Dades Valley

A place with its own rhythm.

The Dades is the heart of what Morocco calls the Road of a Thousand Kasbahs — the chain of fortified earthen villages that runs along the southern slope of the High Atlas. The number is not far wrong: they appear every few kilometres, the same red as the cliffs behind them, some restored and lived in, many slowly returning to the ground they were built from. The valley floor is a ribbon of green, almonds and figs and walnut trees irrigated by channels that have been maintained by hand for centuries. Above it, the rock takes strange forms: the formations known locally as monkey fingers, and further up, the switchback road that climbs the gorge in a series of hairpins photographed from every angle. Most itineraries stop here for a night between Ait Ben Haddou and the desert, and most travellers wish they had stayed two. Early morning, before the tour buses leave Ouarzazate, the valley belongs to the people who live in it. Spring brings the almond blossom and, further east around Kelaat M'Gouna, the rose harvest in May.