Isli and Tislit ... A Moroccan legend of love

Deep in the Atlas Mountains, and near the famous village of Imlchil in the cross line between the Great Atlas and the Middle Atlas, in the geographical area of the National Park, there are two lakes, with a wonderful view, and a mythical story of love, which has withstood for centuries, and it tempts many visitors every year for the discovery of its story and the beauty of this region.

There are a lot of stories and legends about the lakes of Isli and Tislit, but the most commonly known, is the story of two young, a man and woman, who were from two different tribes, and which the love reunited their hearts, but their two tribes were in conflict, so they had refused to let them get married, the two young people cried a lot, and from their tears, two big lakes were formed, then they decided to get suicide by throwing themselves into the lakes, so the two lakes took their names from the man “Isli” and the woman “Tislit”, then, the two tribes felt the regret and had decided to honor their memory by organizing every year a collective festival of marriage between the men and the women of the tribes of the region, and this festival still take place until now.

But speaking of legend, the Science has another opinion, firstly, if we talk about the geographical characteristics, the diameter of the lake of Isli is 1500 meters, and its depth is 95 meters, while the diameter of Tislit is 850 meters and its depth is 27 meters, secondly, the Moroccan scientists believe that the two lakes had been formed because of the fall of two big meteorites 40,000 years ago, the evidence of this discovery is meteorite fragments in the bottoms of the two lakes.

Anyway, from centuries until now, the tribe of “Ait Hdido” celebrates every year the Legend of Isli and Tislit by organizing a festival of marriage, in the memory of the two lovers, it is held in September and it's called “the Festival of Imilchil”.