Zagora was basically one long street. Like so much of Morocco they were busy resurfacing the road. We stopped in the shade for a drink and found Robin's front tyre was rapidly going flat, inside it looked like heat of the piste run had melted the previous patch and it was rolled up and blistered like a BCG scab, ew! Fixing the puncture was one thing, keeping the constant stream of mechanics on mopeds who wanted the job busy was another!
We'd read about an old battered metal sign on the way out of Zagora from the days of the camel trains that still read 'Tombouctou 52 Jours' but it was escaping us, luckily Hassan at the cafe wanted to show us after lunch and we followed his small but unstoppable 20kph mobilette through town and over the roadworks. Meeting him was much more memorable than the sign however which it turns out had been replaced with a painted concrete wall and story books. Not badly done but a little less authentic than expected!
One of Chris Scott's routes from his book Morocco Overland departs from the back of Zagora and arrives a day later
In Merzouga. Torsten told us he'd had quite an adventure along this route and Gert had been keen to escort us along it as it sounded quite tricky, it didn't sound like one to miss :) We adapted it a little by taking in the Vallee du Draa first and joining it just south of Tazzarine.
There are few bits of the Michelin map of Morocco so packed with palmtree and kasbar symbols as the Vallee du Draa, which gives a pretty good description of the place! From the stony desert we rode through a dense green ribbon of cultivation watched over by tall palms and huge earthen kasbars and towns. Small fields were lined with tall walls that over the years had slowly begun to melt back in to the ground and interweaving the lot were carefully maintained channels and canals, like arteries feeding the landscape. We took the piste up the east side of the valley rather than the main asphalt road and had the pleasure of riding through a near continuous stream of villages filled with smiling waving people and kids wanting to high-five as we rode past, it was like our first day in Morocco again.
The structures that could be built from just earth and straw were properly mouth openly stunning, five or six story tall fortresses with carvings and cutout decoration round the top, mosques with minarets and tall elegant archways, and amongst it all the disused buildings coming full circle and slowly returning back to the soil they originally came from.
It was getting dark by the time we arrived in Tarrazine and there didn't seem to be anywhere to stay, heading out we thought maybe we'd find a spot in the desert towards Tarhbalt but with luck screeched to a halt beside a sign pointing in to the sand labelled Les Jardines De Tazzarine, Auberge, it had to be worth a go! A tricky ride in the dark took us to a small walled farm where a boy in a stripy jumper ran out to nervously great us, it was a very warm welcome as the rest of the family waved from the house and we were ushered through a gate in the wall, they seemed very pleased to have guests even so late! As one by one the lad switched on the lights they highlighted corners of a vegetable garden edged with Bedouin tents and dotted with circles of stools and tables hidden in cosy corners and under wooden shades. It was like finding Eden in the desert, we were quite taken aback!
Dinner was huge on the low table in the carpet lined and open sided restaurant tent, they offered tajine and couscous but either of the two dishes that arrived would have fed both if us, even without the soup starter or melons for dessert! Saide the owner turned up looking a little flustered in his blue jellaba and tourist turban (presumably just called back from the pub!) completing the three generations we'd met that lived in the Jardins (www.lesjardinesdetazzarine.com)
Our tent was lined with carpets and looked every bit a film set sleeping beneath the mosquito nets.
It was time to get back in the desert! Robin was up early to change his back tyre and pads but a few technical difficulties stretched things out until we snoozed through the midday sun, and oddly rain shower too as the wind picked up. I was lucky enough to get a tour of the property from Saide, through his house where the women were preparing grain and vegetables, on the roof terrace where an extension was being built and finally round the back yard where the donkey and some goats were kept. His father was a nice old chap dressed all in white with a small hat, with few teeth he didn't speak but smiled the whole time and shook hands at every opportunity. Saide lead us through his village back to Tazzarine for fuel, water and of course mint tea. Robin's old knobbly tyre found a home on what must now have been one of the gnarliest off road hand carts in the Sahara :)
Things got more desert shaped from here on, turning east from Tahrbalt the dusty Tarmac stopped but the piste was closed too, embarrassingly an old man chased the 'cadeux' kids away with stones while we asked directions. Heading out on a track we were soon at the top of a gorge overlooking the bridge building work that had closed the piste. From no where half a dozen curious kids arrived who lined up to shake hands before we left to find a way down.
The rough tracks through the stone strewn hillside were a maze of dead ends. Eventually we found a scrabbly track down a cliff face in to the valley below where there seemed to be an oasis. With a gulp we rolled over the edge, it was hard on the arms with some big drop offs and slippery gravel. I got to the bottom and watched Robin from the valley below, it was scary just as a spectator! The sandy track lead to a house with an old man and a girl with a baby, we checked directions and crossed over the dry sand filled riverbed before climbing in to the village on the other side. Villagers stopped us left and right to offer directions but it was as much to see where we were going and coming from. Crossing over the river again and up a steep climb three young women pointed us down the road out of town. It deviated from the gps track I had for Um-Jeran but when Robin stopped to ask the girls panicked and nearly ran away, they were smiling and laughing but obviously unsure of the spaceman asking directions to the next village, even the spaceman took an unsure step back!
The track lead through a rocky valley before a branch climbed up to over look a plain. The route down was badly eroded but watching a moped in the distance we were able to retrace our steps and find another track. The scree on the track was tricky and the worn tyre on the ktm struggled a little, even Robin with his new Metzler spun a doughnut on one ascent.
On the plain we found a ridge to sleep on, the wind died down and it was another amazing stary night. In the distance were the lights of Um Jerane and once or twice before we fell asleep the yellow glow of a mobillette headlight rose and fell on it's way through distant dunes.
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