I landed in Marrakech. As I stepped through the airport doors, I felt Africa brush against my skin. After four and a half hours driving east, the plains disappeared. The Atlas Mountains rose. Ochre villages seemed to emerge from the rock, their adobe walls blending with the landscape. It felt as if everything had always been there. In the Aït Bouguemez valley, an Amazigh woman welcomed me with warm barley bread and bitter tea. The Amazigh have lived here for thousands of years, free, rooted. Her son took me to the stone slabs of Iwaridene. There, on a tilted rock, stretched over 150 meters of fossilized footprints, giant dinosaurs, frozen for 170 million years. Before climbing higher, I stopped at the Ouzoud waterfalls. The water thundered for over a hundred meters. Monkeys appeared in the trees. Then came Tizi n’Tighist. At the summit, thousands of Bronze Age carvings spread across the bare stone, riders, herds, suns. The mountain opened wide, sacred and infinite. That evening, drums echoed in the village. A fire was lit. Women formed a circle, men responded. A tajine simmered slowly over the coals, a traditional dish, where quince melts into cinnamon, vegetables, and olive oil. The scent made me hungry. I ate. I danced. I laughed.