0409 Zagora to Tata

30^th Jan 2016

Garage adventures, and a journey through the desert

Well it all started out well.  And then it slowly got better !

The campsite in Zagora was easily one of the nicest we have been in for a long time.  As soon as we arrived they brought us a mat, a table to put on the mat two stools to sit on, a tablecloth for the table.  Sweet !   Then they brought us a pot of Moroccan mint tea and glasses as a welcome drink.  The wifi area (not such good wifi though !) was a Bedouin type tent with cushions to sit on, and they would serve meals if you wanted them (tagines of course !) and had f

resh bread from the market in the mornings.  Very pleasant.   In the morning our cyclist neighbours from Brisbane, Matt and Alison, were up and off quite early – They had a long way to go and don’t go quite as fast as us – But they were heading down the same road as us, so we expected to catch them up later.  Once they had gone, we said our farewells to Bastion and Bridget in the Austrian Troopie, and Peter and Helga in the German one, and then headed into town. We had been asked to stop by one of the garages for a tea, and I had a jacket to give them, so wanted to try to find them before we set off down the road.

We were just about to photograph the famous Tombouctou sign when a motorbike pulled up with two excited guys on there talking about their Toyota garage – We couldn’t work out if they were the same guys from 2 days ago, but they looked similar, so off we went, following them through the streets of Zagora.  We got to their garage, and were taking some photos, when another guy ran up and argued with the guy we were with, telling us we were at the wrong garage and were supposed to be at his !   This was all of 20 metres further up the road, so we moved in front of his Toyota garage for more

photos.  There were a crowd of expats in there drinking tea so we joined in – These guys are all pretty well known in the off road community and deal with a lot of international cars.  After a few photos, we worked out that we were still not at the garage we REALLY wanted to go to, but somehow we ended up following the cousin of someone through the streets again on his motorbike so that “he could give my wife a present”.  As usual, it turned out he had a shop selling everything, and “give your wife a present” really means “You will buy a present to give your wife from my shop” !!  We are getting better at this, and actually got out with the better end of the bargain – I got a Zagora sticker off him for nothing and I didn’t buy any presents for my wife !! 

A quick top up with fuel, a visit to a fresh bread shop, and after a fruitless attempt to find the 3^rd garage we ended up back at the Tombouctou sign where we had started an hour earlier !  But this time there was a painter there working on the mural – In fact, there was now a palm tree on the side of the mural which hadn’t been there an hour earlier !  This sign is famous from Camel Train days across the desert, and has been replicated many times, but this location today is actually the original location of the original sign !  Just the sign has changed many times – Including today !

Finally we set off down the road.  My maps.me on-line prog was being silly, so it took a while to find the correct road due to a lack of sign posts, but eventually we got it all together and headed off across the desert on what was until recently just a piste or dirt track, but is now a very nice road across the stony desert of this part of the sahara.   After an hour or so we found Matt and Alison sitting in the shade of an old ruined house eating dates that they had bought on the way out of town !  So we shared a few dates with them, and then headed on into the desert.

For the first 100 kms or so, the road is just rocky, stony desert.  But ever present are the line of hills to the north (which were to continue all day), as well as amazing intermittent outcrops of hard rock to the south which were often well eroded so one saw detailed fault lines of alternating harder and softer rock.  The hard rock outcrops are so big that they often dictate where the road will go, and when there is a break in the outcrop, the road might zig zag through it,

taking advantage of the natural break.  We saw quite a few camels feeding on the thornbush that has thorns about 2-3 inches long – How they eat it I don’t know !  Surprisingly there is also quite a log of agriculture out here, sometimes more obviously around the occasional oasis, but also in the middle of nowhere where they have built a water tank and they grow something under long plastic tubes – Presumably to collect the moisture inside the plastic ? 

After about 100 kms there was a fork in the road, with one leading north to Ouarzazate, and the other going into Foum-Zguid and then on west to Tata.  Coming towards F-Z we passed through a little oasis village with lots of old mud buildings, even ones built onto the end of a steep scarp edge of rock that ran right up the mountainside.  We went into F-Z and found a very pleasant little town with lots of fruit and veggie stalls.  We parked and wandered up the street, past the small mosque where all the faithful were coming out after their prayers, and bought some veggies from a couple of stalls, as well as some eggs from a chicken shop where they seem to keep the live chickens on the floor in a special feeding area, grabbing one and knocking it on the the head (or whatever) when someone came in wanting a chicken.  I guess if you don’t have fridges, you keep the animal alive until you are ready for it, so it stays fresh !  Smell in the shop wasn’t too crash hot…….

We left F-Z through the customary town archway, and back out to the rocky formations in the desert where we found a shaded spot under a tree just off the road to stop for our lunch.  Actually, out of the sun, and in the slight breeze, it was quite cool, so we actually stood in the sun at about 20 deg C just to keep warm !  In the photos you can see we could have been anywhere in Africa – If I photo-shopped a giraffe or an elephant in the photo, it wouldn’t have looked out of place ! 

We then drove on across the desert until we came round a corner and found a river flowing over the road !  We had seen a lot of bridges over dry river beds, but nothing actually flowing like this was.  And from the debris alongside the road, it had obviously been flowing heavily not too long ago,  The road then turned north and at Tissint we went through a pass between the mountains – The Bel Bani I think they are called – And all part of the Anti Atlas as this part of the mountains are called.  We climbed a little and almost straight away we were driving along the top edge of a deep valley, or ravine more like, and on the opposite side was an old city, while the valley was an oasis with a river and palm trees.  Incredible views across the ravine and up a valley opposite. 

Driving on we continued parallel to sandstone that was heavily scoured by water over the years, and formed the most amazing shapes and shadows on the other side of the ravine.  This went on beside us for probably 10 kms, so it covers a very large area. After that we were back to the stony desert, but with amazing contour markings on the surrounding hills where the different density rocks had eroded at different rates.  It is probably the sheer immensity of these mountain ranges that amaze – Having driven all day, at the end of the day we were still faced with one area where we could see 4 or 5 separate ranges of mountains stretching back into the distance. 

We arrived in Tata pretty exhausted after a day spent admiring the changing scenery almost continually and when we looked for a camp site we saw one on the other side of the valley.  Driving across the little bridge, it turned out to be a delightful little site, and we got a front row position overlooking the little river.  A very pleasant evening at the end of a long day. 





Pics are here :- https://picasaweb.google.com/110185357936043625130/0409ZagoraToTata?authkey=Gv1sRgCK6IrZmn0MK5ag