The hippies who came to Morocco in the 1960s and '70s named this gorge Paradise Valley. The Amazigh families who live above it call it something else, but the tourist name stuck.
The valley is a narrow palm-lined gorge carved by the Tamraght River into the foothills of the Atlas, about 20 kilometres inland from Taghazout on the coast. The river pools into a series of natural swimming holes — clear, cold, green — surrounded by rocks smoothed by water and boulders shaded by palms and oleander.
The hippie trail brought European and American travellers through Morocco in the '60s and '70s, and some of them found this gorge and stayed for weeks. They swam, smoked, and named it with the confidence of people who believe they have discovered something that has existed for millennia. The name entered the guidebooks and stayed.
Today Paradise Valley is a popular day trip from Agadir and Taghazout. Local men operate as guides and charge a small fee to lead visitors down the path to the pools. Young Moroccans jump from the high rocks into the water. Families picnic on the boulders. Vendors sell drinks and snacks from coolers.
The pools are seasonal. In spring, fed by rain and snowmelt, they are deep and full. By late summer they shrink. The path down is steep and uneven. There are no guardrails, no changing rooms, no rescue equipment. The valley has not been developed and may never be, partly because the terrain makes development difficult and partly because the absence of development is the thing people come for.
The palms, the pools, the rock walls — the valley is beautiful in the way that water and stone are always beautiful when left to negotiate with each other. The hippies were right about that, at least.
The Facts
- —The valley is a narrow palm-lined gorge carved by the Tamraght River into the foothills of the Atlas, about 20 kilometres inland
Sources
- Lonely Planet; Rough Guide Morocco; Taghazout tourism guides
