Ouarzazate & Aït Benhaddou Travel Guide

Come over the High Atlas from Marrakech and the change is sudden. The pines and walnut trees of the northern slopes give way to bare rock, the air becomes drier and brighter, and the villages turn the colour of the earth they are built from. By the time the road drops onto the plateau, the mountains are behind you and a wide, open country lies ahead: pale gravel plains, ribbons of green where rivers run, and on the horizon the flat-topped hills that lead towards the Sahara. In the middle of it all sits Ouarzazate.

Ouarzazate is not an old city in the way that Fes or Marrakech are old. Its centre is a twentieth-century creation, laid out with broad avenues, low ochre buildings and a calm, orderly feel. What makes it special is what surrounds it. Within a short drive you will find some of the most striking earthen architecture in the world: tall kasbahs with decorated towers, walled villages known as ksour, and above all the ksar of Aït Benhaddou, a whole hillside of mud-brick houses and granaries that has been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site since 1987.

A crossroads of the south

For centuries this was a meeting point rather than a destination. Trade routes from the Sahara followed the Draa valley north, crossed the plateau and climbed into the Atlas towards Marrakech. Salt, dates, gold, cloth and people moved along these routes, and the families who controlled the passes and the water grew rich and powerful. Their fortified houses still stand in the palm groves and on the hilltops, some restored, many slowly returning to the earth.

Today the routes are roads, and Ouarzazate is still the junction. Head east and you follow the Dades valley past the rose gardens of Kelaat M’Gouna to the great gorges of the Dades and Todra. Head south and you cross a pass into the Draa valley, with its endless palm groves leading to Zagora and the edge of the desert. Head north-west and you climb back over the Tizi n’Tichka, one of the most spectacular mountain roads in North Africa. Many visitors pass through Ouarzazate in a single night on the way to somewhere else. We think that is a mistake.

The character of the town

Ouarzazate has three faces. The first is the old one: the kasbahs and ksour, the palm groves and irrigation channels, the weekly markets and the Amazigh villages where life is still shaped by water, seasons and family. The second is the modern town, which began as a French military post in the late 1920s and grew into a regional capital with government offices, schools, a hospital and a small airport. The third is the most surprising. Since the middle of the twentieth century, the clear light, the empty landscapes and the ready-made historic scenery have drawn film and television crews from around the world, and Ouarzazate has become known, half seriously, as the Hollywood of Africa.

Add to this one of the largest solar power complexes on the planet, built on the plateau north of town, and you have a place that looks back and forward at the same time. The people are mostly Amazigh, the local language is Tashelhit in the west of the region and Tamazight further east, and Moroccan Arabic and French are widely spoken. Hospitality is a point of pride, and a glass of mint tea is never far away.

Who Ouarzazate suits best

• Lovers of architecture and history, who will find kasbahs and earthen villages in every direction.
• Film fans curious to see the landscapes and sets behind famous scenes.
• Road trippers heading for the gorges, the Draa valley or the dunes, who need a comfortable base.
• Photographers, for whom the light at dawn and dusk is reason enough to come.
• Families looking for a calmer, less crowded introduction to the south than the big cities.
• Walkers and slow travellers who enjoy palm groves, oases and village paths.

If you want beaches, nightlife or a vast medina full of souks, Ouarzazate will feel quiet. Its pleasures are slower: a terrace at sunset, a walk through a palm grove, the silence of a stony valley, and the warm welcome of a village family.

How to use this book

The chapters follow the order in which most people plan a trip. We begin with the history of the region, because the kasbahs, the film sets and even the solar plant make far more sense once you know the story behind them. Then come the practical chapters on arriving, getting around and choosing a base, followed by the sights, the hidden corners, ready-made itineraries, food, customs and shopping. The final chapters cover day trips into the valleys, practical information, useful phrases and a planning checklist.

Throughout the book you will find three kinds of highlighted box. Local tip boxes share small things our team has learned on our regular trips across the mountains from Agadir. Good to know boxes explain customs or practical details. Avoid this boxes point out common mistakes. We deliberately do not print prices, opening hours or phone numbers: they change too often, and an out-of-date figure is worse than none. Instead we tell you what to expect and what to check locally.

However long you stay, give the region time. Its beauty is not in one monument but in the whole landscape: the play of light on earthen walls, the green of a palm grove against red rock, and the sense, everywhere, that people have made a home in a hard and beautiful land.