Exploring khettaras and palm groves on the way to Tinghir

There isn’t much to see in the southeastern Moroccan city of Tinghir, but it makes an ideal base from which to explore the eastern parts of the High Atlas mountains.

Located in the Drâa-Tafilalet valley, the city’s close to the spectacular Todra Gorge, where we planned to spend a day hiking.

We had a long drive ahead of us to reach Tinghir, so we stopped at a couple of interesting spots along the way to help break up the journey: the Jorf Khettaras and a palm grove by the Todra River.

After saying goodbye to the sand dunes of Erg Chebbi, we headed towards Erfoud, where we turned off in the direction of Tinghir (above) and the southern oases.

After a while, we spotted rows of lunar-like mounds atop the beautiful, arid ground (above).

Intrigued, we stopped at a small attraction by the side of the road to find out more.

The khettaras are an ingenious irrigation system that funnel water from the Atlas mountains to villages in the southern oases.

We started our visit by taking a look at a well atop one of the mounds to see how they collect water from the underground channels.

We then made our way down a flight of stairs to go inside the channel (above).

Situated deep underground, the extensive channel must have taken an age to make, as it had all been dug by hand.

We continued on our way towards Tinghir. Just outside the city, we stopped to take a look at a palm grove by the Todra River.

By now, I’d seen a few oases on our drives across Morocco, so I was curious to see them up close.

The oasis was much drier than I’d been expecting – some of the palms and plants looked in desperate need of water. They were nowhere near as lush and green as they looked from afar.

The palm grove was home to lots of little fields, where local people plant crops, such as cabbages. Small irrigation channels ran along the parched ground.

There were quite a few donkeys and other plants, too, including olive bushes, and we passed a few people picking the stone fruit as it was harvest time.

We had to really watch where we were going because the paths were extremely narrow and uneven.

Every so often, chunks of the path would be missing and we’d have to jump over the gaping hole where the path should have been.

As we left the palm grove, we passed a series of abandoned mudbrick houses (above), where a number of children were running around asking for money.

We drove the short distance to our hotel in Tinghir, where after our long journey, we spent the evening relaxing ahead of our hike the next day.

I enjoyed our random day travelling across southeastern Morocco and I was blown away by the Jorf Khettaras.

The impressive irrigation channels were a simple, clever, life-sustaining invention and a brilliant example of how ingenious people can be.

Our walk around the palm grove was also surprising, albeit for different reasons, as it hadn’t at all been what I was expecting.

But I enjoyed seeing the palm grove up close, even if it wasn’t quite the lush, green oasis I’d been picturing in my head.