Cascades d'Ouzoud

Ouzoud means "olives" in the local Amazigh dialect, and the name is exact: the falls drop roughly 110 metres in tiers through terraced olive groves before crashing into the Oued el-Abid gorge below, and on a clear afternoon the spray regularly throws a rainbow across the lower pools. They are the tallest and most celebrated waterfalls in North Africa, and — after the desert — the single most popular day trip out of Marrakech, for good reason: paths wind down through the groves to viewpoints and swimming pools, small boats ferry visitors close to the base of the falls, and troops of wild Barbary macaques move through the trees along the upper trail.

The macaques here are genuinely wild and increasingly used to visitors, which means the responsible approach matters more, not less: watch from a sensible distance, never feed them, and keep food secured, since habituated macaques will take it directly from bags. Most visitors come for a single afternoon, and that is enough to see the falls properly — but staying a night lets you catch the trails at dawn, before the day-trip buses from Marrakech arrive.