The valley of the Draa river or the green that springs up before the Sahara desert
Berber legend tells that, hundreds of years ago, during a summer night, a bedouin caravan was crossing the mountains Ouazarzate , heading to the markets of Marrakech. In the convoy, between carts and dromedaries, was a princess from distant Timbuktu , whose ebony skin and deep smile aroused care among the caravaneers. The Atlas Tribes ruthless bandits attacked the caravan in the depths of the night, taking with them the ebony princess, hiding it deep in a cave . The next day, the woman was gone, and in her place, from the roots of the mountain, a river of incontestable force had sprouted that made its way through the desert in search of the distant city of Timbuktu.
the draa river , the ebony woman of which the legend speaks, never reached her destination. Its waters end in the Atlantic Ocean, completing a journey of more than a thousand kilometers, and crowning itself as the longest river in Morocco.
The Draa Valley or the green of the desert in Morocco
The door to the desert opens when the waters of the Draa River hide under the desert sands , dying in a sea of dunes whose horizon is the most accurate description of the word “unreachable”. before disappearing south of Zagora, the Draa It excavates a deep valley that concentrates all kinds of life on its banks. Like a picturesque miniature of the Nile , hundreds of channels start from the river in search of its water, irrigating palm trees, apricot trees, pomegranates and cereal. The emerald green of the crops that grow along the Draa River is achieved thanks to the conjunction of the African sun and the Moroccan expertise in creating irrigated fields where water is gold. Everyone I know gardens, ditches and fields of Andalusia knows what I'm talking about.
Zagora is the gate of the desert
Over the fields, perched on the banks of the river or on soft hills of red earth , adobe constructions of great proportions watch over us. They resemble a kind of citadel, whose houses and towers are crowded around an ocher wall, very close together and tight, with few windows and doors always closed. They are called kasbah , mother word of our “ kasbah ”. However, do not expect to find great fortresses along the Draa river like those of Malaga or Almeria: at the gates of the desert, the warlords were poor and sober.
Such a landscape of contrasts between aridity and fertile valley, cultivation and wasteland, surrounds the road that connects Ouazarzate with Zagora. Halfway there is the Ksar Ait Ben Haddou, “the fortified castle of Benhaddou ”, inside which four adobe kasbahs are crowded. Before the current situation, this ksar was the main attraction of the Draa Valley, because among its narrow alleys film classics such as Gladiator Y Lawrence of Arabia . Despite the crowds, it is well worth a visit, as there are few well-preserved ksars along the route, with its adobe walls and patios for cattle, always surrounded by the emerald green of the crops.
Ksar of Ait-Ben-Haddou, Ouarzazate, Morocco
Away from the masses lies the Ksar Tissergate , which can only be accessed by traveling to the city of Zagora, the gateway to the desert. In this set of kasbahs inhabits a dozen berber families who operate one of the kasbahs as accommodation, and participate in the date harvests that make the region famous.
Berbers are the largest population in the valley , but as one is surrounded by the desert, wandering herds of dromedaries led by tall Bedouins wrapped in blue cloth begin to be seen. The sun begins to bite, and the road dwarfs , kissing sand and asphalt. At the height of Tamgroute village , the Draa River hides between brown and lifeless mountains, a foretaste of the desert that awaits us on the other side. A port with a Martian landscape where not a soul lives or breathes allows us to see, from the heights, the immensity of the Sahara; and when we reach the foot of the mountain, appears in the dust the very poor village of M'Hamid where the road ends. A huge sign marks the remaining kilometers to Timbuktu ; two days by car using sandy tracks that go into in Tuareg and Islamist territory : a dangerous itinerary reserved for the most intrepid.
Tamegroute, Morocco
the nearby Chegaga dunes they allow the traveler to taste the aroma of the desert without being involved in unpleasant adventures. The desert has its own rules , and they are not the ones we have known in the valley. While under the palm groves of the Draa Valley, walking among the Tagounite souks , people laugh, dance and sing, in the desert nobody talks, as if every drop of saliva were valuable. The distant smell of couscous and tagine , omnipresent in the cuisine of southern Morocco, call us to more kind lands. Smells to almonds and cinnamon, to honey and lamb, to bonfire and burning mud: parched palates coming out of the desert always found a place to revive in the Draa Valley.
Chegaga Dunes
The song of the muezzins sounds loud in Zagora, reverberated by the nearby mountains. The market is filled with farmers, ranchers, peddlers and people of various kinds and fortune undaunted by the golden dawn that dazzles the city .** One of the most beautiful sunrises in the world** can be seen from the nearby knoll that watches over the city, called Jebel-Zagora , reachable in an hour from the suburbs of Zagora.
From the top, the rays of the star hitting our planet awaken waves of light over the desert, confusing purple with red, and the indigo of the sky with the green of the palm trees. A herd of camels set out for the desert, following ancient routes like the first humans, in a scene repeated for millennia. They, like the ebony princess who wanted to escape along the Draa, also seek the contours of distant Timbuktu.