The Falls with Monkeys

The water drops 110 metres in three tiers. The Barbary macaques watch from the olive trees.

Ouzoud Falls — Cascades d'Ouzoud — sit in the Middle Atlas, about 150 kilometres northeast of Marrakech. The name comes from the Amazigh word for "the act of grinding grain," because watermills once lined the river above the falls. A few of the mills are still there, their stones worn smooth.

The falls are the highest in North Africa and the most visited natural site in Morocco outside the Sahara. In spring, when the snowmelt feeds the Oued el-Abid river, the three cascades run at full force and the spray reaches the viewing platforms. A rainbow hangs in the mist most mornings. In late summer the flow thins to a trickle and the red rock face shows through.

The Barbary macaques are the other draw. A population lives in the cliffs and olive groves around the falls — one of the last wild populations of a species that once ranged across North Africa and is now endangered. They are habituated to tourists and will approach, which makes for good photographs and occasional theft.

At the base of the falls, a series of natural pools collect the water. Locals swim. Visitors wade. Small restaurants serve tagines on terraces overlooking the cascade. The walk down from the car park takes about twenty minutes on a staircase cut into the gorge. The walk back up takes longer.

The falls are not in any guidebook's top five for Morocco, and that is part of their appeal. They are not a monument. They are not a medina. They are water falling off a cliff in the mountains, with monkeys, and that is enough.