Midès
Midès is a mountain oasis on the border with Algeria, set above a canyon cut through banded sandstone. The old village stands on the rim, left empty after a flood took part of it, and the palms of the oasis grow along the floor of the gorge below.
- Time to allow
- A short visit
- Region
- The Oases and the Chotts
Visiting Midès
Midès is the third of the mountain oases, after Chebika and Tamerza, and it is the one with the canyon. The rock here is laid down in bands, pale and dark together, and the gorge has cut through all of them, so the walls read like a drawn section of the hills. The old village sits on the edge of it.
The village was left after flooding and the new one built back from the rim, which is why the houses on the edge are roofless. The oasis itself is still worked, and the palms and the water run along the bottom of the gorge. It is reached the same way as Chebika and Tamerza, on the loop west of Tozeur toward the border.
What to see
- The canyon and its banded rock
- The old village on the rim
- The palms along the floor of the gorge
Along the way in the Oases and the Chotts
Mountain oases, a salt lake that changes colour, and the sets where Tatooine was filmed.
Start with Midès.
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