The morning after we had waved Alex off at Marrakesh airport, we had the long drive back south to take us back onto our tour route around Morocco. We took a leisurely drive back over the Atlas Mountains, this time with photos and video already taken, we could just sit back and enjoy the spectacular ride. As always, we over ambitiously planned to get all the way to Zagora, but I had bizarrely in the desert warmth managed to catch a cold and Kev was also happy to take it easier. When we realised we were only 15 minutes drive from the nice site at Tazentout we’d stopped at before, we decided to pull in and rest up.
The next day, feeling much revived, we finally hit new territory as we took the turning to Zagora, driving under the shadow of the escarpment along the long Draa river valley, alongside palm trees until we passed through the town gates to Zagora itself. Many overlanders with perhaps less time to spend in the country, seem to head straight here, there are several garages who target these visitors, all headed to the wilds of Erg Chegaga. We were greeted by one on a motorbike at the petrol station on the way in, but managed to avoid visiting the garage.
We gratefully pulled into the lovely little campsite of Camping Palmeraie d’Amezrou, run by the very friendly Himi, always dressed in blue turban and matching trousers. He speaks several languages and greets all the visitors with a mint tea, a straw mat and low table provided at each pitch. We intended to stay only one night before pressing onto our next off-road adventure, but somehow it turned into 2 nights. We met an English couple who we’d been parked next to in Chefchaouen, a German couple still reeling from a Fech fech sand adventure, another German couple in a 50 year old Unimog and a Dutch guy planning to go overland. I think we provided about 5 tours around the truck to various interested parties. Good job all the travel necessitates keeping tidy.
We also had a lovely shopping trip to a couple of different fruit and veg barrows and a little local shop, which like the old days in the UK has everything behind the counter and you have to ask for all. We got a whole bag full of fruit, bread, sugar, eggs etc for about £3.50, but also had some really friendly encounters with some lovely locals.
We spotted one of the EcoRally cars parked up for lunch, they had just finished a stage nearby on their Dakar route, amazingly it was a Porsche. I could not imagine those crashing through the desert routes we’d been on. We had a lovely meal of yet more tagines at the campsite in the evening with some passable Moroccan wine.
The next morning we made sure we topped up / emptied all the appropriate tanks before we set off for our big adventure. Approximately 160km across the desert from Mhamid to Form Zguid via the dunes of Erg Chegaga which we planned to do over 3 days. First we had 90km of tarmac roads to get to Mhamid, through the narrow streets full of people and badly parked vehicles. Once we got into the open beyond the village and the tarmac ran out, we had to dodge the tourist camels and 4×4 guided tours until we eventually got out to the 1m high dunes around small trees that said we were finally on our way.
Kev was really enjoying getting the wheels onto dunes of proper soft sand for the first time and the truck handled the terrain brilliantly. However, after a few kilometres the dunes disappeared and we were crossing flat stony and often corrugated ground. An iconically shaped Acacia tree with their sharp spiky thorny growth lay just off the track, so we pulled alongside for some photos.
By late afternoon we were looking for a suitable park-up and found some flat ground under a rocky outcrop that seemed perfect, so set up camp. We were just settling down on the chairs outside when we heard voices, which seemed a little odd 35km into a desert. We looked round to see a young woman marching ahead with a man leading three camels following her. He explained in French that she was doing a 6 day solo trek across the Sahara and he and the camels was her support crew. He asked if we had any Coca-Cola, which ironically we never drink. The only bottle we had bought for Alex was all gone. We felt awful not to be able to help. However, he did not seem to disappointed and travelled a couple of hundred yards away where he also set up camp.
Kev took this camp proximity by a a native guide to be the ultimate endorsement of his camp finding skills and we settled in for the night. Kev built a fire, as only men can, apparently and we cracked walnuts and ate dates, the bread of the desert. A delicious food combination, it may catch on.
The next morning we set off towards the dunes, first crossing a sandy river bed and onto the stony section beyond where we saw three animals I first mistook for donkeys. They actually allowed us to get quite close and we realised they had antlers and later found out (after Googling the photo) they were three Addax (White Antelope). The Addax is ideally adapted to its arid habit of the Sahara, but its slow movements and unregulated hunting has left it critically endangered as a species. They have apparently been reintroduced to Morocco and we were lucky enough to see two separate family groups that day, which really did make us feel we were in Africa now.
After a day and a half of driving we saw buildings for the first time when we reached Oasis Sacre, a cluster of palm trees and even water showing in the well. The cob wall surrounding and buildings, now a bivouac camp, once part of the old trans-Sahara trade route to Timbuktu. Apparently it used to take 52 days to walk from Zagora where we started, though we missed that sign. We stopped for a coffee in the small cob walled café, which was beautifully decorated in colourful local fabrics, because you just have to admire the enterprise to run a business that far from anywhere. Although the coffee was awful 😂
We could tell we were approaching the large dunes of Erg Chigaga by the sand haze, this area which takes a 5 days return trip by camel to reach and has dunes which reach up to 300m in height. The almost fog-like conditions hid some of the majesty of the dunes. There were also lots of tourist Berber camps, we kept on driving to find somewhere quieter. We then, quite by chance, bumped into the German couple we met in Zagora in their 50 year old Unimog and ended up following them through the tracks up and down the smaller dunes. Kev was having so much fun driving over them in the truck we had almost left Erg Chigaga before we stopped to get a picture.
We had intended to only do 30km off-road a day and enjoy the journey, based on good advice from a veteran Overlander, but we carried on as we were enjoying ourselves. Although, the next section turned into a less enjoyable, very rocky and flat section which went on for quite a few kilometres until we reached Lake Iriki, a now entirely dry lake bed. At least the going was a lot quicker here though the flat landscape with only very distant hills was less suited to finding a camp.
When we left the lake we realised the route we had been following was taking us back toward Foum Zguid, the nearest village. We had hoped to see some impressive Arizona-like stone stacks and camp there, so we re-routed. Unfortunately to get there we had to cross several kilometres of rocky then sandy dry riverbed. We had by now done 70km that day and it was time to finally find a camp for the night. We found a bit of cover in amongst some trees entirely on our own and made camp.
The next morning we had only 5 miles to go to reach the stone stacks, though because of the alternate route we had come it was probably the roughest part of the trip so far, with rock crawling and various ruts and obstacles to navigate. Kev was loving it and the truck really did not falter.
Unfortunately the sand haze from the day before had continued and the stunning views we had seen on other people’s photos and videos were hidden from us. At the bottom of the stone stacks though there was another oasis, so after a climb in and out of a rocky dry river bed we parked up for breakfast.
We’d just had a coffee and we were contemplating whether we should make the effort to go to Foum Zguid or as it is Sunday just stay there the night and take it easy, when we heard a truck engine approaching. We looked out the window to see Charlotte and Stuart from Orkney Overlanders pulling up. We’d not seen them since before Christmas and it seemed so random to bump into them here. They’d been into Foum Zguid and were now heading back for more off-roading. They stopped for a cuppa and a chat which was nice. We realised they and the others they were travelling with, now taking a different routes, were all heading in the same general direction as us. So we agreed to see them again sometime soon.
They had though tipped us off that the water supply in Foum Zguid was salty and not potable even with filtering. This meant it was probably not worth the effort to go there and instead we headed toward Tissint for a hidden river valley park up we saw someone use online a couple of years ago and wanted to visit since.
The tarmac when we hit it seemed amazingly smooth and easy after three days off-road. Though we had not yet quite reach the stage where Kev got out to kiss it, like after 10days in Iceland! After passing through the very scruffy looking village of Tissint we made the steep descent to the riverbed, where we found another Overlander hidden in the palms further up the dry riverbed. We left them some space and headed up the other way for a beautiful quiet spot, a hot shower and a peaceful night.
In for a Penney 