Everyone drives through the Ziz Valley on the way to Merzouga, and almost everyone treats it as a transfer with one photo stop. It is the most underrated landscape in Morocco.
What you are actually looking at
The Ziz rises in the High Atlas and runs south until the Sahara absorbs it. Along its course, over a hundred kilometres of date palms grow in a continuous green corridor, no more than a few hundred metres wide in places, with completely bare rock on either side.
Every one of those palms exists because of an irrigation system that has been maintained by hand for centuries: channels called seguias, and in places underground galleries called khettaras, distributing river water on a rota shared between families.
The viewpoint, and when to be there
There is a well-known pull-off on the road south of Errachidia where the valley opens beneath you and the palms run out of sight towards the desert. At midday it is a flat, washed-out view. In the first two hours of daylight or the last two before sunset, the rock turns red and the palms separate into layers.
It is the same viewpoint. The hour makes the photograph.
The gorge, the dam and the ksour
North of Errachidia the river has cut a gorge through red rock, and the road runs along the bottom of it. Above that is the Hassan Addakhil dam, which holds the water the entire valley depends on.
Scattered along the palm groves are ksour — fortified earthen villages, built collectively, with the grain store at the highest point. Several are still inhabited, and visiting one with someone who grew up in it is the difference between seeing a wall and understanding a system.
Come in date season if you can
October and November are the harvest. Ladders go up into the palms, the groves fill with people, and Erfoud holds its date festival. Dozens of varieties are sold by weight in the markets, from the prized majhoul down to small local types you will not find outside the region.
Ready to see it for yourself?
The Ziz Valley can be explored as part of an Errachidia departure or a longer desert route. Allow time for viewpoints and palm-grove walks alongside the journey.
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