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Fes to Merzouga, February 2026

The Atlas mountains is divided in to several areas.
We saw mostly the High Atlas and the Middle Atlas
They are a young mountain range, tall and rugged.
This cloud is a lenticular cloud.  Not often seen. 

This day was mostly in the van.  As I recall this part of the trip, I have to remind myself that this was all done in one day.  This post is mostly about the photos.  Click on any of them to get the slide show.  And please enlarge the photos.  

 My biggest lesson of this part of the trip is that no matter how much you put a GPS tag on your photos, it is more like a guess than an actual record.  So Merzogua may or may not be the name of the place where we stayed in the most amazing caravansarai.

And the notes provided by the tour agency are more like suggestions. Lesson learned keep your own notes.  Keep photo record of room tags and door signs.

This part of the trip was one long day of driving.  Most of my photos were taken from inside of the van. This does not mean that is was not an interesting day.  It gave us much time to absorb Morocco as we went by. This may not be to everyone's taste, but I found it fascinating. And my list of questions grew ever longer.  I will add some notes to the photos as I go along.



Leave it to me to go to one of the
driest places in the world
just in time to experience major flooding.
  
Those of you that know me real time
will understand why this van, loaded to the 
gunnels spoke so loud to me.
  
        
More and more this trip thru the Atlas Mountains
resembled Tehachapi
This tatty little petrol station felt like home to me


Ever wanted to know what a Berber encampment looks like?
The Amazigh people (their preferred name) have several locations
that they will set up longer stay encampments.
There will be some buildings or shacks that
they add to for their stay of a few weeks, or months.


    

Typical of the towns in the high mountains.
Notice the square minaret. This is the style
for the Mosques here.
Every town has at least one minaret. The size and shape
of a town is determined by the distance the Adhan 
(call to prayer) can be heard.
Once it was important to have a muezzin who could
produce some huge volume.  Now it is done by
loud speaker.
   

Occasionally our van would stop at some seemingly
random location for us to take photos.
The sky really is this dramatic. 


   
The quality of the tour guide
really matters.  
This is Rachid, one of the best
guides I have encountered.

                 
My daughter is an apple farmer.
Rachid managed to add a 
brief stop for her to take a photo
in Midelt, the center of apples 
for Morocco.

  

Notice the mesa layering of the mountains
Our western eyes see just a tunnel.
But with desert eyes, this tunnel took days
off of the trek between two cities.
Built in 1928 by the French Foreign Legion.
  

This is a small oasis.
A place where water is available. 
    
  
A small farming community
The terrace farming makes best use of water.




This is what climate change looks like in Morocco
The blackened trunks of the palms is due to
mitigation fires.  The extended drought has allowed 
parasites to grow on the trunks, killing the palm.
The hope is that the fire will kill the parasites
before killing the tree.

This is a positive mitigation.
Palm trees shed some of their fronds
each year.  These fronds are woven into
panels that are made into sand trap fences.
This slows the spread of the desert.




Hotel Kanz Erremal on the edge
of the Sahara.  One side of the
hotel was on rock, the other 
on the sand.
   
Hamsas on the wall in the caravansarai



  




Yes you want to ride the camels.

The end of the day included an optional
camel ride to the bottom of this sand dune. 
Then a hike to the top to watch the sunset.


The camel drivers were absolute hams.
They knew when to spot the perfect photo op.
Yeah, it was a bit touristie.  But sometimes                      
you just gotta wallow in it. 
             
Utterly charming.



These guys were really fun.
Their job was to give the tourists a great time.
And they did it with flare.


  


Most every one hiked to the top of the dune

 I had other things to do

Sand is just tiny rocks.
Notice how very RED






  

    






   







  

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