Over the Atlas Mountains

Leaving Marrakech, it's not long before you feel as if you are in the middle of nowhere. Once the olive and orange plantations fade into the distance, it's a long, windy climb into the high Atlas.

People on donkey and mule outnumber the vehicles once you leave the city, and you start to see snow and signs that they get a real winter.

The lifestyle of the people here seems little changed from centuries ago.

They still work the fields with oxen or mules hitched to the plow, and beast of burden were as important as ever to their lifestyle. Thankfully, all the animals did seem much better taken care of than their city cousins.

It was amazing to see this unchanged way of life. The dwellings were all built out of local materials: mud and stone. No running water, and few villages seemed to have power. You could see people working the hillsides in the mornings, and coming in to sell their harvest at the local souks.

Oh, the Vertigo. The drive up was not for the faint of heart, and this would not be a good nighttime drive.

Many of the villages up in the mountains were not connected to the grid. This was not an easy lifestyle. The people we encountered up here wore it on their faces.

Finally over Col du Tichka.

While the area north of the Atlas was fertile farmland, the land below the range was notably dry. This was the start of the great desert.

In Ruins

After two days in Marrakech, I was feeling pretty overwhelmed.

Not only was it hard to see these poor donkeys everywhere in homemade harnesses, pulling heavy loads on unkept hooves and then sitting in the sun all day without food or water, but the humanity was starting to get to me. The constant badgering and pushy sales tactics was really too much. I got a bit dismayed- was all of Morocco going to be like this? I don't think I could have done two weeks if it had been, but no, it wasn't. It did get better.

But first it had to get worse.

Thinking an hour in a hamman would do me so good, I found a nice one to sweat out the toxins. It's basically a steam room, and then this woman takes a scrubby mit, slathers you with various clays and exfoliants and gives you a good brusque rubdown before dousing you with cold water. Fun, right? Except 20 minutes after my treatment, I started vomiting uncontrollably and my entire body swelled up and broke out in an itchy red rash. Something that got slathered was not doing me good at all.

So I spent the next couple weeks covered in itchy red hives and scabs, which multiple pharmacy visits and Claritin did nothing to help. Really attractive stuff here. There will forever be a lack of pictures of me enjoying myself on this trip. Being ill in the 3rd world is never a good experience. If it's not life threatening, just deal with it.

But I'm tough. Eh, tough-ish. Plus, women are supposed to be covered from head to toe at all times, so it didn't really matter that I looked like a leaper. Huzzah!

Back to Marrakech, where the air was so clean, I felt like I was smoking a couple packs of unfiltered cigarettes every day.

At night especially. As soon as the temperature dropped, the smog set in so thick it was hard to see more than a couple blocks ahead.

The Square at night turns into a series of open-air restaurants, all with the same menu. Lots of Tangine to be had.

There are tons of Mosques in the city, but you are only allowed in if you are Muslim. It kind of limited the amount of cultural sites open to Westerners. Kutubiyya Mosque is the largest, and almost 900 years old. The stonework was really spectacular.

The Saadian tombs are also worth a gander.

Exploring the ruins of Badii Palace. There was nothing really there but stray cats and nesting storks, but the sheer enormity of the site was impressive.

The skyline was made of minarets, satellite dishes, and the Atlas mountains.