We started our hike south of Tafraoute, where a track leads in the direction of the Napoleon’s Hat, a rock formation at the village of Agard-Oudad.
After the abandoned fields of the village, we turned right to walk through the fascinating granite landscape, formed by erosions. We felt like being back in Namibia. Sadly we didn’t spot any gazelles, only Barbary ground squirrels, which are stripped squirrels we had noticed already a couple of times.
We made our way through the rocks until we reached a wider valley, which we followed. After we had rounded the rocks, we noticed the first painted rocks.
The ‘Blue Stones’ were painted in 1984 by Belgian artist Jean Vérame. As it is one of the tourist attractions around Tafraoute, the stones are getting regularly repainted.
After exploring the area of the painted rocks, we hiked through a different valley to get back to the starting point. For birders: we identified Thekla’s Lark during our hike and also at the campsite.
Few almonds are blooming, many might be already dead because of the drought. Once the area around Tafraoute was famous for its agriculture, including wheat and barley, almonds, olives, argan and figs. Now the fields are abandoned, and most of the trees appear dead. Tourism seems to be the only business now.
We will spend a last night at the big camper area of Tafraoute before we will drive south again.