Skoura

Skoura is 40km from Ouarzazate and a four and a half hour drive south east from Marrakesh through the stunning scenery of the Atlas mountains. Due to the vast rocky desert landscape, Ouarzazate has become the centre of the Moroccan film industry with filming including Laurence of Arabia, The Living Daylights, The Mummy, Gladiator and more recently Game of Thrones. It is also a major producer of solar energy enabling Morocco to become a leader in renewable energy (the solar plant is of such strategic and technological importance that the security looks like a maximum risk prison, including apparently anti-misile defences).

Skoura became inhabited because it is the location of a major oasis lined with indigenous palm trees, subsequently introduced olive trees and other trees and plants grown for their crops. The Palmeraie is UNESCO protected and maintained by irrigation canals called khettara. Water is allocated and diverted to each plot for agreed time periods. This system, together with passing plots down through the generations, has operated for many years.