Having come to the Valley of Roses through the “back door,” so to speak, across the desert, it now fell upon us to travel down the length of the valley to rejoin the highway at Kelaat M’gouna, the capital of the region. We passed a number of villages in the valley and a number of kasbahs as well. I find I cannot tell the occupied from the unoccupied ones, partly perhaps because many of them are both. Here is one of the more picturesque groupings.

After we reached the highway, we traveled through flat desert country, but the snow-covered High Atlas mountains could be seen in the distance.

The approach to Skoura is unmistakable. Desert vegetation gives way to palm trees.

This is “the oasis of a thousand palms,” a UNESCO-protected site, where carefully tended palm oases string out for fifteen miles along a river not far east of Ouarzazate. And because Skoura was once a major destination for caravans coming out of lower Africa and the Sahara, Skoura is punctuated with fortified kasbahs. Most famous among these is the seventeenth-century Kasbah Amridil.

The left-hand portion of this once-great kasbah has been turned into a hotel.

The rest is a museum. For better or worse, we did not hire a guide. So we wandered peacefully at our own pace through the kasbah’s maze of rooms but almost certainly did not learn what we might have about the history and culture of the site.

The entry courtyard

Also in the courtyard

Looking up from the courtyard

A resident of the kasbah

“Ginger, what’s taking you so long?”
“Just a minute, Dan; I just want to take one more picture.”

Impressive ceilings

Storage jars, tiny windows

The view from the top floor

“Ginger, are you coming, or not?”

As the day waned, we crossed a provincial (or departmental?) border–demarcated along the road by towers symbolic of welcome, or protection, or perhaps both–and entered Ouarzazate.