Ksar of Kenadsa

Kenadsa grew around a zawiya, a Sufi lodge founded in the seventeenth century that became a centre of teaching and pilgrimage in the western Sahara, and the ksar that formed around it is built of mud brick and palm timber with lanes so narrow and so often roofed over that walking through it is a passage between light and shade. The zawiya, its mosque and the tombs of the shaykhs sit at the centre. Coal was mined nearby in the twentieth century and a company town was built beside the old one, so the two sit side by side. Much of the ksar is now empty and eroding, and its condition is part of what visitors see.

Highlights

• Roofed mud-brick lanes - passages alternating light and darkness.
• The zawiya and its mosque - the Sufi lodge the town grew around.
• Palm timber and mud construction - the building method of the Saoura ksour.
• The abandoned mining town - the twentieth-century settlement beside the old.

When to go

November to March; summer heat here is severe. Half a day from Bechar. A local guide is worth having, both for access and for the history.

Good to know

Large parts of the ksar are collapsing and unsafe to enter. Many houses are abandoned. There are no facilities and no interpretation. The border region requires travellers to carry identification.

Nearby

Bechar is east; Taghit lies south.