Mud brick, irrigation channels, and heat that arrives early
Red rock, palm ground and walled villages: reserve a five night descent of the Ziz gorges
Five nights on the southern side, from $1,340 per person, two sharing a double room. This is the lower half of the line that begins on the cedar plateau, and it is sold on its own as well as within the line. October to April is the sensible window; from June the gorge floor is very hot by ten in the morning and stays that way.
Reserve this with the officeNothing is charged here. The form stays open at any hour and a person writes back inside one working day.
Red rock and a river going south
The Ziz starts up in the mountains and spends the next hundred miles working south towards the desert, and for a long stretch it does that inside a cut of red and orange rock with walls a few hundred feet high. On the floor of the cut runs a continuous belt of date palms, fed by channels that have been kept up by hand for centuries. Above the palms, on ledges out of reach of the flood, sit villages built of the same earth as the cliff, so from a distance you often cannot pick them out at all. Midelt at the top is a plain mining and market town at the foot of the high mountains. The change from cedar cold to palm heat happens across one day of driving.
Village walls, palm ground, dust
Days here split into early and late, because the middle of the day is not worth spending outside for much of the year. Mornings go down into the palm ground: flat walking between the channels, a couple of miles, into one or two of the villages where somebody will explain how the water is shared, which is the real subject of this valley. The middle hours are for a room, a roof or a shaded terrace. Late afternoon there is a climb onto the rock above a village for the long view down the cut, about half an hour on loose ground. Two of the five days take in a longer drive further south, to where the gorge opens out and the palms end.
A full day on the descent
The move mark here is 3: a full day. Coming off the cedar plateau you cross the high pass country, drop past Midelt, and keep going down the length of the valley, and the whole thing eats a day whichever way you cut it. It is not hard travel and much of it is worth looking at, but it is still a day, and the first night at the bottom is deliberately a short one. The operating company drives it with stops. If you reserve this segment on its own instead of the whole line, you join at the agreed point near Midelt and the five nights start from there.
Money: what the figure covers
From $1,340 per person, two sharing a double room. Held inside: five nights of rooms, breakfast each day, the descent drive and the ground moves through the five days, village and site entries, and a local guide on the days in the palm ground. Held outside: your travel into the country, lunches and dinners, drinks, tips, and anything you buy on your own account. Nothing at all is charged by this office. You are billed by the company operating the trip, under its own name, and it pays us a commission after you have gone. No card details reach us. Both segments together come to $2,520 for ten nights, which is $1,180 plus $1,340 exactly, with nothing taken off and nothing added.
| Nights | 5 |
|---|---|
| From | $1,340 per person, two sharing |
| Move into it | a full day |
| Part of | Middle Atlas descent |
| Taken alone | Yes. Nothing obliges you to take the rest of the line. |
| Inside the figure | Rooms, the ground arrangements named on this page, and the local operating company's own charges. |
| Outside the figure | Getting to the country, meals not named above, anything personal, and anything you add later. |
Asked before people commit
Is this a desert trip?
Not quite. The valley runs towards the desert and the last day reaches the point where the palms give out, but the five nights are spent in gorge country, which is rock and irrigated ground rather than open sand. If dunes are what you are after, this segment will disappoint you, and we would rather say that now than have you work it out on day four.
How hot does it actually get?
In June, July and August the gorge floor is regularly above 100F by late morning and stays warm long after dark, which is why we point people at October to April. Even in the better months a hot spell can arrive. We do not control that and will not pretend a schedule absorbs it; what the operator does is start the walking earlier and lengthen the middle break.
Can you put together a private car and driver for me?
No. We reserve this segment as the operating company sells it. We do not assemble private hires, we arrange nothing by air and nothing by sea, and we hold a contract with no carrier. If you want something other than what is described here, ask, and we will say plainly whether it exists on the operator's list. Where it does not, the answer is simply no.
Segment 2 of 2 on Middle Atlas descent
You can take this segment on its own and leave the rest of the line alone. Nothing here obliges you to walk the whole thing, and the figure for one piece is the figure for one piece.
Reserve one segment, or a whole line
This form is open at any hour, and whatever reaches it is read by a person who answers inside one working day. Nothing you send commits you, and no figure is charged at this end at any point.