  We study the distribution and the popularity of some patterns in $k$-ary faro
words, i.e. words over the alphabet $\{1, 2, \ldots, k\}$ obtained by
interlacing the letters of two nondecreasing words of lengths differing by at
most one. We present a bijection between these words and dispersed Dyck paths
(i.e. Motzkin paths with all level steps on the $x$-axis) with a given number
of peaks. We show how the bijection maps statistics of consecutive patterns of
faro words into linear combinations of other pattern statistics on paths. Then,
we deduce enumerative results by providing multivariate generating functions
for the distribution and the popularity of patterns of length at most three.
Finally, we consider some interesting subclasses of faro words that are
permutations, involutions, derangements, or subexcedent words.
