BERBER VILLAGES OF THE HIGH ATLAS MOUNTAINS, MOROCCO, NORTH AFRICA -- Part 5

IMAGES BY STEVE WRIGHT, WORDS BY LISA SYKES/THE GUARDIAN

With my pack strapped to a mule, we walked for 45 minutes over the pass to Aremd, Considering this is the closest village to the country's highest mountain, it is surprisingly free of tourist trappings. 

The Gte d'Omar in Aremd can accommodate 20 or so people, several to a room. 

The facilities are basic, but there is a shower - cold water is free, hot water costs 10 dirhams (70p). 

Fatima, Omar's wife, and her daughter-in-law bake fresh bread daily and cook delicious tajines - meat and vegetable stews cooked in earthenware pots with conical lids.

BERBER VILLAGES OF THE HIGH ATLAS MOUNTAINS, MOROCCO, NORTH AFRICA -- Part 4

IMAGES BY STEVE WRIGHT, WORDS BY LISA SYKES/THE GUARDIAN

My plan was to spend two days hiking in the High Atlas mountains, then return to explore Marrakech for an evening and morning before the flight home on Sunday afternoon.

Topping out at over 4,000 metres, the Toubkal is the country's highest massif, although I was only trekking at around the 2,000m. 

The treeline peters out at the village of Imlil at around 1,500m, where there's a clutch of small hotels, cafés and shops selling everything from Mars bars to guttering.

Imlil is an hour and a half by road from Marrakech, the last 20 minutes on a swaying mountain dirt track clinging to the contours. 

The villagers have voted not to have it paved as they like their semi-isolation at the head of the valley and are worried about being inundated by Moroccan tourists in their cars.

BERBER VILLAGES OF THE HIGH ATLAS MOUNTAINS, MOROCCO, NORTH AFRICA -- Part 3

IMAGES BY STEVE WRIGHT, WORDS BY LISA SYKES/THE GUARDIAN

 

Just 24 hours after leaving London, I am dashing about the terraced fields of apple trees with the village boys and men who are old enough to know better. 

Even my guide, Mohammed Elaamri, also a Berber, thinks it's all a little strange. 

Above us in the village of Aremd, every rooftop and street corner is filled with people swaying, jigging, dancing, chanting, clapping or banging a tambourine-style drum. 

By dusk, the goat-skinned men - there are up to eight of them each day - are knackered. 

The game ends with the muezzin's wailing call to prayer echoing around the surrounding mountains.

BERBER VILLAGES OF THE HIGH ATLAS MOUNTAINS, MOROCCO, NORTH AFRICA -- Part 2

IMAGES BY STEVE WRIGHT, WORDS BY LISA SYKES/THE GUARDIAN

In the Berber villages of the Toubkal region in Morocco's High Atlas mountains, this unorthodox game of tag is the aftermath of the Tafaska

Tafaska is the feast of the lamb - which commemorates Abraham's sacrifice of a sheep in place of his son and is held 60 days after Ramadan. 

Sheep and goats are slaughtered for feasting, and the skins are stitched into suits, worn for four pungent days.

BERBER VILLAGES OF THE HIGH ATLAS MOUNTAINS, MOROCCO, NORTH AFRICA -- Part 1

IMAGES BY STEVE WRIGHT, WORDS BY LISA SYKES/THE GUARDIAN

The man chasing me is brandishing a big stick. 

He's dressed in a suit made of animal skins and has a blackened face topped by a helmet adorned with goat horns. 

When he gets close enough he roars and throws a bag of ash over me. 

A little girl scrambles, crying, on to the flat roof of her home. 

She is frightened of the man with the big stick.

I know how she feels.