Wednesday 18 February 2015

The wind died down but it was noticeably cooler when we surfaced so our plan to move on seemed to be vindicated. Once breakfasted and the vans serviced we were on our way.

Our planned destination today was Ouarzazote, a large town on the edge of the Atlas Mountains around where many films such as Gladiator and Lawrence of Arabia have been made. It seemed that most people travelled via Zagora, which is further east still, before turning north west, rather than the direct northerly route, shown “scenic” on our map. With conflicting advice about the road conditions both ways we decided on the shorter scenic route.

Initially out of Foum Zguid the road was okay but it was not long before it became another single track road which inevitably started to deteriorate as it followed the course of a river. It soon was obvious that the winter rains had caused much devastation as most of the bridges were down, with subsequent diversions through the river bed (dry, thankfully) and much evidence of the road being bulldozed clear of landslips and rockfalls. However it was passable with care, albeit slowly, and again the scenery was amazing.

The road "disappears"

Bridges down

But then the weather took a hand and as we climbed up to around 6000ft the sky clouded over and it started to rain, then snow to add to our difficulties. However eventually we reached the main N10 road which was much better.

The weather deteriorated a little.....

Mountain roads

Almond blossom just appearing

We rolled into Ouarzazote in the rain with not much enthusiasm, being guided by the faithful TomTom to our selected campsite. We have to say that our choice this time was not a good one and, despite a friendly welcome, if it had not been as late and as dreary we would probably move on. The rain caused the clay surface to become quite slippery (Tina suffered a fall, luckily without injury) but it did have all facilities (well as “all” as Morocco gets!) so we stayed.

Snow on them thar hills

We later discovered that this weather was affecting all of southern Morocco and was due to last a couple of days before returning to normal at the weekend.