The Atlas

Jebel Toubkal, at 4167m the highest peak in North Africa, is walkable right up to the summit, but an equally genuine, and perhaps more relaxed, taste of the mountain and Berber way of life is possible if you spend a couple of days exploring the beautiful valleys and lower passes around Imlil.

Morocco’s longest established inhabitants, the Berbers, never adopted orthodox Islam and the Arabic language has, even today, made little impression on their indigenous Tachelhaït dialect. Their music and dances are unique as is their village architecture, with its stone or clay houses tiered on rocky slopes, craggy fortified agadirs - collective granaries - and kasbahs which served as feudal castles for the community’s defence right into the twentieth century.

Asni, host to a thriving souk on Saturdays, Ouirgane, an excellent place for a rest and good horseriding, and the 12th century Tin Mal mosque, refuge and power base of the Almohads in their conquest of Morocco and Spain, all lie on the dramatic Tizi n’Test road connecting Marrakech with the traditional Berber market town of Taroudant, once Morocco’s capital and still encircled by towering, crenellated walls. Cutting right through the heart of the Atlas, this spectacular road was blasted out of the mountains by the French from 1926 to 1932.

The second route south, from Marrakech, over the mountains, is the Tizi n’Tichka road leading into Ouarzazate, capital of the south and not so reluctant star of epic films such as David Lean’s ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ and, more recently, Ridley Scott’s ‘Gladiator’. Higher than Tizi n’Test, this road is, perhaps, less spectacular although once over the 2,260m pass a remarkable scene is unveiled: the lunar landscape of the Anti Atlas and the desert beyond, completely obliterating memories of the lush green olive groves and flower-filled meadows behind you.