After wandering the souks solo I teamed up with another 3 hitchers and we made our way out to the Cascades d’Ouzoud.
What looked on the map to be a main road was in fact just a rather wide dirt track that took a vaguely straight line in the rough direction of the Cascades.
The journey took around 3 hours and, despite the dirt track riddled with pot holes and our driver pretending we were in some sort of car chase escaping imaginary police, we made it all in one piece. He left us in the hot dirt by the cliff edge and as he sped off into the distance leaving a trail of orange dust we began to wonder if this was a good idea after all.
As we made our way down the cliff, crawling through small corridors carved straight from the rock face, we had ample opportunity to haggle with artisans for anything from silver tea pots and tea cups to hand-crafted shisha pipes, jewellery and camel-hair prayer rugs. But be warned, despite the splendor of this idyllic scene it is worth remaining vigilant against the local monkey population who have a penchant for hats, expensive cameras and ladies sunglasses. You will no doubt find, upon losing any of these items, that your insurance company probably doesn’t cover you for ‘theft by monkey’.
This network of caves does house something quite magical, hotel Riad Cascades d’Ouzoud carved straight from the cliff, a very unique way to spend the evening and night- with shisha, home-cooked chicken tagine with ksra (Moroccan flatbread) and sweet mint tea. Just don’t agree to anyone buying you for camels…or camels and ‘a large part of Nigeria’, while this is predominantly a national joke, some offers might be serious!
The Adventures of Elle Coco 