3 Days in Ghardaïa

Ghardaïa's ksar was founded in 1048 or 1053 on a conical hill in the middle of the wadi, and it grew into a rich trading town on the caravan routes across the Sahara. It's built like a pyramid: houses in tight rings, the Great Mosque at the top, its minaret, a long truncated pyramid, dominating the whole valley. The minaret doubled as a watchtower, and the mosque also stored grain and weapons for a siege. The houses are small, sit shoulder to shoulder and are plastered in sand, clay and gypsum, in white, pink and ocher. They are turned to catch the sun in every room, and chimneys are placed so they don't bother the neighbors.

Walk up through the lanes, which are narrow so they stay in shade. The mosque is a place of worship, so admire it from outside. Ghardaïa was unusual in the valley: it housed Arab Maliki families and a Jewish community that nearly vanished in the years after independence, next to the Ibadi Mozabites. By Ibadi custom, ground that has held the dead is consecrated forever, so the cemeteries around the town are the only land that growth has never touched. The town's history is long and layered.

At the foot of the hill is the market square, built around 1884 outside the walls when the old market inside the ksar, the Rahba, got too small. It's a rectangle of about 3,400 square meters framed by arcades, and it is the best place to see the valley's economy at work: dates, spices, wool, copper, textiles and rugs.

Go in the morning and walk the full rectangle once before you buy anything. Look at what people wear: baggy saroual loubia trousers and the chéchia, a small cap, are the traditional Mozabite dress.

Lunch near the square means couscous, Algeria's national dish: steamed semolina under a stew of lamb or chicken with vegetables and chickpeas. If you're not sure about a place, pick the one with a line of locals at noon.

Melika is a smaller copy of Ghardaïa, and the only ksar of the five that never grew beyond its hill. For a long time it was the holy city of the M'zab, until Beni Isguen took that reputation in the 19th century. Its market, unlike the others, sits next to the great mosque in the middle of the town. Its palm grove has vanished under the modern town.

It holds the tomb of Sheikh Sidi Aïssa and his family, with iduden, white-plastered mud fingers pointing at the sky. Come for the view, which is the best in the valley for both Ghardaïa and Bounoura. The ocher houses climb the steep hill like steps. Melika is a good place to be as the sun sinks.

End the day the local way: a glass of mint tea, strong green tea with fresh mint and plenty of sugar, with a handful of dates. Dates are the valley's money crop. In the south, tea is a ritual rather than a drink, and the host serves three glasses.

Take the glass when it is offered, sip rather than blow on it, and don't be in a hurry. A café beside the square is enough.

Beni Isguen (At Izjen, "the sons of those who hold the faith") was founded in 1051 by Ibadi refugees from Tahert. It's the only one of the five built on the flank of a rocky hill rather than in the wadi, and it took over from Melika in the 19th century as the valley's holy city. It guarded the Ibadi doctrine, and its private libraries still hold old manuscripts, though access is regulated.

This is the one place in the valley where independent wandering isn't an option. A local guide leads the walk, and the guide office is near the east gate. Smoking is forbidden in the streets, cafés and shops, for residents and visitors alike. Women shouldn't wear short clothes, and everyone should dress modestly. Photographs need the guide's permission, and people shouldn't be photographed at all. The restored walls run more than 1,500 m. The houses have two doors, one for the family and one for guests, and small outer windows so you can see out without being seen in. Foreigners generally can't spend the night inside the walls.

The walk usually ends high up at the Boulila watchtower, the highest point of Beni Isguen. From the top you see the concentric plan of the town, the minaret and the walls, with the palm grove and the valley beyond. It's the clearest view of how an Ibadi town is organized: everything circles the mosque.

Try a dish that belongs to this valley: tiftitine, a short pasta about as thick as a pencil, cooked in a sweet-and-salty sauce with dried apricots, dates and lamb. It probably isn't on every menu, so ask your guide or the hotel who makes it, and book ahead.

Beni Isguen's market, the Lalla Achou, runs every day except Friday, and the auction is a sight. Goods are called out by a crier and sold to the highest bidder, with the trade overseen by the Azzaba, the town's council. It's loud and quick, nothing like a souk where you bargain.

Watch from the edge. Mozabite women are not allowed to cross the square, and photography is off limits unless your guide says otherwise. The auction starts just after the afternoon prayer (Asr), so be on the square by mid-afternoon and see the palm grove and Tafilelt afterwards.

The palms are the reason the towns exist, and the water is the reason the palms exist. The M'zab gets little rain, and it arrives as flash floods. The Mozabites built a system to catch that water and share it: low dams hold back the flood in the wadi, underground channels carry it to the gardens, and calibrated openings split it among the plots. A dam in the Ntissa wadi at Beni Isguen softens the flood and sends the rest into the main wadi. Wells also reach 110-150 m down into an ancient aquifer.

Ibadi custom treats wasted water as a sin. Families used to move to summer houses in the grove, and dead palms' wood still goes into house roofs. The groves are now squeezed by new building, and in October 2008 the worst flood in 50 years killed dozens of people and wrecked hundreds of houses. Ask your guide to take you into the grove.

Tafilelt is the valley's answer to modern housing. A foundation led by Ahmed Nouh bought 22 hectares in 1997, the first houses were handed out in 2000, and the town opened in 2004. It follows the old ksar way: narrow shaded lanes, stone, plaster and lime instead of concrete, ocher and white houses. About half of its wastewater is recycled for the gardens.

By 2013 it had about 6,000 people in around a thousand houses, and it won a sustainable-city award at COP 22 in 2016. It's a living neighborhood, not a museum.

El Atteuf (Tajnint, "the bend") was founded in 1012 and is the oldest of the five. It sits on a hill at a bend in the wadi, at the downstream end of the valley, a little apart from the others. It probably began as a federation of earlier villages.

Its signature is the pair of mosques inside the walls, each with its own pyramid-shaped minaret. A gate at the top of the town leads to a large cemetery with tombs marked by iduden. The market square is northeast of the ksar, ringed with arcades, and in 1996 it hosted the celebration of the valley's thousandth anniversary.

The mausoleum of Sheikh Sidi Ami Brahim dates from the 15th century. Its interior is a set of rough, unequal arches opening to the air, and the tomb has a four-fingered iduden beside it. The French Wikipedia article on El Atteuf credits the building with inspiring Le Corbusier's chapel of Notre-Dame-du-Haut at Ronchamp, finished in 1955, and the Routard guide hedges it as would have inspired.

Treat that as a claim, not a fact. It's repeated widely, but no letter or sketch naming this building is cited. What is better supported is that he visited the valley in the early 1930s (sources say 1931 or 1933). UNESCO says the valley's architecture is a source of inspiration for today's town planners, and that part is safe to say. Judge the resemblance yourself: white plaster, thick walls and light through small openings.

Lunch is a good moment for the grilled meat that every Algerian town serves: mechoui, lamb roasted over coals, or merguez sausages in bread. Chakhchoukha, torn flatbread in a spicy stew, is an eastern dish, not a Mozabite one, but you'll find it on menus.

Bounoura (At Bunur, "the luminous") was founded in 1048 and destroyed around 1250 after a conflict, and its people fled to Melika. A new ksar was built in the 13th century by the wadi. That is why the mosque stands low, close to the riverbed, the opposite of the other four, where the mosque crowns the hill.

Walk the lower town, then look up at the ruins of the first ksar on the hill, whose mosque and walls have been restored. Cemeteries ring the town.

Back in Ghardaïa, spend an hour on what the valley sells best. The typical rug is made of wool and goat hair on a fine frame, in geometric patterns dominated by red, black and ocher. A carpet fair is held each spring, and the town also marks a national day of rugs in March.

Ask where and by whom a rug was made, and compare two or three shops before you decide. Smaller pieces fit in a suitcase. Keep the receipt: you can get a prison sentence for smuggling antiquities in Algeria, so buy new pieces and keep proof.

Finish with chorba, the tomato-based lamb soup with vermicelli and herbs, followed by couscous and, if the kitchen has it, takemarit, the thin goat-milk cheese of the M'zab, with honey. After three days of walls and rules, sit down and eat slowly.