Morocco

Drâa valley (May 9th, day 12)

After my morning visit to Aït Benhaddou we headed south towards Zagoura. This was still just day 2 of our car trip.

Tizi n'Tinififft

The road from Ouarzazate (the city near Aït Benhaddou which we'd visit on our way back) to Zagora first leads across the Tizi n'Tinififft pass. This was indicated on our map but was otherwise not mentioned in the LP, which in fact states that the most scenic part of the route to Zagora was the 2nd part. As it turned out, the Tizi n'Tinififft pass was a fantastic ride that offered many different fabulous views - I thought it was even better than the Tizi n'Tichka pass across the Atlas mountains the day before.

Before the pass we'd picked up a Malinese berber whose car had broken down and who wanted a ride to the next village - which turned out to be 60km further beyond the pass.

Though our passenger was patient and we did stop several times to watch the landscape, I was still annoyed because I wanted to stop and pause even more. These were the best landscapes we'd see during this trip and I hated rushing through them.

We dropped our passenger in the village of Agdz beyond the pass. Though we were very short on time he insisted on offering us tea "in his family home" which would take "just 5 minutes". We gave in because Lotte was curious to see it, but we were just brought to the family shop and after 15' still had no tea and left.

Drâa valley

Beyond Agdz the road goes through the Drâa valley all the way to Zagora. Though very nice the landscape was extremely monotonous, with both sides of the valley flanked by the same rock walls all the way.

Kasbah Said Arabi

There are 4 big kasbahs along the road between Agdz and Zagora. We sought them out and decided on the spot whether we felt like visiting them or not. E.g. we didn't visit the kasbah of Timiderte in the first picture above.

At the Kasbah Said Arabi in the village Ouled Atman we did get out to visit and were immediately assaulted by locals - like we were at most stops. One looked angry because I didn't want to pay him to "look after the car".

Another guy followed us into the kasbah and would have followed us around (as a "guide") if I hadn't told the warden that I wanted my money back if we couldn't visit without a guide. While visiting I was constantly worried that those guys would do something to the car.

The warden was actually living in the mostly ruined kasbah with his family - he'd even installed a big satellite dish on it, funny sight.

Some more views along the way to Zagora...

Zagora (May 9th-10th, days 12-13)

Zagora lies some 50km from the Algerian border and is a major holliday destination for Moroccans, so it's full of hotels. We arrived around 18:00, checked into a hotel with a swimming pool and enjoyed our first swim this trip as the sun was setting.

Jebel Zagora

I'd enjoyed my morning excursion into Aït Benhaddou so the next morning I woke up early again (6am) to climb Jebel Zagora, the little mountain at the edge of the city. We'd picked a hotel right at its foot so I could climb up from the back of the hotel.

The climb was shorter than expected, it only took me 35'. Since I was climbing on the shadow side I didn't even break a sweat. On top of the mountain there's a military installation - mostly antennas.

The view on the Drâa valley all around was very nice.

Back in the hotel we took another swim - how nice to be able to do that after a climb - and then went on our way again around noon. We were in no hurry because we thought we were only going to drive a short distance that day.

Zagora to Merzouga (May 10th, day 13)

From Zagora we drove back up the Drâa valley some 50km and then turned east. The little map in the LP showed a smaller road to Merzouga there that runs along the south of the Jebel Sarhro mountains, whereas the main road runs north of it. I'd figured it was a dirt road until I read that some shared taxis drive there irregularly, so I concluded it must be paved and thus got the idea to take this route to go east and return west over the main road - much nicer than taking the same road twice.

As it turned out this little road, which had very little traffic on it (sometimes we'd drive tens of kilometers without seeing any other car in either direction), was in perfect condition, and since there are few villages here it's actually a faster route than the main road. The first part of the road still looked exactly like the Drâa valley.

After a while the landscape got more varied and showed beautiful rock formations.

We were planning to end that day's ride after about 1/3 of the way to Merzouga, in the oasis village N'kob where, and I quote the LP, "no less than 45 mud-brick castles will make you stop and stare". Well we stopped and we stared everywhere but all we saw were a bunch of featureless one-level buildings that we felt to lazy to explore. Not the only time I wasn't very impressed with the Morocco edition of the Lonely Planet.

After having lunch in N'kob we decided to push on to Merzouga, where we'd intended to go the day after, on this same day. So while we'd been taking it easy before we were now suddenly in a hurry.

Around 16:15 we still made a stop in the oasis town of Alnif, which lies near a very rich finding place of fossils, mostly of trilobites of 400-250 million years old. They were selling them everywhere but we went to an LP-recommended shop run by a geology graduate.

You could buy clear fossils for 20-30 euro here, but while I think fossils are very cool to look at I wouldn't have any use for one. Later I read about small trilobite fossils made into necklaces, that I would have loved to have (a 300 million year old creature hanging around your neck = très cool) but I didn't spot it anywhere.

From Alnif we continued eastwards towards Rissani through more beautiful landscapes.

We arrived in Rissani around 17:45 and then headed south towards the desert dunes, but that's all the subject of the next part.