Telouet & the Ounila Valley

A closer look at the route

In August 1923 the painter Jacques Majorelle wrote from this valley that his brush had finally found its purpose. It is not hard to see why. The Ounila runs south from Telouet towards Aït Benhaddou through a landscape of red earth and green gardens, with kasbahs and villages built from the ground they stand on and changing colour hour by hour.

The walk begins at the Glaoui kasbah in Telouet, still hung with painted cedar and zellij behind its crumbling walls, then follows the old caravan route down the valley: an ancient salt mine still worked by hand, villages clinging to the hillsides, troglodyte dwellings cut into the cliffs and gardens irrigated the way they always have been. Four to five hours of walking a day, guesthouses every night, and a route that is as much about people and building as it is about landscape.