King off the mountains

We have been criss crossing the High Atlas mountains for the last few days.  What an experience!  Every time I think it can't get better than this, the scenery manages to surprise us with something even more spectacular.  

Entrance to Todra Gorge

Fertile plains, barren mountains

There are two valleys running from south high up into the Atlas mountains, where they meet at a small village called Agoudal.  They are the Todra gorge and the Dades gorge.  The roads up the Todra gorge is all tarred and has a pass going up to 2700m, while the road down the Todra gorge is half tarred and half gravel.  We thought we'd go all the way up the Todra, and then see if we can take the gravel road down the Dades.  Going up the Todra was fantastic.  It started as a very narrow valley with high cliffs overhanging the road, nearly felt like a cave, and then as you made your way up the valley it spread out until it was miles and miles wide.  Again we did pass after pass, with huge flat plains between the passes.  All along the river it was phenomenally green, with small fields being cultivated by man and animal power.  The villages where built along the mountain edges where the soil was less fertile.  It was fantastic to climb like this and see how the world changes as you get higher and higher.  At the 2700m point it was amazing to look down on these huge mountains and plains.  We reached Agoudal at about 16:00 and wasn't sure wether we should tackle the gravel road so late.  We weren't sure how long it was, or what condition it was in.  

Pass up to 2700m

Bliss

The road was marked on my map but not on the gps.  Luckily we then saw a mini bus coming along the gravel road, and so we though if a mini bus can do it, we can on the bikes and so we pressed on. The gravel road ended up being a small tricky track with loads of sand, rocks and potholes (only in Africa will a mini bus drive on such a road).  After about 5km we stopped and nearly turned around, but in the end we decided to carry on.  We had enough food, water and fuel to last until the next day and were more than happy to camp out in the wild.  This little road turned out to be the best decisioned of the day.  We climbed two passes with the highest taking us up to 2940m, what a phenomenal view.  There was no one in sight except for a couple goat herders, no villages, just open mountain ranges as far as you could see.  Stunning, stunning, stunning.  From the 2900m point it was one long pass down to 2000m.  It started off snaking along the mountain ridges and then ran into dozens and dozens off tight hairpin turns all the way to the next village.  This was still all small gravel roads, hard for the bikes (We actually passed a single small truck going down this pass. How?).  Was so much fun.  The bikes loved it as much as we did, and handled perfectly.  This was the first big punishing ride.  It wasn't until 8pm that we reached our accommodation.  We where shattered, nearly 12 hours in the saddle but so worth every minute.  We climbed just more than 2400m from our lowest to our highest point.

Road up to 2900m.  It starts between the mountains at the back of the picture

On top off the world.  Those are mountains far below

Breakfast

Yesterday the plan was to take a tarred road from a town called Skoura, into the mountains, to Demnate and then head west towards Marrakech.  This road is about 130km long and we thought it would be much the same as the day before.  Whatever, so wrong and quite pleasantly surprised.  The last 100km off the road was one mountain pass after the other. Up the one mountain and then down the other side, and then straight up the next.  No huge open plains in between,  just one small valley, squeezed in-between the mountains, after another.  The perfect tarred road was nothing more than a semi tarred single road,  with potholes and sand and rocks and hundreds off hairpin bends.  Some off these hairpins where exceptionally tricky, very steep up or down, with edges fallen away, and rocks or potholes or soft sand. Or all of the above.  Sometimes with only a small strip of tar.  Trying to dance the big heavy bikes on this strip of tar was such hard work, but SO MUCH FUN.  

It was amazing to see how the villages adapted to grow their crops.  Every small semi level area was teracced to allow crops to grow, with the villages spread out against these steep mountains.  The houses more on top off each other than next to each other.  I was stunned to see where the people managed to build houses and where they managed to grow crops.  Again photos can't even come close to show how beautiful and mind blowing it was, but we tried.  

Desolation

Village and crops against the mountain

The quick 130km road engulfed most off the day so we stayed the night in Demnate.  This morning we drove through to Marrakesh.  Back into the chaos off the big city.  And we hit it with a bang.  I tried my best to have the replacement windscreen here for pick up this morning.  Even had an email confirming it should have been here on Wednesday already.  I had the address and phone number off the UPS agent (Not DHL), as given by the UPS web site.  Couldn't be more prepared, I thought.  When we arrived at said address it didn't exist, and the phone number was the wrong one.  I ended up phoning UPS head office in Casablanca, they promised it was in Marakesh, next phone call they said it was in Casablanca and then next one they said it was in Marrakesh.   Even the managers at UPS where giving me different stories. I then finally got the new number for the UPS guy in Marrakesh, and after a very long phone call of broken french from both sides we figured out the package was at customs.  This took more than 2 hours.  So much for an early start. Another couple hours of multiple phone calls proceeded until a very nice girl at UPS Casablanca said she would do her best to get my windscreen released and in Marrakesh tomorrow morning.  Fingers crossed, otherwise I get it on Monday.

Small piece of cultivated land and path to it on the right

After the peace and serenity in the mountains, Marrakesh doesn't really have much appeal.  It looks beautiful, the market is huge with gorgeous food and the locals try very hard to give the tourists what they want.  Maybe to hard.  I spend the afternoon walking and eating in the market, and that was enough.

 The next stretch for us is the run down Western Sahara to the Mauritania border.  Western Sahara is still a militarized zone so we basically have to stick to the area around the main road.  It is supposed to be the most monotonous and boring  piece of road this whole trip.  All 2000km of it.  OUCH!!