After a quick breakfast at our Riad, the fabulous Youssef ( yes he is my new Moroccan BFF) from Morocco Sahara Desert Travel collected us at the door to begin our trip through the Atlas Mountains to the Sahara Desert.

I know it’s the same for lots of cities but the traffic is so crazy in Marrakech, it would be a brave tourist who made the decision to navigate it – wowsers!

Once we hit the open road we made our way up to the High Atlas Mountains on a really snaky road, enjoying along the way the incredibly beautiful landscapes and oh so colourful Berber villages we pass by.

Our first stop for the day is at the Ait Barka Village. Where we had morning tea and some yummy mint tea. We are on our way to the highest Atlas mountains of Morocco starting here at Tizi Tichka. This is the first time we had to negotiate the payment of going to the toilet…let me tell you this can be a stressful moment. Poor Youssef, this was the first awkward conversation I had with him …. I was surprised at this point that he didn’t run for the hills – this was his one chance.

Once we hit the highest point of the Atlas Mountains we hit the snow. As Robyn said at the time it was as if the boys had never seen snow before and so yes a snowball fight ensued. This was when we realised that Youssef knew exactly what he was in for with us and he happily joined the fight while buses of other tourists looked on in absolute disbelief 😂. Yes mad Australians.

From here we had our first of many three course lunches at a local place and then Youssef drove us a minute down the road to Kasbah Ait Ben Haddou which is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site (there are a few of them here in Morocco) and handed us over to the very capable Sayed who walked us through this fantastic place that has been fortified since the 11th century. The Tizi n’ Tichka pass which could be reached through here, was one of the few ways through the Atlas Mountains between Marrakech and the Dra’a Valley and so it was and is an incredibly important site.

Because it is such a majestic location many a Hollywood mogul has come a knocking and a number of movies “Laurie of Arabia”, the classic “Jewel of the Nile” who could forget that classic Danny de Vito and Michael Douglas classic, as well as parts of “Game of Thrones”.. it has even hosted Australia’s very own Beau Ryan and the Amazing Race crew (from memory there were some great challenges here). Pleasingly many locals find employment with these companies arrive and so we did discover that Sayed has been in three Bollywood films, and is hoping to get some work when Gladiator 2 comes to town.

We then continued to Ouarzazate, the rose valley, Skoura palm grove to Dades valley and gorges.

Our first night of this fabulous mini Moroccan tour with dinner at a little hotel, probably very typical for the area located in the heart of Dades gorges at the south of Morocco. We did take longer than expected getting here as we had a few breaks which was great and saw so much and so an “advertised” hike when we got to our place of residence was simply postponed to the morning for those interested. Tomorrow we head to the Sahara Desert.