Ifrane, Morocco

My second weekend adventure was to take a day trip to the city of Ifrane (pronounced if-ran), with the other girl independent study student in my program. 

Transportation

We started our morning without an exact plan in mind.  Our goal was to get to Ifrane by taxi, but we had been told that a taxi kabir (a large taxi) might cost us 400 dirham (40 USD) each just to get there. Neither of us were very keen to spend that kind of money, so we set out to find another option.  We ended up in a taxi that took us to a taxi depot of sorts just outside of the city walls. 

From there we were able to find another taxi that was headed to Ifrane, but we had to wait until the other seats in the taxi were filled. (That is unless we wanted to pay for the other empty seats in the car-which is what they originally tried to have us do.)  Roundtrip, the four taxis ended up costing us about 103 dirham apiece ($10.30 USD).  The car ride took us an hour, but our driver was going 100 kilometers per hour (62 mph) on a small bumpy road, so if you drive yourself it would probably take longer. 

The most interesting thing about our day was not the city itself but one of the passengers in the taxi with us.  She was a very kind older lady who helped us figure out how the taxi system worked on the way there.  On the drive she ended up inviting us to her house in Ifrane to have breakfast with her.  We had never met her before and she didn’t speak a lick of English.  So we waited with her and her 8 year old nephew (also a passenger in the taxi) after we were dropped us off and some of her family members with a car came to pick us up.  We squished the four of us into the rear three seat row of a car, stuff and all (including a falling apart plastic bag filled with bread.) 

At their house we met more of her family and were served different types of Moroccan breads/cakes along with fruit, olives, and of course mint tea.  It was definitely a bit awkward especially when they took a group photo with us, but very nice of the lady to invite complete strangers into her home.  We didn’t stay long as we were a bit uncomfortable with the whole situation. In the end, we told them that we had an appointment with a friend in the old city center and instead of letting us walk there, they drove us in their car.

The Town of Ifrane

Ifrane is one of the most bizarre towns I have ever visited.  The internet and Moroccans alike market the town as the “Swiss town of Morocco,” but I am not sure this comparison is accurate.  Yes, there is a hotel and a few buildings that are built in a Bavarian style, but most of the red roofed buildings just look don’t look Swiss in my opinion. That being said, I have never been to Switzerland so maybe I am completely wrong.  Perhaps the snow in the winter makes it look more like a Swiss village. I will put a few photos below so that you can decide for yourself.

Ifrane is home to not only an American university, but also a ski resort in the winter months. The city is situated at an elevation of 1,665 meters (5,463 feet) and only gets an average of under 15 inches a year!

Another interesting fact about this city is that a survey done by MBC Times ranked it as the second most clean city in the world (second only to Calgary, Canada, but cleaner than Helsinki, Finland?) I do think that the city was fairly clean as in comparison to Meknes and other cities I have visited in Morocco, but I am not sure I would put it in the top ten.

We only spent a total of three hours in Ifrane as there is not a whole lot to do there. We walked through Parc Ifrane and Park La Prairie looking for monkeys, as they live wild in this particular area, but did not see any. There is a national park that is known to be home to a lot of monkeys, but that would have required another taxi drive, which we were not too keen about. We did have a nice time wondering through the park though. We attempted to walk around the university campus which is adjacent to the park, but were denied access without student IDs.

At the center of the touristy area of the town is a water fountain and a sculpture of an Atlas lion. The lion was carved by a German soldier during WWII to commemorate the last wild Atlas lion that was shot nearby in the early 20th century.

*I saw this tree as we were walking through the town and was reminded of the 1957 BBC April Fool’s Day hoax about spaghetti trees.  (If you have not seen the video I will leave the link here and you can go and watch it 🙂 https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=tVo_wkxH9dU )

At the end of our time in Ifrane we decided to ride the “Petit train d’Ifrane.” This train ride is about 20 minutes long and takes you around some of the houses nearby as well as the heart/crown effigy in the town center. There is no tour guide talking just calming music in Arabic. The train ride was quite cheap and only cost us 15 dirham each ($1.50 USD).

All in all this was a neat town to visit, but not one that I would necessarily go back to or recommend.