On Friday we went on a 14 hour tour of the Atlas Mountains.  The mountains are strikingly beautiful with Mount Toubkao being the highest peak in the Atlas mountain and North Africa (2nd highest in all of Africa).  There was a “melting pot” of nationalities on this tour:  a young couple from Pakistan living in London, another young couple from Denmark and two old retirees from Park City!  We started out at 7:30 a.m. and headed toward the Atlas Mountains and the Tizi n’Tichka Pass.  You can see this snow capped mountain range from Marrakesh.  The range separates the weather off the Mediterranean that impacts northern Morocco from the dry, hot desert south of the Atlas Mountains.  The summit of the Atlas Mountains is 13,100 feet. The “Tichka Pass” is a dramatic route through the Atlas Mountains that reaches an altitude of around 8,000 feet.

As you drive south towards the mountains, the area historically has been inhabited by the Berbers, a long-standing tribe that not only farmed but raised sheep.  After the pass, the drier countryside has been historically inhabited by nomads who brought their goats to feed on the mountain dry grasses from May to October and moved back into the desert for the winter.  There are numerous mud & stone houses on this side of the mountains that are available for use by these nomadic tribes.

Initially, it appeared that our driver was taking the usual precautions with a van full of 6 tourists; however, once we started the very lengthy series of hairpin turns climbing up the Tizi, our driver started passing on these winding curves which made for a hair-raising drive since we were sitting in the front seats.  A couple of times, David let out a “gasp”. The drive is also the shortest way over the mountains, so 18-wheelers are numerous.  Passing them when there isn’t a particularly long straight road can be particularly exciting.

At one point as we started our descent, we went off a narrow (really one-lane) badly damaged asphalt road that promised us some “great views”.  The hairpin turns didn’t go away as we followed a river down the mountains.  Villages consisted of mud huts, stuccoed mud huts, and cinder block homes.  Some seemed to be quite nice with smooth stucco, bright paint and designs around the windows.  Every village (enclave) had a mosque even if a neighboring enclave was a 1/4 mile away.

We had lunch in a village where the well preserved Alt Benhaddoue “Kasbah” prerched high on a hill was the home of about a dozen movies/TV series ranging from The Gladiator to some of the Game of Thrones episodes.  After lunch, we walked across sandbags & rocks in a small river and entered the Kasbah from the back entrance.  A very entrepreneurial woman had printed a sign and printed receipts for your $1 entry fee. Of course, when we came out the front, we realized that the entry was free!

We then traveled to Ourzazate, Morocco’s “Hollywood”.  There are two movie studios & related back lots there along with a Cinema Museum.  Needless to say, they did not compete with the LA studios.  This new town of several hundred thousand people is really focused on the studios.  Not far from the studios is a large castle that is regularly used for some Game of Thrones episodes as well as other similar period movies.  It was unlocked so we wandered through the fiberglass & plaster buildings.  We had a tedious 4-hour drive across the Tizzy pass with what seemed like hundreds of nerve-racking curves in the pitch dark, returning to Marrakesh at 9:00 p.m.  There were a couple of times, we weren’t sure we would make it back in one piece.  It was a long day.