Azrou travel guide

Background

One of Azrou’s claims to fame is that under the French Protectorate, it was chosen to be home to the Collège berbère, a training school for Moroccan Berbers which was founded on the premise that Arabs and Imazighen were fundamentally different – and should be educated and ruled as such. The divide and rule policy backfired – it was in the interests of neither Arabs nor Imazighen for a colonial regime to continue to control Morocco; in any case, loyalty to Islam and the Alaouite throne proved to be stronger than ethnic ties, a fact which somehow escaped French colonial ethnographers. After Independence, the Collège berbère became the Lycée Tarik Ibn Zayid, symbolically named for the Arab conqueror of Andalucía. In the late 1990s, Amazigh cultural movements began demanding more official recognition of their cultural identity and Morocco’s handling of its large Amazigh minorities will be interesting to watch in coming years.

Ins and outs

There are plenty of buses from Meknès and Fès to Azrou, which is situated at a crossroads of routes leading up from Marrakech (via Beni Mellal and Khénifra) and Er Rachidia (via Midelt). Coming from Marrakech, you will have to change at Beni Mellal if you don’t get a direct bus. All buses, except those of CTM, arrive at the bus station opposite the Grand Mosque. The grand taxi station is close by, near the roundabout. Grands taxis for Khénifra are close to the rock. Azrou is a one-horse sort of place, so there are no difficulties getting around.

Azrou

CTM buses depart from near Pl Mohammed V, early departures for Casablanca, Midelt, and Meknès. There are further CTM and private line services from Azrou to Rissani, Er Rachidia, Marrakech, Khénifra and Fès, and numerous grands taxis to Khénifra, Ifrane, Immouzer du Kandar, Meknès and Fès.

Banks

The Banque Populaire and the BMCE (cashpoint) are on Pl Mohammed V.