Morocco to the Max
Round two, facing back down the earthen road. The Arabian’s head ducks, he bunches up, bowstring muscles contracting. I lean forward instinctually, and he’s off. Hooves strike gravel. Trees streak into Monet smears of color. I’ve never ridden this fast.
On the immediate right, the road’s edge and a long, rocky drop one misstep away. My eye strays over, and my mind flashes an image of a stone dropping down a well. It’s too late for a midcourse correction, and seconds later I lose the sweet spot in the saddle. I fight to stay in an upright crouch, flashing now on the broken bones of a friend who recently shattered her arm in a bad horse fall. I have no health insurance. Losing control is one thing, losing it in the remote wilds of Morocco…Somehow I hang on.
Three days ago, I landed in the 105-degree heat of Marrakech, threw my backpack into the Land Cruiser owned by my guide, Brahim, and looked south to the peaks of the High Atlas, my playground for the next few days. I was off to climb Jbel Toubkal, the highest mountain in North Africa. Brahim and our translator, Abdul, pointed me to the passenger seat, and I was soon spirited off into the blank desert flatlands. Marrakech may be international chic, but the two-lane road out of it offers quick access to the older Morocco, the one with terraced villages the color of sand and goatherds lolling by the side of the road, following our progress with crinkled, patient eyes.
Brahim was recommended for his outdoor savvy and his knowledge of Morocco’s wild places. As he navigated, we worked out our language situation. He was fluent in Italian, I in Portuguese; we both had some Spanish. Combining the three into a linguistic slushy, we found that we understood each other quite well. Abdul, a happy-faced youth from a tiny mountain village, sat in the backseat and tried to follow along. He’d be my guide for the two-day ascent of Toubkal.
I’ve never lost the seven-year-old’s penchant for getting into things. I’m impatient during six-course meals, and I’ve torn several pairs of good pants lately while climbing trees. So I’ve taken to dosing my travel with adventure-hiking, mountain biking, trail running, sea kayaking, rally race car driving, horseback riding, dune boarding. The activities keep me happy and even-keeled, and I’ve learned more while getting lost (or getting hurt) during these activities than I ever could have in the confines of a tour bus.
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Morocco is highly regarded by the style-obsessed, but it’s underrated for adventure. The landscape has everything. The Sahara, of course, is justly famed for its off-roading trails out of Erfoud and into the sand dunes of Merzouga. The shores of the zephyr-kissed Atlantic near Essaouira have world-class windsurfing, and the more southerly waters off Agadir are full of fish. Mountain lovers have a choice of three different ranges in the Atlas. The oasis valleys of the south, such as the Drâa, simply beg for exploration by mountain bike.
Besides, while the country’s carpet-hawking ways can be trying, Morocco is a most hospitable place, in keeping with Islam’s mandate of kindness to strangers. But you have to exit the tourist routes to access that vein. My plan was to travel in a large circle around Marrakech, hiking and horseback riding in the Atlas, crossing the Tizi-n’-Test Pass by 4×4, and touring the coast while biking, running, and trying out a few water sports. In eight days, I’d surely beat the blue-exhaust smog out of my city muscles.
So it was that after a night’s rest in the village of Imlil, which sits at 5,580 feet, Abdul and I rose early and started our hike. Up a dry wash and into the Atlas foothills, we pushed past creeping caravans of mules carrying tiers of stacked equipment. The zigzag trail ran up the belly of the valley, ringed by mountains on all sides. The Atlas Range is a place of momentously high, rough crags, angry geologic thrusts of rock that are nothing like the American Rockies, lacking both their vegetation and their natural charm. These mountains are made of cruder stuff, with imposing cliffs and tumbling rock slides that form peekaboo caves. The color of the land is an undeviating khaki, with the occasional waterfall slipping down cliffs from year-round snowbanks.
