The highest pass in Morocco is Tizi n’ Tichka ( 2260 metres), meaning the ‘passage of pastures’, and it marks the border between the western Anti Atlas and the High Atlas. Here, a route winds away from the main Marrakesh – Ouarzazate road, passing close to some interesting salt mines, and leads to the village pof Télouet at a height of 2000 metres. This quite splendid casbah is the result of many additions ans adaptations first begun in the early 20th century. The grandeur of the typically Berber structures and the magnificent Andalusian style decorations in plaster, carved wood and coloured tiles (an unusual combination of two architectural styles in a casbah huddled in the austere solitude of a mountainous landscape) recall the splendours of the powerful pasha Galoui, lord of the southern Atlas who died in 1957. The poor state of conservation and the feeling of fragility that today seem to threaten this once powerful fortress are evidence of the increasing and worrying risk of decline and ruin. Such imposing grandeur might appear unusual in an environment that is so wild and unwelcoming al-most lunar in some areas – yet there is a logical explanation that is also evident from the presence of the nearby and interesting Tim Mal mosque (11 th century), further west on the road to Taroudant. In fact, for centuries before the advent of the French protectorate, domination of this lofty and strategic chain of mountains was an absolute and fundamental necessity for ensuring control of the plains below.