Rifcom Adventures 020324: Day 2 - Hotel m9adm to Gite d’Etape Affaska via Jebel Lakra and the Talassemtane National Park

Our 4 Day Adventure with the Rifcom team an organisation run by volunteers
who are committed to helping the impoverished rural communities of the rid mountains in the North of Morocco.

A special thanks to our Mountain Guide Mohammad who kept us safe and shared his extensive knowledge of the area with us.

Day 2 of our adventures start from the Hotel m9adm although a tad cold the traditional Moroccan food was absolutely gorgeous.
The trail takes us up the Valley flanked by Jebel Tisouka on the left and the hamlets of Tissouka and Achikhane with the Tessoka Mosque on the right.
We continue our accent up the valley and into the beautiful forest of the Talassemtane National Park.
The aim was to reach the summit of Jebel Lakra (2144) but the weather closed in with high winds and poor visibility so we descended the other side of the mountain through the forest until we picked up the forest track where our transport was waiting to take us onto our accommodation for the night - Gite d’Etape Affaska.

A little but fascinating write up about the area.

TALASSEMTANE NP

Jebel Lakra, literally the bald mountain, is the roof of the Western Rif and owes its name to its sucima of white limestone rock devoid of vegetation contrasts with the black and dense forests of pinsapos (abies maroccana, called chujas in Rifeño) that cover its slopes

The Talassemtane National Park extends over a limestone ridge in the central-western Rif, in northern Morocco, over an area of 58,000 ha.

It is a unique territory for the exceptional beauty of its landscapes and for its great biodiversity. It is located near the city of Chauen.

It has annual rainfall ranging from 500 mm from the eastern valleys to more than 2000 mm. over the highest mountains, covering the bioclimatic floors: thermo-Mediterranean, meso-Mediterranean, supra-Mediterranean and oro-Mediterranean.

The park contains 747 different plant species, of which 47 are endemic to Morocco, 27 are Ibero-African endemisms and 9 are Algerian-Moroccan endemisms. The plant species present belong to the Mediterranean forest, and among them can be highlighted: the pinsapo, the Atlas cedar, the yew, the oak, the barberry or araar or araar tuya, the Balearic boxwood, the olive, the labiérnago, the lentisque, the palm hearth, the strawberry tree, as well as three species of pines, the carrasco pine, the rodeno pine and the laricio pine and, in some more humid areas, the parrot and the laurel.

THE RIF
The Rif (translation: the cape, the coast) is a region with mountainous and green areas of North Africa, with a coastline in the Mediterranean, which borders the Yebala region and covers as far as Kebdana (Nador) on the border with Algeria.

The Rif tribes in northern Morocco.

This region has distinguished itself from the rest of Morocco since the time of the two protectorates. The Rif was under Spanish protectorate with Tetuan as capital, and the rest of Morocco was under French protectorate with Rabat as capital.

Flag of the Rif region.

Since the recovery of the Rif by Morocco (April 7, 1956), there have been until today Rif independence movements that claim their own independence from Morocco.

The Rif includes eight provinces in northern Morocco, that is, the eight provinces that were under Spanish protectorate, including Tetuan province and Chauen province

It is a traditionally isolated and disadvantaged region. The mother tongue of the eastern part of the Rif Protectorate is the "Rife Berber" or tarifit (Provinces of Al-Hucema, Driuch Nador) and that of the western part is dialectal Arabic. French and Spanish, which are the main foreign languages, have a great presence.

The Rif region should not be confused with the Rif mountains, which extend beyond the region of the same name.

Geography

The Rif is a mountain range that is geologically part of the Arc de Gibraltar (along with the Cordillera Bética), an orogen from the tertiary period. The Rif mountains show an abrupt relief on the shores of the Mediterranean from Saidia to Tetouan, and the mountains often end up in violent cliffs, in contrast to the gentle hills around Tangier. It covers from Puerto Capaz, on the Mediterranean coast and Targuist in the interior, to the Algerian border; but in a broader sense, the Rif encompasses all the mountainous areas that extend in the form of an arch from Tangier to the Muluya valley passing through Ceuta.

This mountain range is not very high, its maximum altitudes barely exceed 2000 m. Its largest summits are the Tidirhin with 2,452 m in the Ketama region, the Akra with 2160, over Bab Taza, the Tisuka with 2,122 m and the Sfiha Telj with 2038 m, surrounding Chauen, and the Kelti with 1,926 m.

To the East, the limestone peaks are populated with trees and in the central section of the Rif, the oaks give way to elevated cedar forests, where the famous Berber Macaque lives among other species; there are also quif plantations in Ketama. Here is the Tiguidín, a mountain whose summit is usually covered with snow. Afterwards, the mountains are redder and the land is bare and destly in the surroundings of Al-hucemas.

Flora

As progress is made from Chauen to Ketama through the rugged heights of the Rif, cedar and oak forests increase due to the increase in humidity and precipitation associated with altitude, which makes this area ideal for other types of crops other than in the coastal plains.

According to the laws of the former Spanish protectorate and adapted after the independence and Moroccanisation of the Rif, the cultivation and consumption of dry quif (Cannabis indica) for traditional pipes of the area is legal; what is criminalised is the transformation of quif into hashish and drug trafficking. Hashish, or quif as the locals call the plant (Cannabis indica), is illegal in Morocco; however, it is smoked openly throughout Morocco, and the plantations in the fields around Ketama are clearly visible from the road. The Koran, which clearly prohibits alcohol, does not do so with the quif. In this way, without a clear prohibition, the population (especially the male) smoke it openly relying on a "less rigourous" interpretation of the laws of the Koran.

Vegetation

The high rainfall (over 1000 mm) and the snow of the summits, which last until the month of May, maintain typical forests of wetter latitudes.

The vegetation is typically Mediterranean and begins in the lower parts with araar and acebuche forests, which most of the time are very degraded, but centuries-old specimens are preserved in small groves next to sanctuaries and cemeteries. Among them, an undergrowth of lint, myrtle and blackberry develops, and it is common to find large specimens of carob. As height is gained, the more humid forests of oaks, cork oaks, pinsapos and cedars appear.

In the beds of rivers and ravines, forests of oilers and ashes develop, and in higher places the laurel forest appears, with some centuries-old alds

Pinsapares and cedrales

The pinsapo or Moroccan fir (Abies maroccana = Abies pinsapo var. maroccana) forms relatively well-preserved forests, located on the summits of the calcareous mountains of the western Rif (Tisuka, Meggu, Lakrâa, Tazaot, Tisirene mountains, etc.) between 1500-2000 m.

PINSAPO LEAVES

THE CEDAR PINEAPPLE

It is common that the pinsapos forests are not pure and next to them grow cedars, black pine (Pinus pinaster subsp. hamiltonii), North African Sallareño pine (Pinus nigra subsp. mauritanica), oaks (Quercus ilex), quejigos (Quercus faginea), maples (Acer opalus subsp. granatensis), yews (Taxus baccata), holly (Ilex aquifolium) and majuelos (Crataegus sp.).

The pinsapares are protected and most of them are within the Talasamtane National Park, but there are threats to their survival: the fires caused by the peasants to get new farmland and the global climate changes that are raising the average temperature of the Earth.

The Atlas cedar (Cedrus atlantica) is a forest tree that forms lush forests in the western and central Rif (15,000 ha). It lives between 1,200-2400 m and usually marks the upper limit of the forest in the North African high mountains.

Oaks

In the region, the oak (Quercus ilex) forms forests that occupy the warmest slopes in front of the pinsapares. It is also scattered among other wooded formations such as cedres, pine forests and corks. It lives on all types of soils, from sea level to 2400 m, tolerating temperature differences of up to 40 °C.

The quejigares

The quejigares are made up of the common quee (Quercus faginea) and especially the Moorie (Quercus canariensis). They grow on any type of substrate, although the common one prefers limestone lands above 1000 m, and the Moors prefers siliceans from sea level to 1800 m. Both require a lot of humidity, so the best forests develop in areas where the average annual rainfall is greater than 1000 mm.

Moorish forests are well developed in the central-western Rif, very often mixing with cork oaks.

Common quejigo forests appear mainly in the limestone mountains of the western Rif and the shales of the central Rif, such as the Tidirhín region.

The corm oaks

The cork oak (Quercus suber) is a typically Mediterranean tree that forms large forests in siliceous, loose, well-aerated and relatively humid soils. Although they usually live from sea level to 1500 m, it needs a lot of rainfall; if these are not too high, there must be a lot of humidity on the ground and in the environment. It can't stand frost well.

Araar forests

These forests, exclusive to North Africa, are probably the oldest living forest formations in this area, dating back to the Tertiary.

The araar, sabina mora or sabina of Cartagena (Tetraclinis articulata) covers an area of about 750,000 ha in Morocco. It develops in any type of soil although it prefers limestone, from sea level to 1,200 m. It can live in very poor soils, in semi-arid environments, but it cannot withstand frost or excessive continentality. Most of the current forests in the area are very degraded and are not very dense, with small trees.

The wood of the araar is of very good quality, aromatic, imputable, cracks little and is easy to work with. When the aerial part is felled, an underground strain is formed that regrows again. This strain called "lubia" can be up to a metre in diameter and gives wood of beautiful multicoloured drawings. It is currently used to make small objects in the Essaouira region and is marketed as "yours wood".

Population

The Rif is a geographically very large area, from the mountains surrounding Melilla. However, there is a difference between the geographical and the cultural Rif, since the mountains near Tetouan and Chauen today receive the name of Yebala and its inhabitants, known as yeblis or yebala ("mountains"), who ethnically are largely Berbers "ghomaries", who took the Arabic brought by the Arab groups that arrived in the region. The people of Rif reside in the areas around the cities of Alhucemas, Nador, Taza and Uchda, where you can visit towns that have changed little since the colonising forces of France and Spain or by modern Moroccanisation.

Europeans when they visit the Rif, are surprised by the physical appearance of their inhabitants similar to European settlements, since a large proportion of them have a European appearance, with light-skinned individuals, blue, gray or green eyes and blonde or red hair. Its origin is precisely this and its language, the Berber, of Camita origin, has evolved apart from other linguistic phenomena in the Rif mountains.

Geology

The Alpine orogeny (2ª half of the Tertiary Era), originated by the displacement of Africa to the North and its consequent clash with Europe, began its elevation, as well as that of the current mountain ranges that surround the Mediterranean. The Rif is, therefore, due to its age and style a typical alpine chain, with an ancient socket on which sedimentary series of the Secondary and Tertiary era are supported, very deformed by folds and mantles of cavalry, those of the North overlapping over those of the South. This compression caused a metamorphism of greater or lesser degree, being especially intense in the coastal area.

Internal Rif

This adventure has been made entirely in the inner Rif, which extends from Ceuta to Puerto Capaz and then appears near Nador, in Cabo Tres Forcas and the Beni Bucraa massif, and inland includes the areas of Tetuán and Chauen. It is made up of tectonic units riding towards the SW on top of each other.

The oldest units are located on the coast of Tetuan. They are the so-called Sébtidas and are formed by plutonic (pingas) (peridotites) and high-grade metamorphic rocks (Black Cape Gneis). It is followed in antiquity by the Gomarids, palaeozoic, formed by palaeozoic materials (quartzites, shales and slates).

The Jebel Lakraa is located inside that has three separate sets:

-The Hauz, which begins at Mount Hacho and reaches Mount Dersa in Tetuan.

-The Calcarea Ridge itself, which begins in front of Tetuán, in the Gorgues and Bu Zaitun mountains and reaches Bab Taza-Asifan. Here is the Jebel Lakraa

-Los Bocoya, near Alhucemas.

The calcareous dorsal is made up of Secondary Age materials that cover the Triassic, Middle Jurassic and the Lower Cretaceous. At its base, gray dolomies appear, and on the summits, light limestones, sometimes mixed with violet green detritic limestones. The ridge rides on the units of the middle Rif.

This unit is made up of tectonic thrust sheets with SW orientation. The successions of the "Dorsal" are formed by calcareous and pelitic rocks (from Middle Triassic to Lower Miocene age), the Upper Triassic-Lower Lyassic calcareous successions being the most characteristic.

Medium riff

Further south of the previous units appear the layers of Flyschs that are stacked from north to south. They are deposits of the Secondary and Tertiary Age that were deposited in areas more or less far from continental slopes and although in all these deposits an alternation of sandstones, clays and sometimes limestones is observed, each set has its own history. In many cases they are allochthonous mantles that have no relation to each other.

The ridge overlaps to the west to the Beni Ider layer and to the east to the Tisiren layer, and the latter two ride over the Tangier and Ketama layers.

External Rif

It includes the hills of Uezán and surroundings of Mekinez, formed by marls deposited in the upper Miocene.

In the easternmost area, during the upper Miocene there was intense volcanic activity visible in Cape Quilates, Cabo Tres Forcas, Gurugú and Beni Bu Ifrur.

The recent uprising of the coast is evidenced by the existence of coastal beaches and coastlines above the current sea level, by the steep slope of the torrents that pour into the sea and by the predominance of the cliffs.

There are the typical karst landscapes formed on very deformed limestone layers, sometimes almost vertical. The river network installed from the upper Villafranquiense has carved deep canyons and valleys, with waterfalls, natural arches in the rock and tobaceous formations. Grots, water emergences, dolines and lapiaces in the groove are frequent. The high slopes, which often exceed 1000 m, the absence of roads and tracks, make it difficult to transit through the region and in many cases it can only be accessed by trails.