The Ounila Valley linking Telouet and Ait Ben Haddou was the heartland of the Glaoui clan, a local tribe used by the French to pacify the south of Morocco and who came to be hugely powerful as a consequence. Madani and T’hami El Glaoui were both born in Telouet and enough remains of the vast kasbah complex they built there to give you an idea of the scale of their ambition and egos. A dirt road leads south along the Ounila Valley past endless crumbling kasbahs and fortified villages; seeing their ruin today it’s hard to imagine that this is where half of Morocco was effectively ruled from. You emerge from the picturesque valley past the Kasbah of Tamdhakht, a nice appetizer before the main course of Kasbah Ait Ben Haddou.