Living in Casablanca doesn't provide many opportunities to get out my camera, so I was determined that during our little vacation I'd have fun with my Canon!
My project for the weekend was to experiment with long exposure. On Saturday morning when we asked at the hotel for some ideas of good outings one of the suggestions was the Setti Fatma waterfalls. Deep in the foothills there is a hiking trail that leads to seven waterfalls, which consecutively get bigger and prettier. Although the gloomy skies threatened imminent rain, we decided to go for it.
The hike was rather more intense than we expected (to be honest we didn't realize it was a hike at all and weren't exactly dressed for one), and was very bizarre in a Swiss-Family-Robinson kind of way (as a colleague who visited that same day put it). All along the rocky, steep trail were restaurants, trinket vendors, snack places, and more... it was surreal. We stopped for an orange juice that costs 4dh in Marrakech, and there it was 10dh. Why? They have to lug the oranges all the way up there! I don't have any pictures of the stands though, because the close quarters would have made my big camera feel very intrusive.
We made it to the first little waterfall and I hopped over the stream to some big rocks on which to set up my camera, having forgot my tripod. Othman was very patient as I fiddled endlessly with the settings and waited (rather more impatiently) for the endless groups of people to get out of my shots. It was fun and I was rather pleased with my attempts!
Soon it began raining in earnest and we decided that the 20-25 minutes we had hiked up was enough for us. We headed back down the path, stopping quickly for one more picture.
The roads in the area, despite being somewhat terrifying and despite the gloomy weather, remained spectacular.
On the way to Setti Fatma we had decided to eat at one of the restaurants that littered the side of the road, sitting right on the water. We knew that the food would be essentially the same at each of them (tagine, tagine, and more tagine), so we waited for a pretty one to stop:
Not a bad lunch spot eh?? We loved the bridges. The rain was steady and the wind was cold, so our piping hot tagine and mint tea were well appreciated as we listened to the rain and the water and drank in all the nature we crave when stuck in Casa.
Plus, who wouldn't want to eat at an outdoor restaurant that has a pleather couch in the river??
I was just sad it was cold and rainy so we couldn't enjoy prime seats like these. I'm sure in the summer they're delicious.
Overall, it was one satisfying outing.
No comments:
Post a Comment