the border! Anyway it was pretty cool, but I have to emphasize that these aren't like the drug dealers you see in movies with Uzis and Villas in Colombia. These people are poor farmers who just grow the most profitable thing. When we first arrived at the refuge, I realized my black sweater which was bungied to the outside of my pack was missing, and must have fallen off at the lunch break. Mohammed told the refuge guy to ask the next 4x4 driver that passed to look for it on the road and send it back. Sure enough, a few hours later, a Landrover dropped off my sweater, so I got it back for a small 20 dirham tip! Once it got cold and dark, we went into the room with the stove and ate dinner which was vegitable stew on top of couscous and mint tea to drink. For the rest of the night Mohammed and the farmers smoked and played cards while we put on every jacket we had and sat outside looking at the sky. The sky was clear and there was no light pollution out there in the mountains so the stars were great. We went to bed pretty early, but it's totally dark and cold out there and there isn't much to do. I appreciated by new headlamp even though they do have solar powered electricity which runs these tiny flourescent lights in each room and a stereo in the trekkers dorm. We slept-in until about 8 the next day (today) and had bread, butter, olives, olive oil, and tea for breakfast. I also paid a bit extra for them to make me a tomato, onion and olive sandwich for lunch. After the big ascent of the previous day, we were all happy that the whole morning was downhill. I had a big blister on the side of my heel, but I bandaged it up and tied my boots tighter for today. (Otherwise I'm really happy with my new North Face hiking boots -- last night everyone was drying their sweaty boots/shoes by the stove, but I had no such problems thanks to Gore-Tex!) After a little descent along the road we hit the next village, and stocked up on water and oranges. The road ended so we took the path North descending along the stream. Since the water is at the bottom of the valley, and the sun never really gets very high in the sky, the water was frozen and the path was covered in frost. The temperature was cool but fine for hiking. Eventually we started ascending along the side of the valley as the stream fell into a bit of a canyon below. The landscape was really nice to look at -- just like Nepal, except you don't have the REAL mountains in the distance. We planned to stay the night at the next village, but instead since we were such fast trekkers we decided to do the trip to God's Bridge that same day and take a taxi back that night. God's bridge (Pont Dieu/~Something~ Allah) is a natural stone bridgem and is listed as a there/back side trip in the LP, but our guide knew how to do it as a circuit. The way we approached was nice because you could really see the roch arching across the river. When you arrive up close to the bridge to cross it, it's not obvious due to the vegitation that there is nothing but it between you and the water 100m below. At the bridge we saw a International school group of 16-17 year olds from Spain which reminded me of our Westgate 1997 trek. From there we walked/scrambled up for another couple hours to the dam at the end of LP's day two station where the taxi would pick us up. On the way we saw the really nice cottages where the club Med-ers (allegedly) stay for three times what we were paying. Before we left, we had fish and chips at this terrace by the dam. The funny thing was that the fish was not in little sticks like in N/A, but rather was whole fish just dropped in the deep frier! You just ate the fish meat right off the fish skeleton! It tasted pretty good actually! The clouds rolled in during the taxi ride back to 'Chouan so maybe it was good we didn't stay out there another day. We had to pay for it anyways though, because "250Dh/day" doesn't mean per actual earth-revolving-once day, but per trekking day, and we had done "a double" by making the God's bridge trip in the afternoon. Whatever. To celebrate on the way home, our Mercedes taxi stopped to pick up beers at "a shop" which looked a lot like someone's house. We drank them (with some nuts) during the drive back, but only when there were no people looking at Mohammed's insistance. Before we entered the town, he put the empty bottles back in the bag and left them behind a bush on the side of the road. I guess alcohol is prohibited here, so it's not cool to ride into town with everyone holding a beer. So that was the end of the trek. We got dropped off and then walked to Mohammed's "house" to exchange addresses and pay. But it was actually his "brother's" house, and by house he meant carpet shop. What the hell would I do with a carpet? I don't even own/rent a floor right now! We suggested that the carpet guy focus his sales force on older tourists who own houses to put them in, but he retorted that they would make great gifts for our parents. It was a funny way to end things. We picked up our stuff at Goa and switched hotels to a cheaper one with working hot showers -- i.e. (hot) water actually comes out of the shower head. (I actually tested it the hotness personally before we checked in. Mohammed, who recommended the place, was faux-offended that I didn't trust him. I said "Yes, Trust ... but verify!" - Ronald Regan)