The seasons, harvests, farms, cooperatives and wild places of Morocco.
Most people picture Morocco as sand. It is a country with cedar forest, alpine lakes, waterfalls, oases, two coastlines and a great deal of farmland — and something is in blossom or in harvest almost every month of the year.
This part of our journal is about that Morocco: the seasons, the landscapes and the wild places that most visitors never hear about. There is more coming here soon.
Windows shift every year with the weather, so these are seasons rather than dates.
The Anti-Atlas around Tafraoute turns white and pink against red granite.
In the Dades Valley the roses are cut before sunrise, while the oil is still in the petals.
Sefrou, half an hour from Fes, holds Morocco’s oldest festival for a fruit that lasts three weeks.
Women’s cooperatives in the Souss crack the nuts by hand. The tree grows wild almost nowhere else.
Along the Draa and Ziz, men climb the palms with a rope loop to cut the heavy bunches.
Around Taliouine the crocus flowers are picked at dawn. Three threads per flower.
The biggest harvest of the year. Nets under the trees, whole families working together.
The Souss plain behind Agadir fills with oranges and clementines all winter.
We are writing the first pieces now.
