taroudant: Out and about

Tioute is about 20 minutes drive from Taroudant. It is coupled with it in the standard day trip from Agadir which allows you a non stop tour round Taroudant Souk and then on to Tioute for lunch in the Kasbah. They will tell you that your vehicle cannot get to the top, which may be true for full-size coaches - certainly turning round would be difficult, but cars and mini-buses can get up no problem. You will be disembarked and then with great jocularity be made to ride up the steep direct route on a donkey; your photo will be taken and sold to you after your "traditional banquet" of moroccan salad, chicken tajine with preserved lemons and olives, and vegetable cous-cous, perhaps with brochettes. I am not sure what happens to the tour parties then whether they are merely allowed a view from the top and to admire the rather splendid but modern tiling or whether they are given a chance to see round the oasis. I suspect the former.

Tioute is a very pleasant self driven trip though. The oasis is still run by the Caid whose family built the Kasbah and although that is now part restored to house the restaurant he lives in a very nice modern house in the village. As you arrive rhere will be some villager waiting to act as a fauxguide pedalling before you to a suitable parking place. He will take you round the palmery showing you the datepalms, beans, carob and fruit trees and the various vegetable and cereal patches depending on the time of year. There will be children with donkeys should you need one. There is the most wonderful pink jasmine near the restaurant/teahouse which is not aimed at tourists but village festivals and weddings. In the spring the boys will be swimming in the water cisterns but by autumn these will have depleted irrigating the crops
Your guide will explain that the oasis has 11 mosques in the various settlements, necessary in the past so the the muezzin could be heard in all the fields, perhaps tending to obsolete in the days of loudspeakers. He will tell you of Tioute's starring role in Ali Baba, a french film made there in the 1950s, and he will suggest you should eat not in the Kasbah but have a genuine better , cheaper meal in a local house, doubtless his own. There is an artisan shop in the village and a stonecarvers, so you can buy a souveninr of your visit and then go on to eat in the Kasbah, with its immaculate european toilets and wonderful views and your guide will go with you and give you bouganvillea. A trip you should do at least once.
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