Quite easy to guess where we are off to – the High Atlas Mountains which rear up behind Taroudant, and of which I have dreamed since my first visit to them in 2013. That time it was the north side, up from Marrakech. Here in sheltered Taroudant it’s the south, the sun picking out every detail of the landscape on this most spectacularly sunny day. I’m in heaven, in spite of vertiginous drops at the side of the road, and hair-raising hairpin bends all along the route, sometimes with a lorry swinging round them….but mountains are my element, a feeling, or some kind of memory, that I shared with my mother. Don’t ask why.
So here are some of my photos, firstly of the 2 1/2 hour drive up in our landlady Catherine’s rattly old jeep.
We were on our way to Catherine’s Moroccan friend Said’s sister’s husband’s ruin in a village high up in the mountains. Here is this enchanting house, where we picnicked and painted, and ate a lovely tagine prepared for us by the neighbours
After the picnic we walked around the village, which was really an assortment of houses threaded through the trees and rocks and remains of other houses in woods leading down to a valley. Across the valley was a house that looked straight out of Tuscany; French owners I was told. A different world.
People everywhere our side; no photos of them because they didn’t want that, but were friendly and, I guess, fascinated by our appearance in such a remote place. (Any photos of people, incidentally, are Catherine and Said).
We had to tear ourselves away from this magical spot in order to get out of the mountains by sunset. The light all the way down was blazing, the colours vivid and full of contrast, and again, people everywhere in the landscape – tending livestock, picking fruit, coming home from school, just standing there….
And here is our wonderful landlady Catherine who drove us safely all the way up and all the way down.
What a day. You would have loved it, Mum. This post is for you.