The otherworldly waves of sand dunes – at times red, golden or caramel-coloured, depending how the sun hits them – are getting smaller and smaller in the distance. It’s hard to believe I rode a camel across that erg, or sea of dunes, yesterday before climbing to the top of a sandy ridge to watch the sun set. I’m still on my Sahara high as we leave the desert in the dust.
After a morning coffee stop, our small tour group begins our bus journey towards Todra Gorge, a limestone canyon (or wadi) in the eastern part of Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains. As the name suggests, it’s the highest part of the rocky Atlas range. Stretching 2500 kilometres through Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, the range creates a weather barrier between the dry Sahara and the wetter regions along the Atlantic and Mediterranean coastlines.
We’re halfway through Intrepid’s eight-day Classic Morocco tour now, and everyone in the group is starting to reveal a little more of themselves. Our tour leader, Mohamed, decides to program the music on the bus today, hitting play on Shakira’s Waka Waka (This Time for Africa).
Tinghir and Todra Gorge
We pull over at a panoramic lookout over the city of Tinghir, Mohamed’s home town, and its verdant valley of date palms flanked by an abandoned village of mudbrick kasbahs. Group member Jo mentions she’d like to visit a local’s home while we’re here. We continue to our hotel, where a lunch of Amazigh (Berber) omelette and a beckoning swimming pool await. We have an afternoon of free time today, and most of us decide to cool down by the pool to recap the latest leg of our journey. One tour member and I discussed dating, Greek families and her elopement. Once the scorching sun has dipped a little in the sky, we begin our leisurely hike through the valley, past shady palm groves and orchards of almond, pomegranate and fig trees that serve as communal farmland. It’s a green oasis among the otherwise arid, ochre-coloured landscape.
At this point, I’m parched. Mohamed makes a brief phone call as we continue to snake through the valley, walking single file and helping each other over any unsteady terrain, before arriving at a small village along the rocky riverbank. Then, what seems like a mirage: a kindly woman standing in her front door is handing out water for us to refill our bottles before ushering us inside her home. It turns out our wily tour leader has fulfilled both my wish for water and Jo’s desire to visit a local residence. (Gosh, he’s good.)
Our host (who turns out to be Mohamed’s aunt) has prepared a pot of mint tea, which her young son gleefully pours out for us as her girls hand around a plate of biscuits. Outside, a group of children are playing jump rope while a little boy shows off his soccer skills. Other kids are playing in the shallow stream while their mothers look on. One of the skipping girls ushers us over to join, and a few members of our group take turns jumping in. It’s a wholesome snapshot of village life, and one we wouldn’t have experienced without our accommodating tour leader.
We continue our journey towards Todra Gorge, a massive trench rising more than 300 metres, created over millennia as the Todra River carved its way through the orange limestone. These days the river is more of a shallow stream. Food vans, fold-out tables and plastic chairs are found along the rocky riverbed, popular with families and couples. The canyon also draws hikers, mountain bikers and rock climbers to its rugged landscape. One of our Melburnian tour members opts to take a four-hour, 10-kilometre guided hike that passes through the gorge, over a mountain pass and past Amazigh villages and inhabited caves. She later sends a photo to the group of her cave-side tea break with a local Amazigh man.
Ait-Ben-Haddou
The next day, we descend into the foothills of the High Atlas Mountains, where we pass through Ouarzazate, a town known as the Hollywood of Morocco for its huge cinema studio and prolific use as a movie backdrop. The area, and nearby Unesco World Heritage site Ait-Ben-Haddou – an 11th-century ksar (fortified clay-brick village) perched on a hilltop – have stood in for ancient Rome (Gladiator), Egypt (The Mummy) and the fictional city of Yunkai (Game of Thrones). We’re told the upcoming Gladiator sequel recently filmed here too, which means I narrowly missed my chance to meet and marry Paul Mescal.
We arrive at Akhnif Glaoui, a women-run carpet-making co-operative that we’re told has had a huge impact on women’s self-sufficiency in the region. In the front room, a young woman named Ilham takes us through the process of carding (untangling and softening the wool threads), hand-spinning and weaving as we observe two more women using traditional looms. The weavers only work as much as they choose, most for an hour or two each day.
“In the co-ops the women are free to work whenever they want, they are free to design whatever they want … they decide the price, and 80 per cent goes to the lady and 20 per cent to the co-op to keep it going,” Ilham tells me. “Back in the day [sales and distribution] was exclusively a job for a man because they were educated, they knew how to speak languages other than Amazigh, they went to school and not women, but now that is changing.”
The rugs range from simpler designs with monochrome or muted tones to geometric patterns and bold, kaleidoscopic colours, depending on the cultural group or region they’re from. Some are double-sided to suit different seasons. One weaver, upon retiring, combined all her previous patterns into one beautiful patchwork design, like a best-of compilation. We’re given time to peruse the piles of rugs and purchase them if we want, without pressure.
We cross over a trickling stream, using sandbags as stepping stones, before arriving at our next stop: a painting workshop on the outskirts of the ksar. It’s not like any painting class any of us have done before – we’re using a green-tea-and-sugar mixture to paint a scene of people on camel-back. The brew goes onto the paper clear, making it impossible to see what we’re painting, until our instructor casts his cigarette lighter over the images. The slowly revealed, caramelised pictures smell like marshmallows.
We head further into Ait-Ben-Haddou, through narrow streets lined with mud-brick houses, to the community-run Tawesna tea house. The outdoor tearoom and restaurant was founded by 40 local women to provide employment, support and training to other women and girls in the region. We stop briefly for tea and biscuits in the quiet garden, though you can also come for a lunch of tagine, tafarnout (a woodfired Amazigh flatbread), harira soup, and more.
What strikes me most about this part of Morocco is the absence of tourists. While Ait-Ben-Haddou does draw crowds of film fans to its familiar architecture, the rest of our stay in the High Atlas Mountains feels like our little secret – quiet and calm and a world away from the frenzy of famous cities like Fez and Marrakech. With Mohamed’s insider knowledge to guide us, I’ve been able to experience a side of the country I wouldn’t have otherwise seen.
As we begin the winding descent to Marrakech for our final night in Morocco, we snake through the mountains along a vertiginous road of twists and turns called the Tizi n’Tichka pass. We stop for a panoramic view of the serpentine pass and surrounding peaks, taking in the serenity and crisp alpine air, before piling back into the bus for the hustle and bustle of the city.
This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with Intrepid Travel. Intrepid’s Classic Morocco tour is a fully guided eight-day trip that includes all transport and accommodation. Starting in Casablanca and finishing in Marrakesh, it takes in city and country – including the Sahara Desert and ancient ruins.
