Morocco!: Atlas Mountains

As it turns out, Morocco is a very mountainous country, and it took us 6 days to travel through our intended itinerary. We weren't able to go quite as far as we would have liked, but we certainly can't say we didn't get a good glimpse of typical, Moroccan mountain life.

However, I have very few pictures of the country folk -- or of their adorable children who waved frantically as we drove by. I don't like taking photos of people without asking them first (they weren't usually within speaking distance), and I would think myself rude to take photos of the Berber children without getting their parents' approval first. So I contented myself with the many beautiful vistas to admire in the backcountry.

A kasbah in the Drââ Valley of the Atlas Mountains. For the record, kasbah means fortress or citadel. We came upon hundreds and hundreds of them, some in better shape than others, some abandoned, some inhabited.....

A soccer game going on in the Drââ Valley (look toward the right bottom corner of the picture to see the tiny players). We would often see scores of teenagers and children walking along the busy and narrow highway just to reach the nearest soccer field, which was often in the middle of nowhere, as you can see here.

This van made us howl; it must have been moving day! The highway here was filled with twists and turns (and sheer cliff drops), yet the driver kept steady at 80 kms/hour and just let the whole thing sway dangerously from side to side. We were just waiting for the whole thing to take a tumble, furniture-first.

This was the highway we took to get to our desert camp. It reminded me of the spot where Forrest Gump decides to stop running and turns back around -- although I believe that was shot in Arizona.

Out of nowhere pops an oasis! There were many of these palm oases spread out in the desert-like mountains.

Another beautiful village... Note the white minaret, which must always be the tallest building in every town/city. The minaret is used to announce the calls to prayer via loudspeakers; calls to prayer take place 5 times daily, starting at dawn. I've slept through many of them, but they still wake me up on most days (it doesn't last more than 3-4 minutes). The caller repeatedly sings out (or sometimes yells) the following message in Arabic : ''There is no deity but God'' and ''Muhammad is the messenger of God''. When there are dozens of minarets in a city, such as Marrakesh, you can imagine the cacophony as every minaret caller sings out his own version of this message, with no effort to keep time with the other callers or to match their melodies/rhythms.

Sometimes the roads are a little crazy.

An abandoned, crumbling sandstone village; the Moroccan countryside was littered with them.

The landscape changed from one bend in the highway to the next.

A very modern, Picasso-like Cubist kasbah. It looks almost cartoonish.

At a few points, we saw snow on the mountain tops. For those interested, there is one ski resort in Morocco, just 1.5 hours away from Marrakesh. It's not pictured (we didn't really go near the resort).

Todra Gorge, the entrance to the Todra Valley.

It's a tight squeeze!

The Todra Valley, just gorgeous.

Higher up in the valley, the trees are changing color.

To get from Todra Valley to Dades Valley (our itinerary for the day), we had to use this rather adventurous highway, the only link between the two valleys, climbing very high up and up....

... until we reached the 2639m-high mountain pass of Tizi n'Uguent, a very high pass that made me very queasy. The plateau down below, with the round patterns on it, is about 500-600 meters down, the bottom of the gorge (which you can't see) is easily 1,000 meters down. A sheer drop, only one lane.