Road to Imilchil

In two previous posts, I mentioned a weekend trip to the towns of Midelt and Imilchil. Throughout most of the trip, I was very glad to be doing it at the same time that I thought I will never do this again.

One of the factors behind both of those thoughts was the road, specifically its length and quality. On Friday night, it only took us about three hours to get from Ifrane to Midelt. But on Saturday and Sunday, while we didn't have much distance to cover, our route was very, very scenic…and that means slow driving.

In fact, we were on such scenic routes that Google Maps doesn't even know they exist. The best I could do to show you our route was to place markers on a few of the towns that we drove through.


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Sven, Thea, Rachid, Abdul, and Josiah

In Midelt on Friday night, we stayed at Riad Villa Midelt, which I don't think is really a genuine riad, but it was nice anyway. The manager, Abdul, and his friend Rachid were very friendly and sat talking with us for a long time that evening as we had tea outside in the cool desert air. Later they served us dinner, and I had the best vegetarian couscous I have ever had.

The riad was in a quiet part of town. Rather than exploring Midelt on Saturday morning, we chose to have a leisurely breakfast before setting out for Imilchil.

All of the ceilings in the riad were covered with this intricately handcarved wood.

View of Midelt from our room at the riad

View of Midelt from the rooftop terrace

We set out for Imilchil a little after 10:30, and that's when things got really interesting.




The High Atlas Mountains are bleak but beautiful, and adding to the rustic charm of the experience was the winding, narrow, and rough road, which appears to get washed out during wet seasons (now, fortunately, is a dry season). The road was safe, but slow driving was a necessity--I think we arrived in Imilchil around 5pm.

So here's the part where I bombard you with photos...

Tate and Thea walking on the road for a bit during one of our many "bathroom" breaks.

Maybe this looks more like the Morocco many of you imagine.

Long, long road...

We drove past and through many Berber villages. The villagers, especially children, waved curiously as we drove past them. Sometimes little boys would run or ride their bikes after us (or even, in one case, pound on the car with dusty hands).

Besides corn, I wonder what else these villagers eat?

We had to drive under the arm of that backhoe to get past it...yikes!

We shared the narrow road with many of these guys.

C'est moi!

 Up next: Photos of Imilchil and of the drive from there back to Ifrane.