Oum Lâalag sacred oasis
Fifty kilometers southwest of M’Hamid El Guizlane and 90 kilometers from Zagora, the Oum Lâalag Sacred Oasis appears like a mirage. It lies on the ancient road to Timbuktu, just a few kilometers from the Algerian border.
The sacred Oum Lâalag Oasis covers 15 hectares and is sacred because it possesses the desert’s most precious resource: water, which arrives here thanks to a spring. The Oasis takes its name from an old popular belief that the spring was inhabited by a protective soul. For a very long time, passing nomads, confident of this protection, left their luggage here without apprehension.
Oum Lâalag is home to a bivouac which, in keeping with its commitment to the development of substainable tourism, applies strict rules that respect the environment. It is part of an enhancement and protection project currently being carried out by the association “Les Amis de l’Oasis Sacrée” (Friends of the Sacred Oasis). Isolated oases are under threat from the recession of nomadic activity, which no longer contributes to their use and upkeep, not to mention the critical climatic conditions.
This stopover at the Sacred Oasis bivouac, a place frequented by many travellers and a few nomads still active in the region, encourages us to respect these rules. Many tourists stay here during the season, which is ideal for tours and camel treks, before heading off to the high dunes of Erg Chegaga or Chigaga, twelve kilometers away.
The Sacred Oasis of Oum Lâalag is part of the 123,000-hectare Iriqui National Park, created in 1994. The Oasis is protected over an area of around 15 hectares, and is made up of different areas reserved for agriculture, and a nature reserve for flora and fauna.
The initiative also aims to reintegrate the many species that disappeared but were still very numerous some thirty years ago, such as gazelles (Dorca gazelle), ostriches, bighorn sheep, oryx, hyena and houbar bustard.
Ainsi pour la promotion de l’écotourisme du grand sud du Maroc, et notamment des régions sahariennes et pré-sahariennes, une prise de conscience de tous s’avère nécessaire pour réussir les objectifs en cours.
