A Pilgrimage for Goats

I didn’t have a book about Morocco, I was learning about Morocco as I was experiencing it, I was also learning about things through my other travel partners who had ample books on Morocco. Yes, I was too cheap to buy my own book.   After the first week, someone in my group read in their guidebook something about Moroccan goats that climb trees.

“What?! What did you just say?”

They proceeded to show me a picture in their travel book of 14 goats hanging out high in the branches of a tree like birds. €¨ I was astonished.   Was this photo-shopped?

This was the beginning of my pilgrimage to see the  €˜wonder of the animal kingdom  ‘. I was obsessed with the goats, my brain just couldn  ‘t come up with any feasible explanation on how they climbed the trees. Sure, mountain goats are definitely nimble €¦but climbing a mountain and climbing a tree seems totally different to me.   How do they get up the tree trunk to the first branches? So many questions  — and no answers.

I raised everyone  ‘s interest in the goats and they too started questioning the goats in trees.   We  ‘d sit at dinner over tangine and come up with a number of theories on how the goats got up in the trees.

I thought they were like reindeer and flew up in the trees somehow. Rob thought maybe the goats just grew on the trees and when they matured enough, they just fell out of the tree and started walking on the ground; kind of like childbirth. Janelle thought that they took a running jump. Sara thought that they hopped up in the trees and from branch to branch. Someone also threw out the possibility of retractable, special hoofs that would enable them to grip the tree better. Then of course there was the Spiderman theory – sticky stuff on their hoofs. None of them seemed to make sense, but we had no better explanations.

Apparently the goats climbed specific trees, Argan trees, mainly found in the southern part of Morocco. They are a thorny evergreen variety which grow in drought-ridden areas; Argan trees are hearty. The Argan trees have fruits on them that the goats like to eat.   Actually, I think the goats are driven up into the trees in order to find food to graze on since it is so dry in these areas.   People actually use the fruits to make healthy, nutty oils. Plus they make lotions, and other cosmetic products out of the argan oil. Many of the local women have formed a cooperative to manufacture the oil by hand; a painstaking but prosperous job for women in the country.

When we arrived in Essaouria, Karina, our guide, contacted one of the local guides to see if she could get any info on the goats. In a matter-of-fact manner he said “Yes, you can see the goats  — they are found in this area too, about 25 km away” I was jumping for joy as if I were 5 years old and I had just woken up Christmas morning and saw my Barbie Dream House sitting under the Christmas tree! I asked the guide if we were guaranteed to see goats, and I got the answer, “Inshallah” — Arabic for  — If God wants it.

The inshallah answer dashed some of my hopes.   What if God wasn  ‘t on my side for this pilgrimage?   Instead I may be wandering in the dessert for 40 days looking for goats with a taxi driver.

Six of us crammed into a little, old Mercedes grand taxi. It was a painful, cramped ride, but I was willing to live through the fact that my right butt cheek had fell asleep and it was sweltering already at 8:30AM.   It would all be worth it to see the miraculous goats. I felt like Dorthy heading off in search of Oz and the Wizard.   Heck, she saw flying monkeys, that didn  ‘t seem so different from goats in trees if you ask me.

As we made it deeper into the country we turned down roads lined with argan trees and we started searching for goats. We saw donkeys standing by trees, camels hanging out in bushes, and goats on the ground; but none in the trees. After about 15 minutes down one road, the driver stopped and turned around.   He said it was too windy here for the goats to be in the trees. I was impressed with the taxi driver  ‘s knowledge of goats.   This certainly had to be a good sign, inshallah. Who knew that the goats were so finicky about the weather?

After another 15 minutes we saw plenty of goats, just none in the trees. I was starting to feel like I had lead everyone on a wild goose chase.   We were sardines in the grand taxi, we were sweaty and hot, hungry €¦and there were no goats.

Just when I was giving up hope, we rounded a corner and saw a goat herder with a big group of goats, they were huddling around the bushes, and a big tree in the center of a field. I scanned the tree quickly and then I saw it; white furry shape in the tree, then a black furry shape in the tree, and then another, and another.   Goats in trees! It was a miracle! We all screamed in excitement and the taxi driver pulled over and quickly got out of our clown car to cross the road and get a closer look.

We watched them climb up, climb down, jump from branch to branch, and loose their footing.   It was easy to see how they got in the tree initially; they simply climbed up a branch of the Argan tree which was normally low to the ground. However, the young, agile ones would climb high up into the small branches and eat the fruit as if they were on a tightrope.   They were fearless and hungry.

We stood there watching the goats as the goat herder and some other locals were watching us. They were probably as about amazed at seeing us there with our cameras as we were to see goats in trees.   The herder had to move the goats along so we thanked him (I  ‘m sure he was confused as to why) and we all crammed back into the grand taxi to head back to Essaouria.

My trip felt complete now, and it would be my highlights of the 21 days I spent in Morocco. My pilgrimage was a success  — next, I may part the Red Sea! — Humdulilah! (Arabic meaning Praise God!)

Sherry Ott is a refugee from corporate IT who is now a long term traveler, blogger, and photographer. She ‘s a co-founder of Briefcase to Backpack, a website offering career break travel inspiration and advice. She also runs an around the world travel blog writing about her travel and expat adventures at Ottsworld.