After yet another cold shower at the hostel at 6 a.m., I joined my Polish companion and we piled into a minivan with all of our stuff. We picked up four new friends we hadn't met yet and commenced the trek. For a city of over a million people, escaping Marrakesh is quite painless--once outside the city walls, on what I believe is the only highway heading west out of the city, we saw little vehicle traffic, just motor bikes, bicycles, animals with carts, and pedestrians. Marrakesh must be very densely populated because the suburbs don't seem to stretch far, and the buildings inside the city are low slung. I can't figure out where the city hides everyone.
Like the other roads I've traveled in Morocco, this one was one and a half to two lanes wide to accommodate travel in both directions, with maybe a four foot shoulder of dangerous loose rock and gravel on either side, which no one including pedestrians would opt to use unless absolutely necessary. While it was in a decent state of repair most of the way (which is impressive given the terrain and the remoteness of some of the places), it was shared by everyone on the move: semi trucks, tour buses, vans, cars, motor bikes, bicycles, donkey carts, horses and carriages, and pedestrians.
For the first hour or two out of Morocco, the path is flat and moves along farmland which gradually transitions into the foothills of the High Atlas Mountains. That's when the narrow road starts to become scary. Especially on hairpin turns in the mountains, maneuvering through a road serving so many modes of transport was always dangerous. You could never be sure that you wouldn't round a blind corner and come up on a Berber woman carrying a load of hay, or a boy with a small herd of goats, or a tractor trailer. If you want to get a sense of how hazardous this road is, go to Google maps and see if you can find a satellite image of the N-9 road between Marrakesh and Ouarzazate through the High Atlas, particularly the stretch between Ait Mannsour and Taosset. You can't really discern the height of the road (and the fragility of the spindly *wooden* guardrails meant to keep you on it), but you'll be able to get a sense of the crazy twisting path. And I do mean crazy. Until the 1920s or 30s when the French government decided to build that road, come hell or high water, the terrain had been considered virtually impassable. I'm astonished that it was even attempted, actually, but it is a beautiful drive. That is, if you can get over the fact that if your driver's attention strays for even a few seconds, or if you hit a patch of loose rock on the road, you will either go over the edge and drop thousands of feet or slam into the face of a cliff.
It was quite an adventurous road trip. The van had no air conditioning, despite the fact that it was June in Morocco and we were headed to, um, the Sahara Desert. Believe it or not, though, in the shade of the van, with the dry desert wind whipping in through all the open windows, the temperature didn't seem so bad. The noise was another story--I think I'm still a little deaf from the journey.
Despite the treacherous driving conditions and the heat and noise, the drive was spectacular. I will post some pictures as soon as I have the opportunity. For the most part, we were seeing steep red mountains with a smattering of scrubby plants and fruit and olive trees above the road. Along the road were tiny villages, each with maybe a dozen mud brick houses, a general store, and possibly a cafe or some stand selling souvenirs or local crafts for tourists. And the valley floor was always a beautiful, lush green patchwork of alfalfa, corn, and wheat fields and orchards cut up by small irrigation channels.
We stopped occasionally to take pictures of particularly gorgeous vistas and to give our driver Brahim and chance to relax, and by afternoon, we reached Ait Benhaddou (that means "family home of the son of Haddou"). The site itself is a group of kasbahs, fortresses, on a steep slope beside a river. The buildings are thick walled and crenellated, with tall towers, and they were built at least 500 years ago. In its day, Ait Benhaddou was a key trading center on the route from Marrakesh to Ouarzazate and the south, with slaves, gold, ivory, and salt changing hands.
It looked really familiar, for good reason. The area has been hosting film production for fifty years. Lawrence of Arabia, Indiana Jones, The Sheltering Sky, Gladiator, Jesus of Nazareth, Hideous Kinky, Alexander the Great, Black Hawk Down, Kingdom of Heaven, and a slew of other films were shot there.
We were able to explore the small mud brick fortresses, and our tour company had arranged for us to visit a Berber village. We walked through their fields and our guide, himself a Berber, explained what crops they raised, the way they rationed irrigation water and farmland, and how the people in the village supported themselves financially. Then we went to the home of Mohammed and his sister Fatima, who keep sheep, goats, and camels. Fatima and her sisters weave rugs out of sheep and camel wool which they sell for the cash they need to acquire necessities and more animals. Although she didn't speak English, Fatima obviously had a great, playful sense of humor and we had a lot of fun joining her and Mohammed in a cup of tea.
We hopped back on the road and around 7 pm, we stopped for the day at a nice rustic mountain lodge not far from Boumalne. Pictures to follow!
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