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Tafraoute – Moving On

Leaving Tafraoute, follow the “new road” out past Agard Oudad, turning left around 3km south of the village. This road climbs over the hills, with superb panoramas back across Tafraoute and the Ameln Valley, to reach TLETA TAZRITE (15km from Tafraoute), which has a souk on Friday – not Tuesday as its name implies.

From here, a new surfaced road leads south to the massive palmery at Ait Mansour, and will eventually continue all the way to Akka. Heading east from Tleta, the road is also surfaced, but quite broken up. Following it past the modern village of TARHAT (Taghaout) you enter a canyon, which the piste follows for the next 46km, and just a little beyond here, high on your left, are the twelfth century remains of ancient Tarhat, a fortified village and agadir perched on the lip of a sheer rock wall. A footpath leads up to it from the modern village.

Ait Mansour

At TIZERKINE, a lovely oasis snaking along the canyon, all semblance of paved road comes to an end. A passable piste continues (be sure to take the right fork) to the village of TEMGUILCHT, dominated by the very large and impressive Zaouia Sidi Abmed ou Mohammed (no entrance to non-Muslims), where there is a moussem in honor of the saint every August. The road continues past Tiouada and on to SOUK EL HADD ISSI (Souk el Had Arfallah Ihrir), with a Sunday souk; then past a fine agadir (5km); and finally north to meet the road from Ait Mansour.

Four kilometers west of Souk el Hadd Issi, a rougher piste heads southwards, and continues all the way to Ait Herbil. Off this piste are a number of ancient rock carvings, though they are not easy to find and a guide would be advisable. The first and least difficult group of carvings to find are some 700m east of the piste, about 6.4km south of the junction. They feature long horned cattle, and also elephants, which lived in this part of Africa when the carvings were made.

From Ait Bounouh, a piste climbs over the hills to bring you out on the “new road” from Tiznit to Tafraoute near Izerbi. At Izerbi, pistes also continue south towards Amtoudi and the Bou lzakarn- Tata road.