200km of palm oasis from the High Atlas to the Sahara — the ancient caravan route between Ouarzazate and M'Hamid, kasbahs on every ridge, and the end of the road before the dunes
The Draa Valley runs 200km south from Ouarzazate (the 'gateway to the Sahara', 200km south of Marrakech over the Tichka Pass) to M'Hamid el Ghizlane, the last town before the Moroccan-Algerian erg dunes. The Draa is the longest river in Morocco (1,100km from the High Atlas source to the Atlantic mouth near Tan-Tan) but is seasonal — below the Mansour Eddahbi reservoir at Ouarzazate, the river flows only in wet years, and the valley floor is a mosaic of palmeries (palm oasis gardens, the cultivated date palm landscapes of the Saharan oasis tradition) and dry gravel sebkha alternating with the…
The Draa Valley was historically the main trans-Saharan caravan route between sub-Saharan Africa (the Mali and Songhai empires of the Niger bend) and the Moroccan Atlantic coast — gold, salt, slaves, and ostrich feathers moving north in exchange for Mediterranean goods and horses moving south. The Saadian dynasty (the ruling house of Morocco 1549-1659) was based in Marrakech but drew its power from control of the Draa-Tafilalt trade axis and from its conquest of the Songhai Empire in 1591 (the Battle of Tondibi, where a Moroccan army of 4,000 with firearms crossed the Sahara and defeated a So…