Hanane Club (Halfboard) Ouarzazate

... interiorior of Morocco - in a nice new Toyota 4x4. We sped though Todra Gorge, the Dades, Valley of the Roses et al, and landed for the night at a lovely little riad overlooking the city. Had a beer (along w/ my Muslim guide!) on the rooftop terrace, dinner, and then set off for Marrakech the next morning.

Will fill in the blanks/post pics later...

... passes & ledges; I also lose count of the times we criss-cross the stream on the way up.
Ahmed continues to star with casseroles & soup (& pancakes/omelettes in the morning) but on Day 3 a goat finds its way to the pot & we are 'honoured' with barbequed offal in stomach/intestine lining. Day 4 inevitably brings goat casserole.
So we finally make the villages at Zawyat Oulmzi where there is a hostel we share with a Belgian school group.

The drive from Taroudannt gets more and more barren and the road deterioates to a single lane of bitumen and becomes more mountainous. Taxis and trucks play chicken with Terry so we spend a fair it of time in the dust. Fortunately there is not much traffic. We are staying out of the town again in a kasbah, which is a large house with four towers built around a courtyard ...

... on we went on a "little hike". That ended up being a mix of canyoning, spelunking, and bad ass hiking through a canyon. We spent the night in a Berber hotel in a quiet little corner of the country. The next day we went to Todra Gorge, similar to the other but a little bigger. But the highlight, without a doubt, was going to Merzouga. That is where the Sahara begins. We rode camels out for two hours into ...

... sat with the bags. Not sure what had happened but it was quickly sorted and headed through. I had hoped to get food just in case but we were late so we headed on through. The guy checking our boarding cards said that someone else was doing the race but we couldn't see a likely perosn. As we boarded Neil made hinmeslf known he'd packed all his stuff onto the plane. We were concerned in case he got seperated from his running shoes. We ...

Ouarzazate in itself is not a very interesting town. But because of its location, it is great as a jumping off point for excursions into both the sahara and picturesque gorges, two trips we wanted to take. We arrived on an unusually rainy and cold day. We had no idea how we would do these little excursions; busses didn't really go where we wanted and renting a car was too expensive. We were intent on meeting some people ...

... a plug for the sink and some clothes pegs because all your undies go flying around the roof space that is often peoples living space. This morning Borat got up and made us some killer staunch coffee served in a cute Moroccan tea set then hooked us up with his mate who drove one of the grand taxi collectivos and had agreed to take us to Rissani for 12 dirham each, there are no buses out of here. He wanted to leave immediately but we said we would be having our cigarettes and ...

... oasis 10km east of M'Hamid, which is literally the end of the road before sand takes you into Algeria, headed north then a little west before lunch and a nap under a tree. Further west and we reached the camp nestled amongst the dunes and bordering surreal in the light of the setting sun. Tagine for two by the fire followed by puzzle drawing in the sand with the Berbers. Discussions of people and places before retiring to our nomad tent ...

Only a few hours after falling asleep, we awoke again at 5am in the pitch black. We were led to our Camels, and sleepily climbed back on. The wind from the night before had gone, and it was a very peaceful ride over the silhouetted dunes back to the same spot as the night before. I climbed back up the same dune from the night before, but this time took it a lot slower, and with out the wind was a lot easier. This time Megan's dad joined me, and ...

... have solar panels for lighting, most have no electricity, and all the farming is 100% by manual labour. One night on the trek we had a lamb on a spit. After agreeing to this, we were surprised and a tad horrified to be ushered out to watch as a lamb was caught, slaughtered (facing Mecca of course), skinned and gutted for us. Its an interesting thing to see, especially when they clean the internal organs out by pouring water in and blowing!