What's it like to cross the Atlas Mountains by road?

The road out of Marrakech is gentle at first, running through ochre plains and argan trees, and then the mountains simply rise up in front of you like a wall and the climbing begins. The Tizi n'Tichka pass is a ceaseless ribbon of switchbacks, the engine dropping to a low growl as the car hauls itself up and around, each bend opening onto a bigger view than the last. You gain altitude fast — your ears pop, the air cools, and the vegetation thins to scrubby green clinging to red rock.

It is, frankly, a road that demands respect. On one side the cliff goes straight up; on the other it falls straight away into a valley far enough below that the river is a silver thread. There are no guardrails for long stretches, and trucks grind up the inside while you ease past on the outside edge, and your knuckles whiten on the door handle. A good driver makes it feel safe — Moroccan mountain drivers do this route in their sleep — but you'll catch your breath more than once, especially in cloud or after rain.

What rewards the nerves is the sheer theatre of it. You round a corner and a whole Berber village is stacked into the hillside, mudbrick houses the colour of the earth, women in bright headscarves carrying bundles up impossible paths, kids selling crystals and bags of nuts at the viewpoints. Higher up, in winter, snow lines the peaks and dusts the road, and the contrast of white summits against the red valleys is staggering. You stop at the pass to stand in the thin, cold, brilliant air and look back at where you climbed from.

And then comes the other side, which is the real magic. As you descend toward Ouarzazate the world changes character entirely — the green falls away, the rock turns gold and pink, palm-filled gorges open up, and you feel the desert pulling you in. The crossing takes the better part of a day with stops, and it should: this is the dividing line between two Moroccos, the lush north and the Saharan south, and you get to feel yourself pass from one into the other, metre by hard-won metre.