A Sojourn in the South by Amar Grover

"Chameleon my friend, chameleon!" said the stall-holder and he really meant it. This was no term of abuse. Clinging to his palm with hook-like feet was one of these bizarre little lizards, its eyes rotating independently. Here in Taroudannt, some traders use them to induce custom and I've seen many a tour group practically fall over themselves to stroke the things.

I hadn't come to Taroudannt to stroke chameleons. Situated in the Souss Valley between the High Atlas and Anti-Atlas mountains, this is one of southern Morocco's largest and most laid back towns. Around 6km of crenellated walls and arched gateways enclose a tight jumble of streets and cafe-lined squares. The souk - bazaar - is smaller than Marrakesh's but prices are almost always keener and the merchants just that little bit friendlier.

We'd hired bicycles to circle its striking ramparts and bastions, and wandered in to the kasbah where 16th-century sultans built a palace complex now partly occupied by a swish hotel. Lured into a folk chemist, I ducked beneath lizard claws and snake skins, dodged the birds' feet and goat horns. For my libido I was offered 'Spanish Fly' (dead beetles to be crushed and administered orally with honey) while there was another little something for the girlfriend so together we'd combust. Call us old-fashioned but we settled for saffron and henna.

Taroudannt is also something of a travellers' crossroads - west to the Atlantic coast, north to Marrakesh, east to the Dades Valley. Another less-frequented route heads south across the Anti-Atlas range into the sub-Sahara and loops back towards the coast. Ten or fifteen years ago, some stretches saw sporadic attacks by Polisario guerillas fighting for an independent Western Sahara; now it's quiet, safe and open to tourists without special permits.

We left early morning for Tata, a large oasis where summer temperatures can reach 50C. The sealed road wends across the stark Anti-Atlas and startling scenery appears after Igherm while descending the Akka Valley. Bare hills and mountains are grooved with swirling lines of erosion while an almost endless ribbon of palms meanders from one village to the next. Tata is merely an administrative town and apart from the actual journey here, its lush oasis is the real draw.

Here in the sub-Sahara, Tata already feels different. Faces are darker, the people more negroid for many are 'Haratins' or descendents of slaves brought from Sudan in the last century. 60km along the once-risky loop road lies the even larger oasis of Akka. Several villages are strung out along the course of a usally-dry riverbed and the majority of its inhabitants are Haratins.

Akka proved one of the strangest - even spookiest - places I've visited in Morocco. The locals were neither friendly nor unfriendly; they stood staring from doorways or muttering to themselves in gloomy lanes, and their aloofness was unusual. High mud walls separated streets and paths from fields so it was hard to get a sense of the terrain until emerging by irrigation ponds known locally as Les Cascades. We saw one old woman climbing a date palm barefoot, knife between her teeth, and she laughed demonically at our clear astonishment.

Skirting the foot of the Anti-Atlas, we continued southwest towards Foum El Hisn, a lonely and rather basic outpost. Stony desert plains stretch away to the closed Algerian frontier just 50km away. 'Foum' means gorge or river mouth and the mountain slopes are riddled with gorges and canyons. This region is also known for prehistoric rock carvings though you'll need a local guide to find them and a healthy cynicism to judge the real from the fake.

Perhaps the most rewarding halt down here is Amtoudi, sometimes known as Id-Aissa. Though awkward without your own transport, it's worth making an effort to reach this village hidden away in a stunning canyon. If you like walking, scenery alone would probably justify the trip but most visitors come to see Amtoudi's agadir or fortress granary. These ancient granaries were built by Berber villagers to store their grain, oil and even valuables. In times of siege they also became desperate bolt holes though, with limited water, conditions deteriorated rapidly.

Perched on a bluff high above flat-roofed houses, Amtoudi's is one of the best preserved though you'll need to find the guardian and his keys to get inside. Further along the canyon stands a second ruined agadir on a more dramatic shaft of rock. Even without scrambling up the hillside for a closer look, the long tranquil oasis of palms, fig and almond trees is delightful and well worth exploring.

A couple of checkposts briefly delayed our progress to the road junction at Bouizakarn. The police were charmers, enquiring after our health, families and impressions of 'la belle Maroc'. But they scratched their heads at our next destination and with a view to hastening our farewell I said we'd go to Goulimine instead. If there was a medal for tourist fakery, Goulimine would probably win gold. Here, supposedly, are the famous nomadic 'Blue Men' of the desert and camel auctions. Having seen tour groups going crazy over chameleons, I had no wish to see them falling over skinny camels or crafty Moroccans donning blue robes for a few hours.

In reality we were off to Fort Bou-Jerif, an outlandish spot midway between Goulimine and the Atlantic. An eccentric French couple tried to buy the ruins of a Foreign Legion fort and convert it to a hotel. For various reasons this didn't work so instead they built their inn near the fort. Many guests are overlanders en route to Mauritania and, ultimately, South Africa. Since their rooms were full we stayed in a huge woollen tent with fat cushions, rugs and an oil lamp.

Over tasty camel tagine in a plate glass dining room, Guy related the saga of getting it up and running. He gestured towards the ruins and suggested we look out for Omar who "plays with snakes". The fort is still impresssive, especially when viewed from nearby hills, and Omar proved a strange but entertaining enigma. He'd occupied an out-house and had a pile of books in one corner, a box of snakes in the other. With German-Moroccan parentage his mind seemed in both worlds. Snakes, it appeared, were his life whether larking around with tourists, performing rituals in village homes or selling them on to the chaps from Marrakesh.

The French couple run 4WD trips to Plage Blanche, an enormous nearby beach, but we made our way to Sidi Ifni. This odd little cliff-side town and surrounding territory were controlled by Spain until 1969 when the Moroccans forced them out. Its appeal lies not so much with the beach but unexpected art deco buildings and an air of gentle melancholy.

Built by the Spanish in the '30s as a garrison town, much of it has had a fresh lick of paint. A few hours ambling is quite enough for, amongst others, the lighthouse, town hall, a rotting (and abandoned) Spanish consulate and the law courts. Later that evening in Hotel Suerte Loca (Crazy Luck) with glasses of beer and Madagascan music on the stereo, we mulled over the last week. As the Grateful Dead once sang, "What a long strange trip its been..."