After a rainy day, the Atlas mountains were covered with snow on the highest peaks, a beautiful sight. We drove along the mountains to Ouarzazate and further to Aït Benhaddou, where we found a lovely spot for the night above the river with great views of the old ksar. We met other travellers and postponed the visit and instead enjoyed an evening in good company with Beate and Jan from Germany.
At the edge of the cliff, we noticed some friendly neighbours, a family of Barbary ground squirrels were curious and finally brave enough to try our old bread.
The next day we walked down to the river and to the other side to visit the adobe village together with many other tourists.
The village had 4 big houses of rich families (kasbahs) and many smaller houses. Only view people still live here, the others all moved to the modern village on the other side of the river. Aït Benhaddour is a well-used location for movies like “Gladiator”, “Indiana Jones”, “Lawrence of Arabia” and many more. The latest movie which was filmed here is “The Odyssey”.
On top of the mountain, there was once an Agadir, similar to a castle but used for storage for everything valuable. Every family had its own locked up storage space.
The roofs of the houses were once used to dry the harvest from the oasis along the river.
Aït Benhaddour was located at one of the main trans-Saharan trade routes. To the north, the Tizi n’Tichka pass was one of the few routes across the Atlas Mountains and to Marrakech. The village had been fortified since the 11th century.
We will now make our way through the Anti Atlas and to Tata – more soon!
Birders note: beside of larks, pigeons and bulbuls, we also spotted a Blue Rock Trush.
Aït Benhaddou hat sich durch die Touristenströme – Errichtung eines Besucherzentrums samt Brücke – für mich nicht zum Vorteil verändert (Besuche 2001 und 2013).
Ist halt mehr Filmkulisse als Dorf.