03 The Atlantic Maghreb Morocco
The Anti-Atlas Line
Nine days from Taroudant to the Atlantic at Sidi Ifni, through the pink granite of the Ameln valley — no Marrakech, no desert camp, no camel at sunset.
- Duration
- 9 days
- Party
- 4 to 8
- Season
- Mid October to April, never in Ramadan
- From, per person
- £12,400
The route
- Agadir
- Taroudant
- Tafraoute
- Aït Mansour gorge
- Guelmim
- Sidi Ifni
Every Morocco enquiry we get mentions Marrakech, Fes or a night in the dunes at Merzouga, and every one of them gets the same reply from Rafael: those are fine trips, and other people run them well. This one does not go near them. It starts at Agadir, which nobody visits on purpose, and turns inland immediately.
The valley
The Ameln is a valley of twenty-six villages under a granite ridge that turns pink at five in the afternoon, and in February the almond trees flower along its whole length. Hicham Boukhriss grew up in Oumesnat, one of those villages, and walked tourists between them for a decade before he walked ours. The walking is not hard — three to four hours a day, on mule paths — but it goes through people’s fields, and you will be offered tea more often than you can accept it.
Why it is the shortest journey
Nine days is the right length for the Anti-Atlas, and it is also the one journey we run that fits a working person’s single week off plus two weekends. That was deliberate. It is the cheapest journey in the catalogue, too, and not because it is lesser: rooms here cost a third of what a Faroese guesthouse does, and we pass that straight on.
The market in Guelmim
The Saturday camel market is a real market, where herders from the Western Sahara buy and sell animals by the hundred, and it is not always comfortable to watch. We go early, we stay an hour, and we do not photograph people who have not agreed to it. If that sounds like a morning you would rather skip, Hicham will take you to the hammam instead.
Day by day
The shape of it
Days 1–2
Taroudant
Straight out of Agadir airport and inland. A riad inside the ramparts, and the Thursday souk if the dates fall right.
Days 3–5
Tafraoute
Three nights in the Ameln valley. Walks between almond villages with Hicham, whose family has lived in Oumesnat for nine generations.
Day 6
Aït Mansour gorge
A palm gorge south of Tafraoute, on foot for most of the day, lunch at a house that does not have a sign.
Day 7
Guelmim
The Saturday camel market, which is a working market and not a show. One night, then out.
Days 8–9
Sidi Ifni
The old Spanish town on the Atlantic, art deco and salt-bleached. Legzira beach at low tide, then home via Agadir.
What the price covers
Included
What £12,400 buys
- Eight nights: one riad, one guesthouse in the Ameln, one hotel in Guelmim, one in Sidi Ifni
- Hicham for all nine days, and a driver in a Land Cruiser with the air-con fixed
- Every meal, including the long lunches, which are the best meals
- Walking guide fees in the valley, paid to the village association
- Airport transfers at both ends, whatever time your flight lands
Not included
And, pointedly, what it doesn't
- Flights to Agadir
- Marrakech. It is four hours away and it is a different journey.
- A night in a desert camp. The Anti-Atlas is not the Sahara and we will not pretend.
- Camel rides, anywhere, for any length of time
- Alcohol outside Taroudant and Sidi Ifni, where it is quietly available