High Atlas & Ait Ben Haddou

Heading towards the High Atlas and first to Lalla Takterkhoust, a reservoir near Marrakech, where there is also a paragliding spot. Normally it is always a bit cooler here than in Marrakech, which is why it is a popular 'recreation area' outside the city, but right now it is as hot as in Marrakech with 37 degrees.

Flying is only possible in the early evening at these temperatures, so we spend the afternoon at the reservoir - where swimming is officially not allowed (which nobody follows) and where jet skis whiz by. The lake is beautiful and looks clean despite the trash scattered around.

With the high temperatures, Basti is skeptical about whether the thermals are really flyable, but we have a view of the mountain from the lake, from which we take off.

But suddenly in the early evening, when he sees some parachutes, everything has to happen very quickly 🤣.

We dash (as far as possible on this bumpy road) to the paragliding spot and Mia and I drop Basti off at the top and drive to the landing field, next to which there is a nice accommodation and a small parking area where we are the only ones.

There is so much wind at the launch site that Basti considers cancelling the flight, but he starts anyway because a Moroccan tandem pilot shows him a suitable spot and holds him by the harness during the launch to make sure everything goes smoothly.

Basti flies into the sunset, lands safely, and we gratefully use the good showers to produce some evaporative cooling for the night 😅.

The next morning, we decide to continue driving because it is going to be very hot again and flying is only possible in the evening...and the lake wasn't inviting enough for us to spend another day there.

We head towards Tizi N Test, a 2100m high pass, which is really beautiful to cross in terms of scenery.

On the way, we stop at a nice stream and take a dip in the cold water, and drive through varied landscapes and windy roads up to 2100m.

There is a small auberge up there where we are allowed to stay for a small fee, and it is currently 'only' a pleasant 27 degrees Celsius and there is a good wind.

The next morning, we descend from the pass and the road is truly spectacular.

The next destination is a high plateau, which can only be accessed partially via off-road tracks. We have chosen a route that combines off-road tracks from our guidebook, some of which are now asphalted.

It is actually astonishing how quickly the country and some roads are being developed, as neither our large Michelin map, nor the 2022 guidebook, Google Maps, or Open Street Map can keep up...this is also true, albeit less frequently, in the opposite direction, as some tracks are destroyed but not rebuilt.

On our way, we then experience the Moroccan problem-solving skills par excellence; on a mountain road with switchbacks, suddenly everything comes to a halt, trucks are standing still, and we go to a curve where a low-loader truck has driven too tightly into it and then slid off, damaging parts of the road/bridge.

There are several people there and a digger is already there as well.

Regular cars narrowly pass by the truck and a rock wall...we probably won't. There is no real alternative for the route and we think about what we can do at the narrow point.

The digger driver sees us and signals to us 'no problem at all, in 10 minutes it will continue' - which we can't imagine.

Then the digger starts to remove the rock and we still think that the goal is only to widen the narrow spot...and we are already impressed by so much pragmatism.

Basti takes out his sand plates from the car to build a 'mini-bridge' for a way to get through the narrow spot, which is too wide for us (after all, they should also be used at some point 😜).

But suddenly, the digger drives to the rear of the slid-off low-loader and the driver sits in his cab and - we can hardly believe it - reverses while the digger supports the rear of the truck.

While we still doubt if they are serious, the action succeeds and the low-loader stands - albeit with a damaged tire - back on the road.

The digger driver refills the fallen part of the road and the low-loader takes the curve in the new radius (also thanks to the removed rock wall) and gets through!

The road is clear, everyone applauds, and we are deeply impressed by how quickly and solution-oriented everyone worked together.

In Germany, everything would have been blocked off, the salvage operation would have taken hours, a structural engineer would have declared the road impassable, another expert would have had to verify that, determining liability would have played a major role, and...we can imagine the rest 🤪.

So we continue our tour, eat at a delicious restaurant where they grill right by the roadside, and eventually turn onto a track that leads us to a high plateau with breathtaking views of the Toubkal Massif, with some 4,000-meter peaks the highest mountains in North Africa.

Up here, there are only a few shepherds with their sheep and goats, no trash, no noise, and at 2,500m we take out our warm jackets for the first time in weeks because the wind is quite chilly.

We wander around a bit and then sleep really well. The next morning, we continue driving through this impressive landscape, the greenery almost glows vividly, we even see wild horses, and we tackle the next pass, Tizi 'n' Tichka, but then we turn off onto a very nice route to the south because we want to visit Ait Ben Haddou - very touristy and the most popular postcard motif from southern Morocco.

But since it is most beautiful there in the morning due to the heat and especially the tourist groups that have not yet arrived, we first drive past it to a nice campsite with a pool, as we want to treat Mia (and ourselves) after 2 days of long driving. Considering the masses of buses that we see before that, it seems like a good plan.

Also, we want to wash everything completely before our halfway point and the campsite has a washing machine 🤓.

The place is deservedly highly rated, everything is spotlessly clean, nice pool, great food in their mini-restaurant, and only 10 minutes' drive to the World Heritage site.

We manage to be there at 8:30 in the morning and it is pleasantly empty, the light is beautiful, and we stroll leisurely through the narrow alleys, which later become very crowded.

It is really very touristy, but still worth seeing. The souvenir shops are slowly opening and leave us alone for now, although one of them probably tries his luck with me using a well-known trick when he overhears us speaking German and asks me to write a German text for his good friend Heidi on a piece of paper.

I write the text in a notebook for him (probably should have flipped through it to see all the messages to Heid in all languages 🤣) and afterwards he thanks me profusely and wants to invite us for tea as a thank you...I politely decline because we want to hike to the highest point in the village and tell him we will come by later...which of course we don't, because we would most likely have been shown all the souvenirs in the world after that 😝.

We still have the viewpoint at the top to ourselves and have a nice view of the crowds in the distance, who will soon be shuffling through the village.

In addition, on that day, a mini-marathon takes place here and Mia and I watch the spectacle from up close, while Basti runs to a spot where a kind of colosseum is being built.

Actually, the filming for Gladiator 2 is taking place here, and since the crew is currently being treated to delicious bread from the stone oven, Basti seizes the chance and buys 3 of these breads, which are incredibly tasty.

Before it gets crowded and too hot, we sit in the car, eat the warm bread, and look forward to the pool, as that is the only plan we have for today.

In the meantime, we wash so much laundry that our clothesline almost competes with the Persil advertisement from the 90s, and due to the heat, we can literally watch the laundry dry...a dryer can't do that, it's insane. The washing machine here is really a luxury, as we constantly see women washing laundry at the rivers.

Thankfully, in the afternoon, we have hung up our laundry, because suddenly a sandstorm drives us away from the pool and the outlines outside are almost indistinguishable...the fine dust finds its way into every crack, and we barricade ourselves in the cabin, so much for the relaxed pool day 🤪.

Since the sandstorm is expected to continue until the evening (and it does), we do our big shopping in Ouarzazate, which is 20 minutes away, today.

The city is very tidy and modern and lives off the film industry, as it has been the location for many Hollywood productions with its two large studios.

On the way back, we stop at a totally inconspicuous restaurant that was recommended to us and are the only guests being deliciously cooked in a cozy living room atmosphere.

When we return to the campsite, we see that the sandstorm has gotten even worse in our absence, as the entire shower and toilet building is covered on the inside with fine dust...

The next morning, we set off to explore more tours through the High Atlas and drive up the spectacular Tizi 'n' Ait at 3000m - the way up is truly adventurous, and you can see that the road here is extremely affected by rockfall and is constantly crumbling and temporarily repaired.

On the way there, we drive through the road of the kasbahs and through the beautiful Rose Valley.

We find a great overnight spot at 2,500m with a mega view of the valley, and the outside temperature drops to 10 degrees Celsius in the evening...let's see if we have to turn on the heating tonight.