Beyond Marrakech — and into the Atlas on horseback

{"text":[[{"start":6.95,"text":"There is a particular kind of anticipation that comes with knowing you are about to leave a city behind for the mountains. Marrakech in early October is warm and golden, its Medina filling with the smell of cumin and charcoal before the day has properly begun. We arrived on a Friday and let the city wash over us: the souks, the rooftop mint teas, the unhurried first evening before the harder, better days began. "}],[{"start":34,"text":"Leaving, in itself, was part of the draw. Marrakech is a city that has given in to the business of being visited, and can sometimes feel more like a performance of Morocco than the place itself. But beyond its walls lies another version, something older and less rehearsed. The plan was to reach it on horseback."}],[{"start":51.55,"text":"The trip was arranged through Unicorn Trails, a British operator founded in 1998 by Wendy Hofstee (a veterinary surgeon, traveller and life-long horse lover), whose guiding principle was simple: find the world’s finest riding holidays, ensure the horses are in exceptional condition, and make it as straightforward as possible to get on one abroad. "}],[{"start":73.4,"text":"Our itinerary ran across eight days, with six in the saddle, heading into the Atlas mountains from Terres D’Amanar, an hour from Marrakech, climbing over passes above 3,000 metres and dropping into the valleys on the other side."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":87.55000000000001,"text":"I was travelling with a group of five friends, some of whom had minimal riding experience: just four riding lessons before we arrived. This left room for considerable speculation about the prospect of six hours a day in the saddle across a week in the mountains. In practice, the operation is thoughtfully designed to absorb all of that anxiety. Riders are matched to horses according to ability."}],[{"start":112.00000000000001,"text":"A vehicle shadows the route, with bags ferried ahead to overnight stops so that arrival (whether in a village or under canvas at a mountain camp) feels like a homecoming rather than an expedition. Riders are expected to help with grooming and saddling, a small ritual that, by the third morning, feels less like a chore and more like the natural beginning of the day."}],[{"start":133.45000000000002,"text":"By Saturday morning we had transferred to the stables and met the two men, and the horses, who would shape the week ahead. Najim Ibrahim, known to everyone as Brahim, was a true horseman whose position in the saddle resembled a man in a rocking chair; he looked like he had been born on a horse. He gave the impression of never having had occasion to dismount, so entirely at home was he up there: watchful, measured, unfazed by anything the mountain (or his horse) presented. "}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":null,"text":"

• Brahim rides a white horse along a dusty path past a large tree, leading another horse, with hills in the background.
• A winding dirt road cuts through arid, rugged slopes of the Tizi n’Ouka mountain pass in the Central Atlas Mountains.

"}],[{"start":164.3,"text":"Rashid Idsalah was more lively, a man of the plains, which made his easy command of high altitude terrain all the more striking. Brahim had taken to calling him Obama, a resemblance Rashid bore with the patience of someone who had heard it many times. He would roll his eyes, but it was clear he agreed and seemed happy with the comparison."}],[{"start":184.25,"text":"Though an experienced rider, I made a specific request for a steed that would hold steady in difficult terrain, allowing me to photograph my experience from the saddle. Kenzo was an Arab-Berber stallion, built for the mountains: sure-footed, deep-chested, unhurried on loose rock. His name means strong and wise, and I was thankful."}],[{"start":204.65,"text":"The first days moved us up, out of Marrakesh’s orbit and into the folds of the Atlas. The trails were old. Mule tracks, streambeds and footpaths worn by centuries of movement through the mountains. The sense of having left the tourist city behind deepened with every hour in the saddle. Rashid had a habit of naming the peaks as we passed them, as though making formal introductions. Where Brahim rode in companionable contemplation, Rashid kept the group animated, always checking we were in good spirits, always pointing out what was worth noticing."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":null,"text":"

• A person pours mint tea from a silver teapot into glasses on a tray, with a long stream of tea in mid-air.
• A small, colourful supply store with shelves of goods, stacked gas canisters outside, and a rusty bicycle leaning against the counter.

"}],[{"start":238.55,"text":"Somewhere above the Azzaden valley, drifting down through the rocks, came the sound of song . . . resonant and entirely at odds with the emptiness of the trail. As we rounded a bend, the source revealed itself: a weathered, one-eyed shepherd of middle age, moving a flock of goats along the hillside with a carved wooden staff. He wore a bright blue shell-suit jacket and a portable stereo strapped across his body, emblazoned in bold lettering: X-BASS."}],[{"start":265.85,"text":"It was not being put to bass-heavy purposes. The music pouring from it was Arabic singing, and the stereo was clearly a prized possession. I gestured to my camera, asking in sign language whether I could make his portrait. He nodded in agreement and seemed genuinely moved when I showed him the image on the back of my camera. He put his hand across his heart and thanked me — salam alaykum. Then the goats moved on, and he followed them, the Arabic song fading slowly up the trail."}],[{"start":null,"text":"

• A one-eyed man with a beard, wearing a cap and a jacket, stands outdoors holding a stick and carrying a portable radio.
• A mountain goat stands on a stone ledge with hills and mountains in the background. No horses are visible.

"}],[{"start":294.6,"text":"Where the road allowed, our support vehicle would be waiting at a pre-arranged point, lunch laid out in the shade of thuya trees: tagines cooked on a gas stove, served with generous plates of salad. Where the terrain made the truck’s progress impossible, we rode on with picnics in our saddlebags instead. Those lunches, though simple, felt like the best of the trip; just the group and the wind and the open mountain. Horses at rest, their fly-swat tails the only sign of movement. A welcome half-hour’s snooze in the sun before saddling up again."}],[{"start":328,"text":"One of the consistent threads running through the whole journey was the call to prayer. Five times a day, even high in the Atlas, it would find us . . . drifting up from a valley village below, thin and clear in the mountain air. One afternoon I asked Rashid whether he had ever missed a prayer. He looked at me as though the question were slightly strange. No, he said. I asked what would happen if he did. He was silent for a moment, then said: “Something would feel wrong. Inside. As though I had lost my place in the day.”"}],[{"start":360.6,"text":"I turned that over for a while as we rode on. In a life spent moving through mountains, guiding strangers through unfamiliar terrain, those five pauses were perhaps the most reliable landmarks of all; less a religious obligation, from the outside, than a form of daily alignment. A way of knowing where you were, even when everything else felt uncertain."}],[{"start":382.65000000000003,"text":"Wednesday was the summit of the week in every sense. The trail climbed to the Tizi n’Addi pass at 3,100 metres, a long and effortful ascent that the horses took steadily, ears forward, breath visible in the thinning air. We stood in the saddle and grasped the mane to take our weight off their backs, a balancing act that required more concentration than it looked. At the top, Mount Toubkal rose to the south and the whole High Atlas lay spread in every direction, ridge after ridge dissolving into haze."}],[{"start":413.95000000000005,"text":"By dusk, camp was established. Herds of goats would spill through the foothills as darkness settled, and we slept beneath a canopy of stars so bright they made the surrounding peaks glow. Accommodation was a celebration of how well you can live with just enough: a sleeping bag, a roll mat and a pillow, cowboy-style."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":431.75000000000006,"text":"We crossed the Oukaïmeden plateau (a high-altitude bowl, 2,600 metres above sea level, that draws winter visitors but sits wide and expectant in October), then stopped for a picnic near Tizi n’Ouka, a pass at 2,800 metres, before beginning the long afternoon descent towards the Haouz plain. "}],[{"start":451.15000000000003,"text":"Riding beside me on the way down, Rashid gestured back at the pass we had crossed. “Most people only see Toubkal from below,” he said. “From up here, you understand it is not one mountain. It is a family of mountains. Each with its own character.”"}],[{"start":466.55,"text":"Rashid had been silent for a stretch of trail when he gestured towards a cluster of buildings at the base of the next valley, or what had been buildings. The September 2023 earthquake, he said, had taken four seconds to destroy many of the villages we were riding through. Four seconds. You look at a place that has stood for centuries and try to imagine it: the sound, the silence after. The mathematics of it refuse to settle into anything meaningful. "}],[{"start":494.2,"text":"Reconstruction was under way, which was something. But the new houses rising among makeshift plastic shelters were concrete block, Rashid explained, with a slight tightening around the eyes that suggested what he thought of it. The earthen walls that had stood for generations, thick and climate-intelligent, keeping out cold in winter and heat in summer, had been replaced with a material that does neither. “In winter,” he said, “they will freeze. In summer, they will bake.”"}],[{"start":520.85,"text":"There was a particular sadness to it: not just the loss of the original structures, but the erasure of something that had worked practically and in harmony with its surroundings for centuries . . . something that could be sourced from the very land it stood upon."}],[{"start":536.75,"text":"The final day of riding brought us through forests of oak and juniper, dropping gently back towards the stables at Terres D’Amanar. We stopped for a peaceful picnic lunch in the shade of Aleppo pines at the base of Djebel Choucht. Another game of chess, another long-pour mint tea, a last lazy hour before the final canter back to the stables."}],[{"start":559.45,"text":"There is something distinct about the last ride of a long journey on horseback. The horses know the way home. The urgency of the early days has gone. You sit differently in the saddle, looser and more settled, and the landscape moves past with a familiarity."}],[{"start":573.4000000000001,"text":"Brahim rode the final stretch alongside me with a blade of grass between his teeth. I asked him, somewhere along that last trail, whether he ever tired of the same route, the same mountains, the same trip repeated across the seasons. He considered it for a moment. "}],[{"start":null,"text":"

• A mosque with a tall minaret stands against a backdrop of hills near Sidi Fares.
• Sunset over a mountainous landscape near Terres d’Amanar, with silhouetted trees in the foreground.

"}],[{"start":589.5000000000001,"text":"“The route is more or less the same,” he said. “But the light changes every day. The people change. The mountains — they change too, slowly, but they change. I think if something bores you, you have stopped looking at it properly.” He nudged his horse forward, and we rode the last miles without the need to say anything else."}],[{"start":608.5000000000001,"text":"We returned to Marrakech a week after we had left with a full day to wander: the Medina, the souks, a hammam. The city felt different on the return. Louder perhaps, certainly more horizontal. After six days of altitude and silence, open trails and the focus that comes with being on horseback in wild country, the sensory weight of Marrakech required some adjustment. "}],[{"start":634.0000000000001,"text":"But that, of course, is the point. You ride through the mountains for a change, and then you come back and discover how much of it has stuck."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":642.8000000000001,"text":"Find out about our latest stories first — follow FT Weekend on Instagram, Bluesky and X, and sign up to receive the FT Weekend newsletter every Saturday morning"}],[{"start":660.2,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1777084602_1259.mp3"}