Today we left Marrakech, but not to go home. Instead, we assembled after our meeting for a briefing by Azim’s team. They gave us maps, emergency mobiles and the keys to a fleet of twenty-odd 4×4, and sent us off into the mountains.
The idea was that we would all make our way out of the city, across the planes and the foothills to spend the night in Bedouin tents on a cactus-rimmed plateau overlooking two small villages in the valleys below. Azim’s men assured us that we would be fine, but having seen the mad driving seemingly endemic to the city we weren’t so sure.
Target: our camp in the mountains
Fortunately, it turned out that Marrakech doesn’t actually have much in the way of suburbs, and so we were into the parched no-man’s land that we had seen from the plane in just a couple of miles. The roads narrowed and the traffic got lighter, but you have to wonder for how long they will stay like that. Here and there, developers have staked their claim to patches of the red, Mars-like landscape, and modest boards speak of exciting tourist developments soon to appear in their place. It’s clear that Marrakech will undergo some serious changes in the coming years, and I’m glad that there seems to be little or no possibility they will be able to make any changes in the Souq or the square.
Eventually we found ourselves on our own. The road stretched out front and back as far as the eye could see and from one horizon to the other, ours was the only vehicle around. We passed through a small village hunkered down in the shadow of a massive dam wall and climbed the road that runs along the banks of the reservoir above. It’s like an oasis: an out of place patch of blue in the dusty, rocky vista before us.
Artificial oasis
We got out to take pictures and Jalal told us to be careful of scorpions sheltering from the sun under the rocks, just as a man pulls up on a dirty old motorbike. He steps off and pulls beads and cheap jewellery from his clothes, which he tries to sell us. As we continue our journey later in the day we see this more and more. Men stand at the roadsides as we sweep past holding up great geodes that would cost thousands back home, and just as much in excess baggage if you tried to take one back with you. When we slow down to pass through the villages on our route, young kids put their hands in through the windows or just throw a cheery wave as we pass them by.
Up in the hills down there
Our route takes us on across a wide flat plain where we pick up speed, and the scarab beetles, which seem to have chased off all other insects, are attracted to the white paint of our vehicle and get sucked in through the open windows. The road is as straight as it is flat as it passes by farmers bent double picking corn by hand. Then suddenly it reaches a steep hill that rises out of the ground almost at right angles, and folds itself into short strips and tight turns and climbs to impossible heights. The plain opens out below us and we can see all the way back to the dam, half an hour ago. A solitary line of pylons marches out across the landscape, but there seems to be nowhere for them to stop off, with no major settlements anywhere to be seen.
The road carries on up the hill, over the top and down the other side into a lush valley, and eventually we find a well-made road, down by a river where camels are bathing their feet. We pick it up and follow it on to the Atlas foothills and our tents for the night. In close to four hours we have travelled fewer than 70km.
Donkey polo
The tents are woven of thick dark wool, and they are the fabric equivalents of a terrace. Each is maybe 50m long and split into 18 areas - one each with a small bed, a lantern and a torch for finding the toilet at night where the only illumination, even during the day, is a single candle hung from a hook. They are built around a series of fires, which in turn are surrounded by rugs laid down to mark out the paths around the camp. The whole thing is ringed by closely-grown cacti, which I can only assume are there to keep out wild animals, or to stop us from walking over the edge of the plateau in the dark.
We have a briefing in a large communal tent and pass the afternoon watching the locals play donkey polo, and making bread or mirrors or small pieces of wooden furniture. Later on, as the sun goes down and we have been out to take pictures of the mountains’ silhouettes, a troupe of acrobats turn up and throw themselves around on the hard stony floor. Fire eaters and a group of local singers join them, and they keep us entertained while dinner is cooked.
The musicians warmed their instruments by the fire before their performance
This, it turns out, is bread cooked on the walls of a stone oven, and half a lamb for each table, sliced lengthwise along the middle and dropped on the table, gaping wound uppermost. Finally, we also have couscous, which we’ve been waiting for since we arrived, only it’s bland and wet, and a poor substitute for the packeted stuff we have at home. That’s a terrible thing to say, I know, but perhaps the couscous we buy in the supermarket is so unrealistic that the real thing is a sorry let-down.
I check my bed carefully for scorpions and watch the moon come up. It is as impressive as any sunrise I have seen. One moment there is just the tiniest dot of light pricking the top of a mountain. Three minutes later a great silver disk hangs in the sky, and you can see how it climbs higher and higher, accelerating away from the peaks. It barely looks real.
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