BROILING sun cooked the mιlange of cars, buses, trucks, donkey carts, mopeds and taxis as our minivan maneuvered its way out of Fez. We were headed south on Highway P-24 toward the Middle Atlas Mountains and the desert beyond. Having pampered ourselves in Fez at the luxurious Palais Jamai and tasted the exotic centuries-old flavor of the labyrinthine medina, we were off to the countryside in search of new adventures.
In a country as varied as Morocco, there is plenty to see beyond the well-trod sidewalks and narrow alleyways of the imperial cities Tangier, Fez and Marrakesh. So during a family vacation to Morocco in August, we took three days to explore the south, an arid and rugged land with sandstone hills and steep-walled valleys, and whose Berber populations have at times been quite separate from the rest of the country.
The drives to Morocco's south are long eight hours from Fez to Erfoud. And with the exception of Ouarzazate, the south's major urban center, accomodations tend to be spare, especially as you get closer to the desert. But if you're game, a trip to the south will yield spectacular vistas of ruggedly beautiful countryside and the serenity of Saharan landscapes.
Getting around Morocco is relatively easy. The country has a good road network that includes superhighways, mainly in the north, and two-lane roads in the southern reaches. My wife, Marian, my 14-year-old daughter, Jenny, and I traveled with friends, a family of four from Washington. Given the size of our party and the distances involved, we hired a minivan with a driver and a guide, all for $200 a day. Split between two families that was only slightly more than renting two cars and paying roughly $3 a gallon for gasoline.
About an hour outside Fez, the road lurched sharply upward, the air cooled considerably and the landscape became more lush as we entered the Middle Atlas Mountains. We drove through serene apple orchards, terraced farms and dense forests of red and green cedars, evergreen boughs etched across a blue skyline. Nestled on hillsides were mud-walled Berber houses recognizable by their low doors. According to our guide, 36-year-old Jawad Lahani, this was a vestige of ancient times, when you wanted anyone venturing inside to stoop low and be defenseless, in case it was an enemy.
Mr. Lahani is a slender, internationally trained economist from Fez who has been leading tours, large and small, for five years. He often remarked that Morocco was a country of sharp contrasts. If Fez resembles Morocco of the 12th century, Ifrane, with its sharply peaked red-tile roofs suggests Switzerland at the beginning of the 21st. This city, about an hour and a half south of Fez, is the center of Morocco's skiing industry and has a cosmopolitan air.
When we stopped in Ifrane for a break, we wandered into a small restaurant that served sweet chocolate pastries and strong Moroccan coffee. The staff took orders in French and Arabic while the sounds of Natalie Cole crooning American ballads drifted from speakers.
Back on the road, we kept a sharp eye on the forests, hoping to catch a glimpse of a troop of Barbary apes. These rare tailless macaques, about the size of small chimpanzees and found in Morocco, Algeria and Gibraltar, are reportedly highly sociable and do not shy away from human contact.
Our search of the cedar boughs turned up no sign of the creatures, but as we stopped at a scenic overlook to take pictures, a brown Barbary ape leaped through the van's open door, startling everyone. She was the domesticated pet of a roadside vendor and her name was Linda. She was quite tame and jumped into the laps of several of my traveling companions, contentedly picking at them, probably looking for a succulent insect or two.
