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Appendix E Contacts

Skiing on Jbel Oukaïmeden, with Angour behind (Route 31)

An Afensou threshing floor, with Moulay Ali in the distance (Route 45)

INTRODUCTION

Morocco’s Atlas Mountains form an extensive series of ranges across the north-west corner of Africa – very much a barrier against the interior desert, yet influenced by Atlantic and Mediterranean weather. At Heathrow airport I once had quite a job convincing the girl at the check-in desk that I did want my skis flown to Marrakech. The glory of that red city, with its ramparts and palms, is the seasonal view south to glittering snow-covered mountains that stretch and dip beyond the horizons east and west. When Sir Francis Drake gathered his ships off the Moroccan coast before his round-the-world voyage he saw snowy mountains inland; he wasn’t believed either.

The Western Atlas from Marrakech (Route 35)

The snows are vital to the Atlas and neighbouring plains. Marrakech is built at a specific distance from the mountains – at the point to which water will run along irrigation channels by gravity. The mountains may be a geological wreckage, but the valleys are highly populated by Berber tribes, the indigenous people who have been there for thousands of years. (The Arabs arrived only in the seventh century.) The closest country in Africa to Europe, Morocco was the last to be taken over by a European imperial power, in 1912. (The carve-up arrangement was that France got Morocco and Britain got Egypt.) Like many fiercely independent people the Berbers are tough but marvellously hospitable, and wanderings in the Atlas gains immeasurably from this background.