Aït Benhaddou’s ksar — the UNESCO-listed earthen fortified village — was never just a film set. For centuries it was a tax and transit point on the caravan road that linked the Saharan salt trade with the markets of Marrakech. Caravans carried salt, gold, slaves and ostrich feathers northward; cloth, copper and grain came south. The Ounila River valley was their corridor, and the villages along it — including Tamdaght — grew prosperous on the trade.
At the top of this road sat Telouet, the seat of the Glaoui clan. Thami El Glaoui used his control of the mountain passes to accumulate power that rivalled the sultan’s — his kasbah, built piecemeal across the 19th and early 20th centuries, is an extraordinary mix of Andalusian plasterwork, painted cedar, and pure megalomania. When Moroccan independence came in 1956, the Glaoui’s collaboration with France made them persona non grata overnight. Thami died the same year; the kasbah was abandoned and has been crumbling, magnificently, ever since.
The highway built during the French protectorate made this caravan road obsolete. Walking it now is, in its quiet way, an act of historical recovery.
