Boumalne Dades

Mon 5/2/24

After breakfast, we left Ait Benhaddou towards Boumalne Dades, located about 150 km away. We stopped along the way first at Skoura to take pictures of Kasbah Amridil, a museum showcasing the traditional life with entrance fee of MAD 40.

Kasbah Amridil

From Skoura, we stopped next at the Valley of the Roses or Kalaat M'Gouna. There was no roses blooming yet in February, but the town is lined up with shops selling rose water, rose soap, rose perfume, cosmetics and other rose products. 

shops selling rose products

roundabout with a rose monument

view of the valley of the roses 

Next we drove to Boumalne Dades where we made plenty of stops here to take photographs of the majestic view of the Dades Gorge and Dades Gorge pass, before checking in to our accommodation for today at Monkey Finger's house - named after the canyon that looks like 'monkey fingers'. It was a bit challenging to reach the house where we had to pass through some dirt road. We arrived at around 3pm.

view at Boumalne Dades

view of the valley at Boumalne Dades

Monkey Fingers canyon

Monkey Fingers canyon

Gorges du Dades pass

Our room was booked through booking.com which cost EUR 22.50 or RM118 per night with breakfast. The view of the canyon from the house balcony was really beautiful. After a refreshing a bit, we went out for a short 1 hour hike to the Dades river that flows through the gorge , not too far from our house.

our room at Monkey Fingers house

Monkey Fingers house terrace

Monkey Fingers canyon

Monkey Fingers canyon

trek at Monkey Fingers

trek at Monkey Fingers

Dades river flowing through the gorge

Monkey Fingers and river Dades

We enjoyed the view of sunset from the house balcony.

sunset view

sunset view from the terrace

For dinner tonight at 7.30pm, we had tagine chicken and couscous with fruits dessert for MAD 200 for 2 persons. The portion of the couscous was huge, we could not finish it. It was delicious and we were also hungry as we didn't have lunch yet.

chicken tagine 

couscous

salad, tagine and fruit dessert

Again, there is no heater in the room so we had to make do with layers of blankets to withstand the cold of the night. We did have hot shower though.

stars and clear sky

The next morning, we parked ourselves early in the freezing cold of the morning at the balcony (below 5C) to catch the sunrise, then we had breakfast set of the usual Morroccan style at 8am. We left the house at 10am towards our next destination at the Sahara desert in Merzouga, 257km away.

sunrise

our breakfast