2 Travel Saturday Guardian 26.05.12
3
TheBigTrip
The best of Morocco
Find more Moroccan trips and tips online
guardian.co.uk/travel/morocco
Palm houses
someone who speaks little French
and had always been slightly wary of
the country’s reputation for giving
tourists a run for their money, I found
Taroudant the perfect introduction
to the country. I walked around the
city’s two rambling souks without any
bother; most stallholders would smile
when I entered their shop, leave me to
browse alone, and smile again as I left.
Taroudant has a small, arty expat
community who prefer the easy-going
authenticity of the town to the excesses
of Marrakech, or “Paris’s 21st
arrondissement”, as one them bitchily
described it. I was lucky enough to get a
peak inside one of their houses – an
amazing Aladdin’s cave over several
uneven floors with fine artwork and a
roof terrace literally on top of the
ramparts – and guessed it won’t be long
before such places open up as riad hotels
(in the looser sense of the word, of
course). The King of Morocco has given
the town the royal seal of approval and
is currently building a house here.
My guess is that Taroudant is much
sleepier than Marrakech – more of
a little sister than a grandmother –
Despite Agadir’s reputation as an Arabian Benidorm, there’s a buzz
about the surrounding area. From a gorgeous riad near Taroudant
to the oasis town of Tafraoute, our writers find the best new places
Gavin Mcowan,
Dar al Hossoun,
Taroudant
L
et’s get one thing
straight – this is a
riad. Forget all those
Marrakech hotels with
their measly courtyards
– they’re not proper
riads. I’ve barely set
foot inside the Dar al
Hossoun and the owner, Ollivier Verra,
who is giving me a tour of the amazing
hotel gardens, can’t resist a little dig at
Taroudant’s more famous neighbour.
“All those trendy hotels in
Marrakech are not riads,” says Ollivier,
“they’re medina townhouses. Riad
means garden in Arabic [in the strictest
sense of the word] and most of them
don’t have gardens. But why call
yourself a maison when riad sounds so
much more exotic, right?”
Absolutely right if you happen to be
the owner of one of the most stunning
“riads” in the whole of Morocco.
For the desert gardens at Hossoun,
in the ancient town of Taroudant in
southern Morocco, are truly unique.
They contain more than 900 different
species of plants collected from all over
the world – mainly succulents, aloes,
palm trees and cacti that can adapt to
a desert environment where rainfall
has dropped to 100mm a year over the
last decade. Wandering through the
labyrinth of connected courtyards,
which have been semi-landscaped over
15 acres of a former olive grove, you
come across a new garden at every turn.
It’s like the desert conservatory at Kew
Gardens with the roof off, a collection
Sarfraz Manzoor
Atlas Kasbah,
Tighanimine El Baz
A
gadir, the seaside resort in
south-western Morocco,
enjoys an average of 300
days of sun per year, is
less than four hours from the UK and
has a six-mile stretch of golden sand
beach, making it very appealing for
British tourists. Unfortunately that
also means there are bland chain
hotels, tourist trap restaurants and
English pubs. But that doesn’t mean
the region should be dismissed. Agadir,
which lies at the Atlantic limit of the
Souss Valley in the foothills of the
Anti-Atlas mountains – is surrounded
by spectacular landscapes and many
interesting places to visit. To explore
them, I stayed at the Atlas Kasbah, a
three-year-old, but ancient-looking,
ecolodge 15 minutes’ drive east of
Agadir. The lodge stands imperiously
on top of a hill and resembles a giant
rust-coloured sandcastle, with towers
and ramparts, and was one of the first
ecolodges in southern Morocco.
Owners Hassan, a Berber, and his
wife Hélène, who is French, have
degrees in sustainable tourism. The
11-bedroom lodge uses solar power
for 80% of its energy, has solar-heated
of rare plants from Madagascar,
Mexico, the Middle East and South
America added to indigenous
Moroccan species, and forms a
spectacular and incredibly peaceful
setting for this small hotel. On a clear
day you can see the snow-capped High
Atlas mountains from the roof terrace.
The main courtyard is bursting with
large cacti, euphorbia, tropical grasses,
jacaranda and palm trees, and through
its heart runs a “line of water”, a long
narrow swimming pool (just 3m wide
by 29m long), inspired by the Alhambra
in Granada, which creates a dramatic
counterpoint to the garden. Four
resident peacocks add a regal touch.
The gardens are so imposing that
the series of single-storey bedrooms,
sitting rooms and the hammam
that frame them are inevitably
overshadowed by all the greenery, yet
they are equally original in conception.
Both house and garden are the
creations of Arnaud Maurières and
Eric Ossart, two French globetrotting
A mountain trail in the High Atlas
botanists, plant hunters, architects and
art and craft collectors.
One day, the pair were walking in
the Atlas mountains and came across
local builders making a house out of
rammed earth. They were so impressed
with the work they asked the builders
to come and make a house for them
at Hossoun, and then learned how to
do it themselves. They obviously got
the knack of it, as several architectural
commissions soon followed – including
one for their neighbour, the former
empress of Iran, who wanted her
residence built with rammed earth, but
in a traditional Persian style.
All the rooms in the hotel are these
traditional structures with thick
earth walls that provide insulation
against the heat and the cold. The only
concessions to modern architecture are
the large picture windows that connect
the houses to the gardens.
Outside my window is a large
courtyard featuring a deep sunken
garden within the quarry of earth
created to build the houses. It is
sheltered, slightly cooler and more
humid down there, so ideal for banana
and papaya trees as well as the Brazilian
potato tree and Mexican desert willow.
From outside the sunken garden, you
peer down on the treetops as if looking
down into a tiny valley.
The rooms are stylish but
understated, the earth walls and
surfaces painted in natural white or
muted earthy browns to complement
the architecture. When Ollivier bought
the house a couple of years ago, he
was smart enough to purchase the
rich collection of artefacts that the
previous owners had built up from a
decade of travelling, so the place is
simply but beautifully adorned with
Mediterranean pottery and rare Middle
Eastern carpets, as well as locally made
furniture. Two of the stand-out pieces
are a long stretch of an antique Berber
tent that fills a wall in the sitting room
and the tall warped wooden pillars
from a mosque in southern Morocco
that date back to the 18th century.
Housson fulfils the role of a riad
perfectly: a private house that is a
world within a world and attends to
your every whim. It is so relaxing that
it was an effort to leave the hotel, and
I was content to laze in the gardens,
swim a few lengths of the pool and
wait for homemade delights to come
out of the kitchen.
The hotel’s food is panMediterranean rather than pure
Moroccan: one day we had a Lebanese
lunch of fresh homemade hummus,
baba ghanoush and tabbouleh, along
with salads of homegrown leaves and
raw papaya; another day it was a mixed
platter of delicious fried fresh seafood.
One day Ollivier did manage to
drag me for a walk in the Anti-Atlas
mountains, an hour’s drive away. We
didn’t see another soul as we walked
up a dry, boulder-strewn valley, the
sides so steep we were sheltered from
the sun. But on the way down we met
Aisha, a lovely Berber woman who
invited us in for mint tea, figs and
biscuits, and showed us round her
rambling old house.
Another day I took one of the
hotel’s bikes into Taroudant, a couple
of miles away, and explored the
souks inside the high, crenellated
terracotta ramparts of the medieval
city billed as the grandmother of,
or mini Marrakech. As a first-time
visitor to Morocco, I’m not sure how
accurate that description is, but for
showers, a chlorine-free pool and
a herb and vegetable garden. In its
large courtyard and salon we were
welcomed with a traditional tea
drinking ceremony, then shown to our
suite, which had antique red carpets, a
large four-poster bed and locally made
black olive soap in the bathroom.
We had views of the High Atlas
mountains, and farmers tilling the
ground and herding goats. Members
of the local Berber community work
at the lodge, preparing evening meals
of beef tagine and grilled fish, but
guests can also visit them in their
village, Tanfeesst, to which we drove
the next day. The bumpy route took
us along a dry river bed, past prickly
pears and cacti. Around the communal
olive press, large sacks of black olives
gleamed in the sun, giving the village
the scent of a giant tapenade, and a
donkey hauled a huge grinding stone
in a circle, crushing olives to release oil
into buckets below. We were invited
into the living room of one family for a
breakfast of sweet mint tea, flatbread
King of the hill … the Atlas Kasbah, built only three years ago, resembles a giant rust-coloured sandcastle
There are 900
plant species. It’s
like the desert
conservatory
at Kew Gardens
with the roof off
Desert oasis … the ‘line of water’
swimming pool at the heart of the Dar
al Hossoun, and (below left) one of the
bedrooms. Stopping for a picnic on a
walk in the Atlas mountains (below)
Taghazout
Agadir
NORTH
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
Taroudant
Ouled Teima
SOUSS-MASSA
N AT I O N A L PA R K
Ait Baha
MOROCCO
Tafraoute
30 MILES
with honey and argan oil.
The village and hotel lie in the
Souss-Massa-Drâa region in the
Unesco argan tree biosphere reserve.
We visited an argan factory, watching
workers peel and press the nuts to
make the oil which is used in Berber
cookery, and hair and skin care.
Day trips giving visitors a sense of
the local culture are the real draw of
the Atlas Kasbah – we visited ancient
Taroudant (see Gavin Mcowan’s article
above), Agadir’s busy fishing port early
one morning, and the hilltop ruins of
Agadir’s old kasbah, devastated by a
earthquake in 1960 which killed 15,000
people. A new kasbah was built in the
90s by Italian architect Coco Polizzi,
but I preferred the Kasbat Souss, where
dozens of artists sold everything from
bone jewellery and ceramics to art
made from shells.
We skipped Agadir’s busy beach in
favour of the empty stretches a few
miles down the coast, and concluded
that if you look in the right places,
Agadir has everything under the sun.
• Accommodation at the Atlas
Kasbah (atlaskasbah.com, doubles
from €90 B&B) was provided by
Naturally Morocco (01239 710814,
naturallymorocco.co.uk). British
Airways (0844 4930787, ba.com)
provided flights to Agadir. It flies from
Heathrow to Agadir 14 times a week
from £207 return
Tahir Shah
Hotel Salama,
Tafraoute
D
uring the eight years that I’ve
lived in Casablanca, I have
searched for a secluded scrap
of paradise to escape the wild
rumpus of the city. The other day I
finally found it.
Drive south-east from Agadir,
through fields planted with veg
destined for Tesco stores half a world
away, and you eventually spy a little
track on the right. Blink and you’d
miss it. To take it is to ride the grand
slalom of Morocco’s south, a piste so
windy that you wonder if it’s a secret
vehicle test track. Veering left, then
right, the route doubles back on itself
and narrows alarmingly, with boulders
the size of mansions looming down
either side.
There are no road signs, and the
only people are shepherds, cloaked in
chill shadows between the rocks. Their
goats don’t bother scrounging for scrub
and grass. They’re up in the trees,
feasting on argan nuts instead.
A moment before you throw it
all in, swing a U-turn and head for
home, you catch a first glimpse of
it – Tafraoute. Cupped in a shallow
bowl between rocky outcrops, it has
something serene about it, a perfect
balance uniting nature and man. A
cluster of slender minarets and low
pink homes, there’s a sense that it
has just that moment been conjured
by a good jinni, like something from
the pages of One Thousand and One
Nights.
This is Morocco’s Berber heartland,
where proud tribes, traditions and
folklore pre-date the Arab conquest by
centuries, a realm set quite apart from
the hubbub of the kingdom’s big cities
and ubiquitous urban sprawl.
An ancient oasis, Tafraoute was first
discovered in the 60s by the flower
power generation, when droves of tiedyed hippies trundled south in their
combi vans.
These days, it’s patronised by the
world’s leading rock climbers, lured by
the sleek, wind-sculpted faces of sheer
granite, set against a backdrop of utter
tranquillity.
I stayed at Hotel Salama on the
edge of the main square. Nestled all
around are little shops and stalls. At
one, I found lumps of rock crystal, and
sulphur, dried chameleons, cactus
roots and myrrh, for use in spells.
Another stall, opposite, was touting
a selection of antique angular iron
keys, once used in the region’s famous
wooden locks.
But, best of all, was the shop selling
ordinary objects made from old paint
cans, glass jars and discarded plastic.
I bought some lanterns there, a paint
can bucket, and a shopping basket
made from crocheted plastic bags.
The most wonderful thing about
Tafraoute is the way people are
genuinely pleased to see a visitor and,
equally, how they don’t hassle you as
they do elsewhere.
Having fallen in love with a
little Berber chest, I had to beg the
shopkeeper to sell it to me. He insisted
I could get a better one round the
corner for half the price.
but the impressive rammed-earth
ramparts, winding souks and lively
street cafes, plus the lack of tourists,
make it a fascinating place to wander
around for a day or two.
I don’t think many people would
come to Morocco just to visit
Taroudant – although it is doable for a
long weekend as the town is less than
an hour from Agadir airport. Most
visitors use Taroudant in the same way
it has been used for centuries, as a stop
on the caravan route, a place where
the desert meets the Atlas mountains,
en route to Marrakech to the north
over the stunning Tizi‑n‑Test Pass, the
Sahara to the south and the Atlantic
coast to the west.
And, as a place to stop and rest, the
paradise garden of Dar al Hossoun is
about the most peaceful place you
could ever wish to find.
• Dar al Hossoun (+212 6 65 028274,
alhossoun.com, doubles for €150 B&B)
provided the accommodation. EasyJet
(easyjet.com) provided the flights from
Gatwick to Agadir; flights start from £58
return. More information on Taroudant
and the region from the Moroccan
Tourist Office on 020-7437 0073,
visitmorocco.com
The greatest treasure of all lies
on a little lane in the backstreets of
Tafraoute. It’s called Chez Sabir, and
it is the ancestral home of Abdel-Latif
Bakrim, a culinary genius and a man
so gentle that you wonder how he
manages to run a business at all. There
are just three tables, laid out in the
family’s sitting room, with a small
kitchen behind.
As anyone who lives in Morocco
well knows, the national cuisine is at
its best not in a restaurant, but in the
home. And Chez Sabir is a home.
Comprising of thick harira soup,
Moroccan salads, and lamb cooked
with prunes, the meal surpassed my
wildest expectations. Before leaving,
I asked Abdel-Latif for his secret.
Smiling very broadly, he narrowed
his eyes, and said: “Good food is
made all the more delicious by the
arrival of a guest.”
• Hotel Salama (+212 28 800026
hotelsalama.com) has doubles from
around €25, breakfast €2. Chez Sabir,
41 Route Ammeln, +212 6 66 419968
Tahir Shah’s new novel, Timbuctoo, will
be published in June by Secretum Mundi
Publishing at £29.99
Pretty in pink … the town of Tafroute sits in a bowl between rocky outcrops
More on Morocco overleaf:
surfing near Agadir
and new holiday tips
≥4