Agdz

A place with its own rhythm.

Agdz is where the Draa begins to be inhabited. Coming south from Ouarzazate the land is stone and glare, and then the road drops and the valley opens: palm groves, terraced plots along the river, villages the same color as the ground they stand on. Jbel Kissane rises over the town, and the road carries on down the valley toward Zagora. Caravans came this way, north from Timbuktu. The market still gathers farmers and traders from the villages around — dates, spices, cloth, livestock. The Caid's Kasbah in town is a complex of rooms and terraces built from mud brick; nearby Tamnougalt is a whole settlement of earthen walls standing at the edge of the palms.