SKOURA OASIS and its KASBAHS
Our Morocco trip was filled with unexpected gems.
As usual, we had prepared well, reading through a few guides and getting the Michelin map to determine which roads between our stops would be most scenic (and doable in winter). We had rented a car for the whole duration and booked three lodgings in advance (Casablanca, Fez & Ouarzazate) for three nights each, leaving a gap of four nights as well as the final night still to be determined, based on weather and whim. Worked out well.
But still, the unexpected treasures are always the ones that taste best.
In the historic royal cities (and in Volubilis) we approached people at the entrance of the site or at the ticket booth of a main museum to get in contact with an official guide. We got lucky with all of those.
Our stop in Ouarzazate (the most southern point of our trip) was the one that yielded most serendipity.
We had programmed that city in our itinerary for several reasons:
* to have a goal to cross the Atlas Mountains (over the wonderful N9 road and the Tizi N Tichka Pass)
* to get close to Ait Ben Haddou
* to not limit our trip to cities but also get the desert feeling
* to visit the Atlas Movie Studios (where Ridley Scott is a loyal customer but also many other biblical and other epics and war movies are filmed).
We checked most of those boxes on our trip towards Ouarzazate and on the first full day in town, leaving us with another full day to explore the region.
Skoura Oasis became our daytrip destination, and it turned out to be one of the undisputed highlights of the whole trip (although we had read precious little about it in advance).
Skoura Oasis is (guestimate) 25to 40 square kms of palm trees, olive trees and centuries old agriculture with ingenious irrigation, lodged between desert and mountains. Traditionally fertile ground, it was precious territory and thus well defended. The oasis hosts a multitude of Kasbahs, the traditional fortified houses of the region, built in pisé (which is like adobe: a mixture of red mud and straw, hammered to firmness) and then decorated with geometrical figures cut out from the dried walls. Wonderful, timeless architecture and design that we had already seen in the form of a Ksar (fortified village) in Ait Ben Haddou, but now in the oasis context.
Our entry gate to the oasis was Amridil Kasbah, one of the best preserved (and renovated at least once every ten years), where a friendly and humourous guide Ayoub showed us the secrets of building techniques, architectural features and practical design. Fun fact: the kasbah has not one but TWO "official" entrances, operated by two different companies/people, who each boast what their tour has to offer. I do believe we picked the best one.
Asking Ayoub after our 45 minute tour if it would be a good idea to meander our way by car through the rest of the oasis, he told us that this would of course be possible (although there is no map and the dirt roads are not always known to GPS), but we would probably never find the nicest spots and would have a hard time locating and entering the olive and date gardens, that are private etc. A local guide could offer us access and information.
So of course we hired another guide who was conveniently loitering around the Kasbah's entrance, sunny and funny Abdul, who rode shotgun in our car for the next three hours and was a cornucopia of not so much historical knowledge, but practical trivia about everyday oasis life, economics and society in past and present (including: how to avoid and bypass one of the many standard police controls on the main road by taking a vertiginous and dusty side road cutting through a shallow river and through some fields - Abdul did not have an official guide licence and badge and did not feel like explaining his presence in our car to the policemen; there is the best of Morocco for you...) We had the best of times with him.
This is one of the many dozen "not so touristy" kasbahs that Abdul showed us:
