I just love that sign. The Tizi n' Test is the middle and steepest pass of the 3 main routes through the Atlas from Marrakesh to the south. It is said to start from Taroudant but actually it starts from about 30km east on the route to Ouazazate. This 30 km is in the Sousse valley and pancake flat and then you get to this sign and from there, as the sign says, it is 120 km of hairpin bends and dizzying ascent.
The southern side of the mountains are short and steep but once over the top the Marrakesh side is slower and longer with more villages off. It is the pass by which R Cunningham Greene sought to reach Taroudant as recounted in his 1898 book "A Journey in Morocco". He did not get there being captured by a Goundafi Caid and held prisoner at Talaat n' Yacoub. The kasbah there can still be visited although it is off the main route. Had he succeeded Southern Morocco may have spent the first half of the 20th century under British rather than French control.
The current road was blasted through by French engineers between1926 and 1932. There is a marker stone at the col recording this feat of civil engineering. The road has only been metalled for the past few decades and is only one and a half vehicle wide. To pass oncoming traffic it is necessary for one set of wheels to go onto the piste verges. Locals and Grand Taxis play "chicken" refusing to cede their road. Lorries and coaches are less cavalier but given that the drops from the hairpins are precipitous any encounter with oncoming traffic can be scary. The "Rough Guide" decribes the descent to Taroudnat as "hideously dramatic" which just about sums it up.
That having been said we drive up there quite frequently just for the views. Not in winter when it will be closed for days at a time by snow (the col is about 7000ft above sea level) and not during rain when I don't really trust the boulders not to erode out of the sides or the "streams" not to sweep the road away under but after when the damage is visible and the streams still waterfalls.
On the Taroudant side it seems that every hairpin has its cafe or mineral shop. They are of a muchness, necessarily so as they are so remote. You watch them as you approach marvelling at how they balance ove the drops. All serve limited food, generally salad and omelettes. Either cooked in a frying pan or "Berber omelette" with the filling cooked in the base of a tajine and the the eggs poured on top and the lid added. My favourite is the Hotel Bellevue just below the summit, (there are a number of Bellevues but this has a VW minibus as a mineral shop opposite) not because of the food or the view but because it has immaculate toilets including a sit-on rather than a squat.
The Marrekesh side which is longer and slightly less hair-raising passes by Tin Mal and through Ourigane.Just as it joins the main road into town there is a restaurant with swimming pool and a large function room. We turned up one day hot beyond belief and fractious and they seated us in cool shade and served one of the best moroccan meals I've had, simple, lots of salads, couscous, brochettes but excellent.
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| View from Tizi n' Test |
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| View from Tizi n' Test |
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| View from Tizi n' Test |
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| View from Tizi n' Test |
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| View from Tizi n' Test |
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| View from Tizi n' Test |
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| Cascade Tizi n' Test |
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| View from Tizi n' Test |
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| VW bus as mineral shop Tizi n' Test |
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| Terrace Hotel Bellevue Tizi n'Test |
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| Cascade Tizi n' Test |
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| View from Tizi n' Test |
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| Cascade Tizi n' Test |
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| Cascade Tizi n' Test |
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| View from Tizi n' Test |
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| View from Tizi n' Test |
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| View from Tizi n' Test |
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| Coming home on Tizi n' Test |
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| View from Tizi n' Test |
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