Morocco: Road Trip

After breakfast in Fes we met our driver/guide Yousef who would be taking us on our trip to the desert. Day 1 was the 450km leg from Fes to Merzouga which is close to the Algerian border. Due to winding and dodgy roads this would take about 8 hours including a few short stops for food and photos. The route would take us first through the green pastures near Fes, over the Middle Atlas Mountains, then over the High Atlas Mountains and into the Sahara Desert.

A few hours in we reached Ifran in the Middle Atlas which was built to look like an alpine village and there was a fair bit of snow around too.

We stopped for lunch in the Desert near Midelt at the foot of the High Atlas. It was bizarre to go from snow to desert within about half an hour.

Then we crossed the High Atlas range and followed the Ziz Valley through to Errachidia. The landscape was really amazing through the valley with deep gorges, old Kasbahs, and rocky moon-like plains.

Things then opened out to the flat plain of the Sahara with the occasional town clinging to an oasis.

We reached our destination of Merzouga where we would stay for a few days to head into the dunes and stay with the Berbers (see upcoming separate blog post). After this we continued another 400km to Ouarzazate via Todra Gorge, the Dades Valley and the Road of 1000 Kasbahs.

After a night in Ouarzazate we were supposed to cross back over the High Atlas to Marrakech, however there was heavy snow which closed the pass so we had to go east almost to Agadir to go around the mountains. This turned our 2.5 hour trip into a 7 hour marathon. Yousef announced that he would have to "drive like a Moroccan" to get to Marrakech before dark. This involved lots more beeping and less tolerance for cyclists and pedestrians (which was already pretty low). The concepts of driving within lanes and queuing at lights hasn't taken off yet in Marrakech so whoever has the bigger vehicle has right of way.

Ouarzazate is known as "the Hollywood of Morocco" (I suspect only by people from Ouarzazate) so we went to check out one of the movie studios which had all sorts of sets and props from movies shot there. Apparently they filmed parts of Gladiator, The Mummy, Lawrence of Arabia etc here.

Not really Egypt... Everything is plywood, plaster, and polystyrene.

Not a real car...

Our final stop was at Ait Benhaddou which is an ancient fortified town full of old Kasbahs, mud brick houses, and cheap tacky souvenirs. 

We then pushed on to Marrakech through more desert, Argan tree forests, and dusty plains. Here is a map of our road trip from Fes to Marrakech via Merzouga.

- Joe