Desert to Alpine to Forest to Farmland - in 100 miles!

(Photos in order from bottom up. Sorry!)

n.b. The smiling young man on the rock is Mouad, our driver. The smiling older gent with us (not me!) is Adbe, our guide.

We left Ouarzazate this morning after we toured the "new" (less than 200 years old) casbah of Thami-el-Glaoui. He was the head of a family with long-standing control of the area until Morocco gained independence from France in 1956. He had backed France. He chose poorly. The casbah is now open to the public for free tours. On the way out of town, we passed a couple of large (HUGE) movie studios. Famous movies such as The Ten Commandments, Gladiator, and Lawrence of Arabia were filmed here. Still looked like a cheesy Hollywood affair.

We left the flat valley of the Draa River and made our way toward the High Atlas Mountains. We took a 10 km detour to the small village of Ait-Benhaddou, the site of many of the scenes of Gladiator. This place was beautiful! The river separated flooded ruins from the newer town. UNESCO money is helping rebuild the ruins (flooded in 1985) and a few families have returned.

The landscape changed from the Mojave near Las Vegas to the high New Mexico forests within 30 miles. Cactus and little else gave way to aspen, walnut, cyprus, juniper and dozens of fruit tree varieties. The verdant view didn't extend very far upslope from the valley floors. What was really striking was how the land had been worked over the centuries. The valleys were terraced and fed by mountain water, hence the variety and lush character. As we climbed higher, vegetation gave way to snow and small streams. We reached Tizi-n-Tichka pass at about 7,500 ft. surrounded by peaks over 13,000 ft. The narrow switchback roads (in good shape) supported SUVs like ours, tour buses (gotta love that, Jan!) bicycles, and hundreds of people on foot. Where do they come from and where do they go?

We made a stop for caffe and some local nut product from the Argan tree. Not sure what the trees look like, but the nuts can be roasted and ground into a course paste that tastes like peanut butter. The entire fruit is used for something (animal feed, fire fuel, cosmetic base). Good stuff! The products were produced and sold by women. We’ve seen a few indications of all-woman cooperatives while here. We bought a few things to support them.

Our last leg today was through some beautiful pine forests set aside as a national park reserve. This reserve is off-limits to everyone unless you have explicit permission to enter. Give the respect Moroccans have for their king and authority, I would venture these forests are pristine. The forests gave way to flat, fertile farmland about 30 miles from Marrakech.

Ah, Marrakech! More on that tomorrow.

Very brief note from Wendy to Dad and Jan: one of the RVs we followed up the mountain had a chair tied to the back. When we passed them, they were definitely Arab so it seems that is a world-wide phenomenon!