Paradise Valley

We'd read about this place before we decided to come to Taghazout and luckily in the morning, after a little bit of calling around other hostels, Yasim from our hostel managed to sort out a tour for us.
We jumped in his car and quickly picked up a German couple to complete our group and headed off towards the mountains.
First, we stopped off for a look around an argan oil producer. The place is entirely staffed by women and acts as an opportunity for them to have some financial indepence while producing a speciality product of this part of Morocco. The argan tree has a little fruit like a cross between an olive and an almond which they use to make the oil. The oil is then used for food and making cosmetics.
Next we drove to the end of the valley and started a bit of a hike along the river, stopping at a little cafe shack to order our lunch for later.
Eventually, after climbing over some slippery rocks we arrived at paradise. It's a pool created by water running down from the mountains surrounded by palm trees in the middle of the dry landscape all around. We swam in the surprisingly cold water, sunbathed and watched braver people than us jump off the rocks.
The route is circular so to come back we had to climb around the side of the pool, which was pretty terrifying but we managed to swear our way through it. After stopping back at the cafe to eat our tagine and drink mint tea we got back in the car and drove around the mountain to a hot spring. It wasn't quite as beautiful as the paradise valley but it was interesting to see local people enyoing the hot water. As it was rather full we decided to enjoy it only from distance.
We had our dinner by the ocean in a romantic little local restaurant with an amazing view.Read more