Talk:Tafraoute

Personal diary

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This is an excerpt from my diary relating to the trip to Tafraoute.

The Hotel Kerdous towered over the Kerdous Valley once home of the notorious El-Hiba, warrior, ruler often referred to as the Blue Sultan. Despite the sun the air was cold. We went into the hotel to check the reception area. The building was an old Kasbah which was eventually converted into a hotel. It would be quite exciting and an experience to spend a night or two in the wilderness. The views which ever way you look are absolutely unreal and stunning. From there on the road climbed a little more and then hit a plateau with almost a straight drive across it until we reached a small settlement where the road junction both pointing Tafraoute as its destination. One had the forty kilometres and the other sixty kilometres sign. The junction is called Jemaa-Ida-Oussemlal. We decided to take the forty kilometres route which is the northern fork. As we returned the same way it remains for another occasion to find out the stunning scenery of the other route. That other route goes via Izerbi and apparently is the newly resurfaced road so it was the better route to take but we did not.

There was also a dilemma whether to return by the alternative route to Agadir via Ait-Baha. This was a shorter route to Agadir but both the guide books advised not to take it as part of it is not tarmac covered and was what is locally referred to as a piste road, or a dirt track. We thought we had no vehicle suitable for such a drive. Our judgment proved to be wrong as we met a group of tourist, French who came that way and said it was fine, a little narrow at places but no problems otherwise and it had tarmac all the way. The receptionist at the Hotel Salama also told me that it was a good road and going back to Agadir was fine and safer as the mountains are always one one’s side, meaning that the precipice is on the left side of the road. It was narrow so you had to watch the oncoming traffic. This route also remains for some other occasion.

On the way to Tafraoute we stopped at the road side near a place called Had Tahala. The fields were yellow sprinkled with some flower resembling primroses that was in full bloom. The serene atmosphere and crystal clear unpolluted air with sky high mountain tops of varied hue added to the experience. The many photographs I took do not do justice to the real thing. The photographs lack the scope of the scenery and the colour and also they are two dimensional where real life is three-dimensional with smells and sounds titillating other senses but only visual.

We arrived at Tafraoute in the early afternoon. After having booked into the Hotel Salama and we only did this after failing to get a room at Hotel Tangier. Hotel Tangier a two storey building on the other side of what is the main river bed through the village, dry at that, with some paddles reminding us of what its purpose was where stray dogs were drinking the water, disappointingly told us that there were no rooms, just one double room. We needed two rooms. I was quite pleased as the atmosphere and the impression it made on me was that I would sleep fully clothed and certainly with my own towel on the pillow. A prospect I do not relish. Later we enjoyed juis d’orange at its sunny bougainvillea bordered patio. —The preceding comment was added by (WT-en) Sertmann (talk • contribs)