"the beautiful valley of Ait Bougoumez" Tabant by angiebabe

Ive been looking at the name Ait Bougoumez in my ageing Lonely Planet guidebook to Morocco's Top 10 list of beauty spots for 8 years...despite a lot of travelling around the sights and sites of Morocco including the must-sees and returning to most of the incredibly beautiful places that Ive fallen in love with or lived in.....

February this year 2011 I finally made it to the Ait Bougoumez valley - shocked to discover the signpost to Ait Bougoumez is just sitting there in the middle of Azilal, a town Ive been through a few times to visit Cascade D'ouzoud...without knowing that this yearned for place was almost just next door!

the Lonely Planet describes the landscapes and scenery as Himalaya-like - we would have to agree. Visiting in February the road we drove had awesome panoramic views of the majestic Atlas mountains with lots of snow on top. The road took us along winding deep and wide gorges - with mudbrick houses down the sides! We even picked up a few locals along the way dropping them off at the top of these deep valleys to watch them take their steps on down to their villages.

Then our trusty accommodation finder that we have on a number of times phoned to say we are in such and such place...do you know anywhere we can stay here....got back us to us with details of a gite further up the valley - watching the colours of sunset in the sky and getting the last landscape and spring flower photos as we went along we followed the directions that took us to the village of Tabant where we picked up Houssine from the family cafe...

• Pros:purely beautiful landscape all the way....does look like youre up in the Himalayas in places...spring is incredibly beautiful and June was even more stunning...fields ablaze with thousands of purple orchids and yellow flowers...really kind people!!
• Cons:a few rough roads - the road from Tabant to Chez Moha where we have now stayed twice is quite rugged...so not somewhere a tourist is going to haphazard find...people can be very reliant on their hands/subsistence living so can be pretty poor
• In a nutshell:take your camera and hiking boots and thermals....take kindness and clothes and school supplies to give away....