When hiking in the Rif, try not to step
on the kif. Morocco is the world’s
number-two producer of cannabis,
behind the US. So who’s buying? At
60% mark-up, the UK spends £5
billion annually on kif.works along the Atlantic Coast. Golfers who want to improve their game in more ways than one can head instead to La Pause
( Click here ), an ecofriendly, turfless ‘all-terrain’ golf and disc-golf course in the desert outside Marrakesh.By contrast, the craggy Mediterranean coast has remained relatively undeveloped until
recently, despite a spectacular coastline of sheltered coves and plunging cliffs. Tangier and the
port towns of Ceuta and Melilla make the best of their advantageous positions, with scenic
overlooks and splendid coastal villas. The major barrier to the east is the Rif Mountains, rugged
terrain inhabited by staunchly independent Riffian Berbers who speak their own language
(Tarifit) and effectively resisted colonial control. The Rif has remained politically marginalised,
which has one highly debatable advantage: kif (cannabis) is widely grown in the region east of
Tetouan. But lack of access to essential services has compounded local poverty, and it’s taken
huge government investment to improve access to schooling and medicine via new
infrastructure. Well-graded roads make exploring the Rif coastline more possible than ever
before.
Mountains
Three mountain ranges ripple diagonally across a topographical
map of Morocco: the Rif in the north, the Middle Atlas (south of
Fez) and the High Atlas (south and northeast of Marrakesh),
with the southern sub-chain of the Anti Atlas slumping into the
desert. The monumental force of plate tectonics brought these
ranges into existence. Around 60 million years ago, a dramatic
collision of Africa and Eurasia plates lifted up the High Atlas,
while closing the Strait of Gibraltar and raising the Alps and
Pyrenees. More recently, the mountains have provided shelter for self-sufficient Berbers, a safe
haven for those fleeing invaders and a strategic retreat for organising resistance against would-
be colonisers.
In the north, the low Rif Mountains form a green, fertile arc that serves as a natural coastal
barrier. Even the Vandals and Visigoths were no match for independent-minded Riffian Berbers,
who for millennia successfully used their marginal position to resist incursions from Europe and
Africa alike.
The Middle Atlas is the Moroccan heartland, a patchwork of farmland that runs from Volubilis
to Fez that gradually rises to mountain peaks covered with fragrant forests of juniper, thuya and
cedar. This sublime trekking country is also home to the Barbary ape, Morocco’s only
(nonhuman) primate. Running northeast to southwest from the Rif, the range soars to 3340m at
its highest point.
But the real drama begins east of Agadir, where foothills suddenly rise from their crouched
position to form the gloriously precipitous High Atlas Mountains. South of Marrakesh, the High
Atlas reach dizzy heights at Jebel Toubkal, North Africa’s highest summit (4167m). On the lower
flanks, the mountains are ingeniously terraced with orchards of walnuts, cherries, almonds and
apples, which erupt into bloom in spring. The High Atlas hunkers down on to the southeast into
Anti Atlas range, which protects the Souss Valley from hot winds of the rising Sahara Desert.
Desert
No landscape is more iconic in Morocco than the desert, with rolling dunes and mudbrick ksour