Merzouga -> Ourzazzate/Ait Ben Hadou -> High Atlas Mountains

We returned to the Auberge with our camels that morning and after breakfast, Missy and I piled into the backseat of our Belgian friends’ small rented car and drove to Ouarzazate to break up our intended destination of Marrakesh into a two day trip. In Rissani just outside Merzouga, we took a wrong turn and ended up in a bustling Moroccan market street where we had to compete with a traffic jam of donkey carts, rusty bicycles, diesel cars and vendors vying to inch through the chaotic storm of people. Melody’s heroic driving navigated us back on track and then through the Anti-Atlas mountains, the Dades valley and finally embarking past Ourzazate (famed for its many movie studies where Star Wars, Babel, Gladiator, Lawrence of Arabia was shot) to Ait Ben Haddou.

After an entire days worth of driving (both camel and car) we checked into a cheap hotel and I tried to rally against fatigue and rush over to the ancient kasbah of Ait Ben Haddiou, crossing a stream on a donkey, to enter the enchanting relic of the past. This kasbah hugs the hillside and overlooks the Ouarzazate river. I felt it was reminiscent of a smaller version of Machu Picchu with centuries old ruins suspended in animation allow your imagination to reconstruct what ancient life was like behind the old stone walls, except here it was easier to do that because 10 families continue to reside behind the old stone walls. It was a tourist trap, but a marvelous one and as we climbed to the highest point of the kasbah, the same sun that passed here 700 years ago drew light away from the striped rock formations, craggy mountains and fertile land along the river and set into the valley.

The next morning we left our hotel while it was still dark and head through the High Atlas mountains. As the sun roe, the road began to wind, treacherously, through the rocky, treeless mountainside. At every turn, we passed another mountain village with buildings made of rock that blended seamlessly and simply into the landscape rather than a rude interruption as is accustomed in the West. After driving through the seemingly uninhabitable terrain, suddenly a cypress forest appeared in a brilliant and sudden change of ecosystem.

In the end, Melody’s brilliant display of driving brought us to the hustle and bustle of the industrial hodgepodge that is Marrakesh.

Continue: to the Ochre City

Tips

-Lodging- Hotel Baraka (?)- it is on the main road as you come to Ait Ben Haddou. It was cheap, had a restaurant, we had our own bathrooms, it was clean. Nothing too special, but not a bad place to stay.

Continue: to the Ochre City