Agadir & Ouarzazate

We spent a week in Morocco at the start of the year. Four days in Agadir on the coast, then three in Ouarzazate, a desert city at the foot of the Atlas Mountains that serves as the last stop before the Sahara.

Agadir is a beach city that was rebuilt after an earthquake in 1960. It doesn’t have the medina chaos that I’ve seen from Marrakech or Fez. More relaxed, more modern, and not quite as touristy as I had expected. We spent most mornings walking the seafront. One day we took a trip out to Paradise Valley, a series of natural rock pools about an hour north.

The food was consistently great. We had a different tagine almost every meal. Kefta with eggs was the regular in Agadir, but the best one was a lemon chicken tagine at a place near Ait-Ben-Haddou. We had no idea AFCON was coming up until a couple days before the match. The night of, we tried desperately to find a spot where we could watch the game, but after asking at least half a dozen places to no avail, we ended up watching Morocco vs Senegal from our hotel room instead. (Congrats to Senegal)

From Agadir we took a bus east toward the desert. Some of the views as we got close to Ouarzazate were incredible, the landscape just opens up into this vast, dry plateau. Ouarzazate sits on the edge of the Sahara and looks like it belongs in a film set, which makes sense because it literally is one. The highlight was Ait-Ben-Haddou, a fortified village that’s been standing since the 11th century. Narrow clay streets, crumbling towers, families still living in parts of it.

The pace in Ouarzazate is slower. Fewer tourists, smaller restaurants, quieter nights. The contrast between the coastal energy of Agadir and the quiet out here made it feel like two separate trips stitched together. Next time I visit Morocco I’d definitely head further into the Sahara.