Conquering the Anti-Atlas Mountains

The highlight of my three month ramble around the Mediterranean to celebrate my fiftieth birthday in 1977 was an overnight bus ride from Marrakesh to Tafraoute. I had read in a local French language newspaper in Casablanca that there was an Almond Festival the other side of the Anti-Atlas Mountains. It was a scramble finding the bus in the busy market square of the town renowned as a hippie crossroads. (There were no hippies on this trip, just locals taking short trips on the itinerary. The voyagers were a constantly changing mix.)

With the innocence of a novice African traveler, I was carting a hernia threatening suitcase on unusable wheels. Any sane traveler would be using a backpack under these circumstances. And the poor baggage master staggered as he hoisted my grab bag onto the roof of the twenty seater bus. Because I was trying out my pidgin French on any local who would stand still, he was subjected to the further insult of my jabbering away. A friendly guy, he offered me the jump seat at the front of the bus so I could take better pictures while it was still light.

What a night that was. I was clad in jeans and a T-shirt, perfectly adequate for Marrakesh in February. But the High Atlas mountains. It slowly dawned on me (and the temperature started dropping quickly) that I was in for a night of shivers. Luckily, every half hour or so there was a pit stop for a hot coffee and huddling as close to the brazier as possible. Ill never forget shortly after one such stop about three o’clock in the morning when I snuck a look back at the rest of the travelers. They were all headless! Snugly tucked into their frost-defying jellabas.

And the road that night was an almanac of driving hazards first fog, then rain, the sleet whipping against the front windshield. Skids, sometimes toward abysses I was happy were more or less obscured by the darkness, and ascents so steep the bus shuddered as it went to lower and lower gears. What a ride! As the night lifted I was puzzled by how the driver knew where to go. To my untutored eye, it was only a vast undifferentiated desert.

Then the wonder of the Almond Festival dazzled my astonished eyes. As far as the eye could see in the breaking dawn it was a landscape of pure white. The blossoms seemed unending. Tafraoute was a confusing village but fascinating. It took miming more than my Freshman French to find a place to stay overnight. Chance had it that a sculptor lived there as well. And among my favorite souvenirs from 50 years of traipsing around the globe are small stone sculptures of animals for the Hazoo my collection of crafted animals from anywhere and everywhere.

The bus trip to Agadir on the Atlantic Coast was not memorable. And I stayed at an expensive tourist hotel for a change. My style of traveling has been that every night I spend in a youth hostel or on a moving vehicle earns me a point a night towards a five star hotel. By then I need a bath and a comfortable bed. I become the Duke de Visa, living beyond my means for the nonce. I'm ashamed to confess that I didn’t have the balls to ride the camel that a most persistent driver tried unsuccessfully (and ultimately disgustedly) to talk me into.

Frankly, my month in Morocco was getting me restless. I flew to Tangiers, where I tried without success to find out where Paul Bowles was hanging out. And frustrated by that experience, I easily found the main train station where I plotted out my moves to Oran (hello, Albert Camus!), and Algiers.