High Atlas

Potentially we can now travel around much of Morocco. In practise, we are confining ourselves to the cooler areas. Summer in Morocco is just not a good time for pale Yorkshire people. To compound our overheating problems, there is a heatwave going on. So we are drifting west across the High Atlas towards the coast. We already know the road south from Demnate. It is a spectacular drive and while it can probably be done in a few hours, we managed to stretch it out over three days. Perched high on the hills there was usually a fresh breeze and at night clear skies helped keep us cool. Even so, the temperature was well over 30°C most days.

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Eventually we had to drop down onto the high plains around Ouarzazate where the road took us past the world’s largest concentrated solar farm. Completed in 2018, the 3,000 ha site consists of hundreds of mirrors that focus the suns energy onto the top of a tower. The heat energy is stored using molten salt and released at night to generate electricity. The glow surrounding the tower is quite otherworldly.

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Moving further west to get back to higher ground, we got lost and arrived at a dead end. Next day we turned back, found a better route and ended up on a delightful road just to the south of some big mountains. Eventually we got to the end of the High Atlas and started to descend towards the coast. The temperature began to creep up. A series of interlocked valleys took us down towards the Aoulouz dam. We squeezed through several small villages. One was having a market day and this made the streets a bit crowded. Then we were down and on the main road to Agadir. The outside temperature was just on 43°C. As we drove the last hundred miles to the coast, the air began to cool.

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We picked a little campsite perched on some steep hills overlooking the sea. As we sat contemplating the sunset, over a gin and tonic, the cool gentle breeze was in the low twenties. It was bliss.

But we didn’t know what was coming.