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Morocco Overland

Morocco Overland

Excerpt:
Introduction


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‘...had to get away to see what we could find.’  Marrakech Express

As a tourist destination Morocco is well established.

Long before Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young sang their carefree Sixties hit, and half a century before Bergman turned away from Bogart on that foggy airstrip in Casablanca, European tourists had lifted the veil on the ‘African Orient’. They crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, intrigued by the mysterious medieval allure of cities like Tangier, Fes and Marrakech, a traditional Islamic culture that had fiercely resisted colonisation, and the promise of the mountains and desert beyond.

Today our fascination with Morocco, so close and yet so different, shows no sign of abating. ‘Sand, sea and souks’ coach tours continue to ply the well-worn tourist tramlines, while cheap air fares have popularised weekend city breaks to upmarket Marrakech riads or villas.

Morocco Overland shows you another side of Morocco, where the adventurous driver, rider or cyclist can safely explore the snow-bound passes of the High Atlas or the dusty pistes of the Sahara. In between visiting the well-known highlights, the sites, cities and beachside resorts, you can trace a network of easily navigable routes far from the hassle-prone, trinket-clad tourist hotspots.

In doing so you have a chance to experience the wilderness of southern Morocco at your own pace and on your own terms. Explore the jebels, palmeries and ruined kasbahs of canyon-bound Berber villages lost in time, and by doing so encounter a traditional and hospitable people, light years from the populated, Europeanised north.

Along the way you’ll also learn the capabilities of your own machine and acquire many other new skills, all while lunching on a grassy meadow by a mountain stream or overnighting at the base of a dune with little more than the wind, sand and stars between you and Timbuktu.


 

Morocco Overland

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