What is the Dades & Todra gorges route?

These two gorges are the dramatic exclamation marks on the Road of a Thousand Kasbahs, and I never let a southern itinerary skip them. They sit close together east of Ouarzazate — Dades first, then Tinghir and Todra — and although they're often lumped together, they have quite distinct personalities.

The Dades gorge climbs north from Boumalne Dades through a valley of fingered rock formations the locals call "monkey fingers", past the strange eroded shapes before reaching the famous tight switchbacks — a road that coils back on itself in a series of hairpins that has become one of the most photographed views in Morocco. I love staying a night in the gorge itself; the small auberges along the river are simple, peaceful, and wake you to total silence and birdsong.

The Todra gorge, near Tinghir, is the more famous of the pair and for good reason — a colossal slot canyon where sheer pink-and-grey walls rise some 300 metres on either side and squeeze the road and river into a gap barely wide enough for both. Walking through it with the cliffs towering overhead is genuinely awe-inspiring, and it's a magnet for rock climbers. Go early or late; midday it's busy and the light is flat.

Logistically you can drive the whole loop — up the Dades, back down, across to Todra — in a long day from a base in either gorge, but I prefer an overnight so you experience both at the quiet golden hours. From Todra it's a natural onward push to Merzouga and the Erg Chebbi dunes, which is exactly how most of our desert journeys are routed.