On the way to Ait Ben Haddou and Ourzazate we passed through the Atlas Mountains. We organised a private tour with our own chauffeur and highly recommend it over a group tour as you can stop anytime you want, travel at your own pace and we found our chauffeur to be very knowledgable about local artisans in the areas we visited.
There is only one road through the Atlas Mountains and it took about 3 hours to reach the summit, Col du Tischka at an altitude of 2260m. The terrain was rugged and the climate harsh but the landscape was undeniably beautiful.
At the summit you can visit a few local stalls selling pottery and an argan oil collective run by local women. We bought a few beautiful quartz geodes from a vendor (see picture below) – the naturally occurring colours – turquoise, orange/red, purple and a purple/green amethyst were incredible! Along the way, there were a number of vendors selling boucherouite rugs.
Here’s a close up of the quartz geodes now decorating our home.
