Into the Sahara

I keep saying that my next post will be about food, but once again I’m going to put that subject on the back burner (haha) and instead talk about our actual travels. We’ve been on the move!

Along with our new travel buddies, Karen and Myles from motoroaming.com, we left our beautiful view site at Ait Ben Haddou and headed out toward a campsite near Tinghir at the edge of the Todra Gorge. Morocco has several amazing gorges that are considered “must see”, but we planned to skip them because to be honest, we had our sights set on the Sahara. Or so we thought.

Once we were set up in our sites at our next destination, Camping du Soleil, with tagines ordered and happy hour underway, Karen offered up a new plan: drive through the gorge and into the mountains to the village of Tamtatouchte, have a coffee, then return and head out for our planned travel day. Though we all recognized this would add a couple of hours to an already long travel day, we agreed it was worth doing. Little did we know it would turn out to be a highlight of our travels in Morocco.

We drove slowly through the last half kilometer of the gorge, where the limestone walls, carved out by the Todra River, rise over 500 feet. Around mid-morning, travel through here gets crowded, but we started early and had the place to ourselves. The scenery was mostly spectacular as we made our way to Tamtatouchte, but a few public works sites were busy and dusty.

As we drove closer to the village, two young girls had spied us from their home and, with the speed of Usain Bolt, ran down the hill to reach us, waving and desperately wanting us to stop and give them something. We were not prepared to stop, as we had our candy put away, but also we did not want to encourage them to cross the highway to get to us. We decided we’d stop if we saw them on our return trip.

Once in the village, we parked up, us on one side of the road, Karen and Myles on the other. As we prepared to leave Bijou and walk to a café, we heard quite a commotion and went to see what was happening. Turns out Karen was handing out school supplies to a few children, and word spread through the village like wildfire and kids came from every direction. Karen managed them well, but finally had to tell them no more. We walked to the café and as we sat there we could see more kids arriving and just sitting right outside the door of Myles and Karen’s motorhome. We decided this was not the time to drag out candy.

We all got into our motorhomes, got turned around and headed out of town. Before long the two little girls once again came flying down the hill to greet us, so we stopped. The smallest of the two was crying so hard, she was too little to reach up to the window and she thought surely she would miss out. Steven made sure her sister shared the bounty. We stopped a few more times to hand out sweets. After giving candy to one little girl, her mother asked if we had clothes to spare. We had a bag full right next to my seat just for this purpose and we gave her a couple of shirts and a pair of leggings. She was so happy and we were too. We made our way back through the gorge, this time teeming with people, and onto the highway toward the Erg Chebbi.

What, you might be asking, is an Erg Chebbi? An Erg is basically a sea of sand dunes that cover at least 48 square miles of land and contains little vegetation, Chebbi is the name of the Erg (and also what I am going to name my next kitty, if I ever get another one.) If I asked you to describe the Sahara, you would probably describe an Erg, even though sand dunes are only a part of what makes up the Sahara. It’s quintessential Lawrence of Arabia stuff.

Morocco does not have a lot of Sahara in it, but they make the most of the Ergs within their borders by making sure one can have the full desert experience. There are camel rides, overnights at a Berber tent complete with drumbeating, dancing and chanting by firelight, and jeep rides through the dunes. We eschewed all that in favor of hiking out across the dunes by ourselves for the sunrise. Myles and I went once, saw the sun peak over the dune, turned around and immediately headed back to the rigs. Steven and Karen stayed out to take photos, then they did it again the next morning. Myles and I chose not to accompany them. Steven also did it solo on the third morning. Suffice it to say he now has a million photos of Erg Chebbi in all its glory.

I did not ride a camel. It wasn’t for lack of trying to talk myself into it, I did try, but every day came and went and I could not muster the enthusiasm to go and sign up for it. None of us could. In my defense, I’ve been on a camel before, so I don’t feel like I’m missing anything. Steven would have liked to have photos of me on a camel, but he’s happy with the shots he got of others taking the ride. The four of us did take a long ride on our E-bikes into Merzouga to have lunch, shop for veggies and buy some spices. Personally, I had more fun doing that than I would have riding a camel.

We spent three wonderful days at Erg Chebbi, but two things conspired to move us along. First, the electricity was unreliable and we were using up precious propane. Second, the once fast cellular connection slowed to a crawl, which is unusual for Morocco. We have found that in the desert or deep in a gorge, four bars of 4G is the norm. Moroccans love their Internet and we love their Internet too!

Karen found a lovely place by a lake for us to boondock, but once we got there, we realized both roads leading to the spot were more suited to Class B vans than our pudgy, low-slung camping cars. The place reminded us of Lone Rock in Utah and we would have loved to stay there, but we weren’t willing to risk damaging our rigs, so we reluctantly moved on to a nearby campsite. Considering it is out in the middle of nowhere, it turned out to be a nice stop with good electricity. We put together a yummy dinner of grilled filet (salmon for Karen), crunchy deep-fried potatoes, sautéed onions and bacon and a couple of salads. We haven’t been cooking much and it was nice to put together a meal using all those delicious veggies and meats we had purchased.

The following morning, with Bijou taking the lead, we headed out across the High Atlas, topping out at just over 7,000 feet. We saw a tiny bit of snow, but not as much as we expected. The roads were open and clear, although there was a good amount of roadworks, which meant traveling on dirt here and there. It was rough and dusty, but the scenery was stunning.

Our goal for the day was a wild camping spot in the Cedar Forest in the Middle Atlas mountains, where we hoped to see Barbary macaque, the only wild monkey found outside of Asia. Steven and I investigated one spot, which basically took us down a dry river bed which we thought we might not be able to get ourselves out of, but we finally managed. Karen noticed a little-used parking lot right at the edge of the forest and we headed there. As luck would have it, we could overnight there for free and the place was crawling with monkeys. Though they are wild, we sat outside for Happy Hour and they didn’t bother us at all, although Karen and Myles did have some damage done to their bike cover when a curious fellow decided it looked like a great thing to play on.

Needless to say, with a million photos of sand dunes and monkeys, Steven needed some photo processing time and I needed a break from driving. We headed toward Azrou and arrived at one of the most unique campgrounds in all of Morocco. It is Disneyesque, with its castles and turrets, apparently meant to be a tourist center. Sadly, though, other than about a third of the campground, it appears everything else is shut down and has been left to deteriorate.

So here we sit for a few days, recharging. Karen and Myles are on a bit of a tighter schedule, so we said our goodbyes this morning as they left to travel further north. We did not expect to have travel buddies during our time in Morocco, but we are so glad we did. Our experience has been richer because of it. The tagline on their website says “Seriously Entertaining Travels” and we can attest to the truth of that statement. Au revoir, chers amis! Until next time, safe and happy travels!

NEXT UP: Dare I say it? Food.

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