climb-tafraoute.com

The famous Todra Gorge has long been one of Morocco's great tourist destinations, and bus-loads of visitors pass through the gorge every day to marvel at the sheer limestone walls, spot climbers high on the faces, and be pestered by insistent stall-holders who will stop at nothing to sell some kind of tat, mostly unrelated to the gorge itself.

Their journey, of course, is not wasted, as there is no denying that Todra is a very impressive place. The thousand-foot limestone walls are at places only a road-width apart, and in such a seemingly arid place it's certainly a curiosity how such a canyon was ever formed. Such a gorge in Western Europe or the US would almost certainly have been exploited as a major tourist attraction, with an informative and educational slant, paved trails, and a gift shop (They'd probably also advertise the fact they have free-parking, a cafe, children's play area and toilets as well.)

In Morocco, however, we are left to guess why such a massive ravine exists here, and likewise we are left to fend for ourselves against the stall-holders...

So what of the climbing? Todra has been an international name in sport-climbing for a long time now, and for many years has lay claim to the title of Morocco's biggest, most important, and most popular climbing destination. Up-coming regions such as Taghia and Tafraoute will probably challenge that thinking, but in the meantime it's probably still fair to say that, in terms of visitor numbers, Todra is the country's main climbing centre. People have come here from all over the world: big names from France, Spain, the UK, and the US have put up some of North-Africa's hardest sport-climbs here.And for the rest of us there's an exotic paradise of big multi-pitch bolted walls that are hard to resist.