Gorgeous Gorges

From Merzouga it was expected to be about a three hour drive to our next destination of Todra Gorge. We drove through some fairly desolate country on the way, with the black stony ground looking a bit like the area had just been cleared by a grass fire - except that I think it would be a very long time since any grass had actually grown there.

A whole lot of not much.

 There was an occasional odd sight such as a man standing on the side of the road talking on his phone in the middle of a flat barren nowhere. Or a young boy with  hoe trying to even out a gravel patch in the road when seemingly miles from any habitation - do they have very young road repair crews in Morocco? From time to time you see ornate stone gateways flanking the road - perhaps marking provincial boundaries?

By the time we reached Tinghir, which as far as we could tell was the nearest town to our lodgings, we were ready for some sort of lunch but there didn't seem to be much on offer as we drove through. After we had taken the turnoff for Todra Gorge we eventually spotted a little general store with some fruit out the front. Therein we were able to find some suitable fruit, snacks and yoghurt which we consumed while parked under a shady tree.

The drive onward to Todra Gorge started to feel a bit like a never-ending story - a long winding drive mostly uphill through continuous populated areas. There were a few lookouts but we bypassed them all as we figured we could catch them on the way back to Tinghir tomorrow. Eventually we arrived at our lodgings, the Dar Ayour Guest House. We checked into our room overlooking the Todra River and the high rocky cliff behind and rested for an hour or so the for the heat of the day to pass.

There was also another matter to attend to. The word "Service" had come up on the console of the hire car during today's drive. My feeling was that this was probably just a warning that the car's 95K service was due, as there were no other warning lights and there appeared to be no problems with the car's operation. However as I am not familiar with Peugeots I thought it best to check with Hertz. Unfortunately there was no service on my Orange Mobile (for 5kms according to the receptionist) but the hotel allowed me to ring using their phone. I eventually got through to a helpline who confirmed with one of their mechanics that there was no problem continuing to use the car.

The narrow gap in the Todra Gorge.

It turned out that Todra Gorge itself was only a 10 minute walk from Dar Ayour so we figured we could do our exploration on foot. Sure enough it didn't take us long to get there. The road continues alongside the river right through the gorge, which narrows to about 15 metres at one point, with the walls of the gorge rising straight up 150 metres on either side. The road side was lined with sellers of various crafts and in places we could see rock climbers in action in what is apparently a popular spot for this activity. (In fact we passed a shop hiring rock climbing gear on our walk up).

Colourful stalls line the gorge narrows.

After walking through the narrow part of the gorge and reaching the point where it opened out as the road continued on to Tamtetoucht, we started up the track on the left that is the start of a three-day hike to Dades Gorge. Not that we had any plans of going that far of course, but we felt we should at least get some exercise after spending most of the day driving. We clambered up for about 20 minutes getting a different view of the gorge walls and the massive boulders in the now dry creek bed.

Rock climbers ahoy.

Once we had completed our little trek we retraced our steps towards our lodgings. The receptionist there had earlier said that a 20 minute walk in the opposite direction to the gorge would get us to a point where we could walk through a palm grove, so we figured we'd try and do that. We bought an ice cream each to refresh ourselves as we started out and this seemed to attract the attention of a group of young boys who seemed to think that they deserved some sort of treat too. One actually managed to snatch the ice cream wrapper and finished ice cream stick out of my hand but on finding no ice cream just threw it on the ground in disgust as the other boys laughed at him. As for the walk itself, after walking 30 minutes downhill towards Tinghir we'd seen no sign of any entry to the palm groves so we abandoned the search and just returned to the guest house.

Our accommodation included dinner so at the appointed time of 7:30pm we presented ourselves in the dining room for the meal of salad, tagine and fresh fruit. The fruit included delicious watermelon, the first time we have had it in Morocco. We are tempted to believe that the non-seedless variety is tastier than the seedless varieties we now get in Australia.

That oasis look around Tinghir.

The next morning we needed to make a reasonably early start since we wanted to get to Ait Ben Haddou in time to see sunset over the ancient Ksar, and yet still have time to detour to Dades Gorge along the way. After the included breakfast and packing up it came time to settle our account. They had indicated at check-in that they accepted Mastercard but it turned out that this involved one of the staff walking me a couple of hundred metres down the hill and then down under one building and back along a narrow lane to an old man's lounge room. He had an EFTPOS machine plugged in next to his TV and this is what I had to use to pay the bill. Weird setup. The man's son came in after I had paid and offered to take me upstairs to see women weaving carpet, obviously in hope of a sale, but I declined.

So off we drove back down the hill to Tinghir, stopping at a few lookouts along the way to see the view over the green oasis like valley.

Looking back down Dades Gorge.

From Tinghir, it was a right hand turn onward to Bourmaine, about 90 minutes further west. From there it was a short detour north until we reached the switchback climb up the Dades Gorge. The climb wasn't as long as I expected but the view from the top was pretty spectacular. The road surface was quite new which made the drive a bit easier.

On the way back to Bourmaine we stopped to see the rock formations in the Tamliat Valley. They look like blobs of smooth melted  wax layered on each other up the side of the valley.

Tamliat Valley rock formations.

Then it was time to top up the fuel tank in Bourmaine and make tracks for Ait Ben Haddou. Since it was now after 12:30pm we figured we'd get lunch on the way out of town but I swear that the outskirts of town stretched for at least 15kms and we didn't see anywhere that might offer a decent lunch until we spotted a diner attached to a service station on what was finally near the edge of town. Oh well, better late then never. And at least some of the desirable items on the diner's extensive menu were actually available. We set out for Ait Ben Haddou well satisfied.