Morocco
Akchour Waterfalls
A rock arch twenty-five metres over the river, and the village crosses it daily.
The path in starts beside a small dam at the final roadhead; no car continues. Left of it the gorge closes over the Oued Farda and the water runs turquoise between limestone walls furred with moss; right of it, forty minutes of climbing brings you out beneath the arch. Either way the route crosses the river over and over, on makeshift bridges and on stones where it runs shallow enough to skip them.
Akchour is a village thirty kilometres from Chefchaouen at the heart of Talassemtane, a park since 2004 that holds 750 plant species in 103 families, 56 of them growing nowhere else, and more than forty mammals including the Barbary macaque. Take the left path from the dam and an hour brings you to the first falls, about twenty metres high, before the trail narrows towards Chellal Lakbir. The route crosses the river on bridges and stones, moving between limestone, moss, fig trees and oak forest. Carry every scrap back out and keep the water clear for the village and wildlife that depend on it.
Friends
Go left at the dam and keep going past the first falls, where most people stop for tea and turn round. The two hours above them are the interesting part, narrow underfoot and slippery in places, and what waits at the end is deep enough to swim properly.
Solo
Go right from the dam for the shorter climb to the arch, which serves as a footbridge as much as a sight. The path changes quickly from water level to a view through limestone.
Couple
The lower cascade is an hour in and has shaded ground beside it where the current runs gently, which is where a carried lunch belongs. Fig trees and oak forest line the way up, and the macaques appear when they feel like it.
- The Pont de Dieu is a natural arch twenty-five metres above the Oued Farda, and the people living on both banks use it every day.
- Chellal Lakbir, the big cascade, falls over seventy metres into a cold turquoise pool, and its flow is strongest in spring.
- At the foot of the falls the water pools into a series of ponds and one swimming hole several metres deep.
- Cars stop at the dam, so everything past it is walked, over makeshift bridges and stepping stones across the river.
Tea at the cafe under the first falls, an hour up from the dam, drunk before the two hours of climbing that follow it.
Past that the meal is whatever you carried, eaten in the shade at the lower cascade where the current slackens, because the stalls on this path are rare.
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