La vallée de l'Ourika et une table berbère

The road south leaves the plain within twenty minutes and starts to climb beside the Ourika river. You stop where the argan and saffron cooperatives sit, then continue past villages built in pisé the same color as the hillside behind them.

Lunch is laid on a platform over the water at Setti Fatma: bread baked that morning, seven-vegetable couscous or lamb tagine with prunes, walnuts from the trees overhead. Afterwards there is the walk to the first of the seven waterfalls, half an hour up a rock path, or a slower hour in the village with a guide who grew up in it.

The valley runs ten degrees cooler than the city. It suits families, and it suits a first look at the mountains when there is only one day for them.