Bin El Ouidane is the single best reason to stop in Afourar. It is 32 kilometres away, about forty-five minutes of climbing, and it ends at a body of blue water big enough to look implausible in a landscape this dry. Here is how to do the trip properly.

The road up

Leave Afourar on the N25 — signposted R304 on some maps and older signs; it is the same road — heading south-east. Within two kilometres you are climbing, and within five you have the first of the switchbacks that make this drive worth doing in daylight.

The first proper viewpoint comes quickly. Pull into one of the lay-bys three to five kilometres above the town and look back: the penstocks of the power station drop down the slope to your left, the town sits at the bottom of them, and beyond it the whole Tadla plain opens out in irrigated rectangles. In late afternoon this is the best photograph on the route.

Past that the road runs above the El Abid, passing the Aït Ouarda dam — the smaller structure that feeds the Afourar pumped-storage station — roughly nine kilometres from town. The surface is good and the route is paved throughout, but it is narrow, it has blind bends, and you will spend part of it behind a lorry. Budget an hour rather than the forty-five minutes the distance suggests.

Without a car, shared grand taxis run this route from Afourar and from Beni Mellal, frequently in the morning and thinning out through the afternoon. Confirm how you are getting back before you commit. More on grand taxis.

The dam

The dam itself is a 133-metre arch, built between 1949 and 1953 across the El Abid gorge, and it is a genuinely impressive piece of mid-century civil engineering — a thin concrete curve wedged between two limestone walls. The reservoir behind it holds roughly 1.5 billion cubic metres and irrigates about 69,500 hectares of the Tadla plain; the power house at its foot generates around 135 MW.

You can see it clearly from the road and from the village above. As with the Afourar station, treat it as infrastructure rather than a monument: it is an operating, guarded facility, and photographing military or security installations is unwise anywhere in Morocco. Nobody minds a picture of the view.

The lake and the water

The reservoir fills a basin of bare, folded limestone. In spring it is deep blue-green and reaches high up the shoreline; by the end of a dry summer it can be much lower, with a wide pale bathtub ring and the boat jetties stranded well above the water.

This is the one thing to check before planning a trip around the view. Look at recent photographs, not the marketing ones. After a run of poor rainfall years the lake has been well below full pool, and the difference between a good year and a bad one is dramatic.

Water quality is generally good for swimming, and Moroccan families swim here all summer. There are no lifeguards, the bottom shelves away quickly in places, and the water is colder than the air suggests.

What to actually do

Swim. Easiest from the hotel terraces and the beaches near the village.
Get on the water. Kayaks, pedalos, paddleboards and motorboat rides are rented near the main hotels in season; water-skiing and jet-skis operate in summer.
Fish. The lake is well known among Moroccan anglers for carp and pike-perch. Local rules and permits apply — ask at your hotel rather than guessing.
Walk the shoreline early or late, when the light is low and the limestone goes orange.
Drive on. The road continues to Azilal (another 24 km) and from there to the Ouzoud falls or the Aït Bougmez valley. Bin El Ouidane works well as the first stop of a longer loop.

Eating and sleeping

There is a line of hotels and guesthouses above the shore, from the five-star Widiane Resort & Spa down through the Hôtel Bin El Ouidane, Chems du Lac, Le Figuier du Lac and Les Jardins Yasmina to small family guesthouses. Most have restaurants open to non-residents, and some sell day access to their pool and terrace — worth asking about if you are not staying.

Simpler food is available in the village. Book ahead for spring weekends and for all of July and August, when the lake fills up with Moroccan holiday traffic. More on staying at the lake.

When to go — and when not to

April to early June is the sweet spot: the lake is high after the winter rains, the surrounding slopes still have green on them, and the air is warm without being punishing. September and October are also good — hot, dry, quiet.

July and August are very hot on the plain, which is precisely why Moroccan visitors come up to the water; it is busy, lively and significantly more expensive. Winter is cold and quiet, with snow on the higher Atlas behind the lake; beautiful, but not swimming weather.

Avoid driving the road after dark in any season.

A short checklist

Fill the tank in Afourar before you leave.
Take cash — small places, boat hire and parking are cash-only.
Check recent photographs of the water level.
Leave in the morning; the light is better and the taxis are running.
Allow an hour each way, not forty-five minutes.
Bring more water than you think you need, especially May to September.

More things to do around Afourar · How to reach Afourar in the first place