Gorge-ous

Spending a couple of nights at Julia's would have been nice. The food was good, the rooms nice and clean with things to do and see all round the area (I was particularly intrigued by the snowboards and skis outside one rental shop). It was only 40 kms or so across the Hamada (rocky) desert to Algeria and should we have fancied a go without the 50kg of luggage the dunes at Erg Chebbi near by were favourites for bikers to practice their sand bashing. It was also now nearly June though and we had an appointment with Hana to pick the stuff up Spain on the fifth, then Robin's temporary farm job starting and my flight home on the 11th. The plan was to leave the KTM with him until returning for the Horizons Unlimited Mountain Madness rally the following month. We sketched out the return journey that morning so we would leave Africa on the third and after a lazy morning playing with the kittens and a big breakfast (and tour of Julia's geological samples from the local area), for one last time we turned north.
The guide book we'd borrowed from Hana listed a 'tourist circuit' up the road in Rizanni, but rather than being a lap of the Moroccan TT it was a track through a dozen small farming villages that had been blessed with Tarmac for the benefit of visitors. Apparently the inhabitants of the town used to make their living guiding tourists to the dunes in Merzouga, now with the road being recently built and importantly included on gps maps (the old trick was the remove or alter the road signs) this was planned as an alternative income source. It took less than half an hour to cruise along the black top but we'd already been a little spoilt by the hidden gems we'd found elsewhere on our travels.
Thankfully getting away from the desert things were becoming a little cooler, again we were of course climbing in to the foothills ahead of crossing the east end of the High Atlas. The valley between Jebel Ougnat and Sahro used to be home to the stoney piste of Chris Scott's route M4, Doug who we'd met through the Horizons Unlimited site had also recommended it. Unfortunately for us Morocco's road building program had arrived before we did and most of it had been overlaid with shiny new tarmac, that said bits that couldn't be upgraded had been rerouted and some of the old track was still accessible. We followed one bit until it came to a crest beyond which there was a stoney dry river bed and 1:1 gradient climb up the hardcore to the new road. While I was off looking for another way round or a place to spend the night Robin met a local farmer who had come over to say hello, unexpectedly we found ourselves trying to speak Spanish as he spoke no French, but as Maria always says we managed to communicate with hands and feet! He invited us back to his house for dinner and to sleep but we just managed to explain that we wanted to camp in the mountains tonight, he was so genuine it was quite difficult but this was meant to be out last night in the desert and could be one of our last chances to sleep outdoors before Spain (as we noted on the outbound journey the north of Morocco is much more populated). Somehow it would have felt wrong accepting a meal from this man and his family but at the same time it felt wrong not too, he looked like he could barely afford to feed himself, farming as he was in this extreme environment, and yet he welcomed and invited us with a big smile.
We made it up the river bed to where I'd spotted a opportunity to climb on to the new road and a couple of miles further up Robin found a track in to the hills on the opposite side. We'd decided generally camping off tracks above a road was better than below it as people rarely look up =) After some hunting about amongst some herding pens off the track we picked a ruin where we thought it wouldn't upset anyone if they found us in it. The hills here were lined with the same green stone chippings we'd found just west of Zagora, it gave the illusion of a softer more familiar environment than this really was, finding a black scorpion the size of my hand under a rock was a quick reminder of the reality!
Just as we were starting to cook dinner in the early darkness a trail bike pulled up and stopped, a black figure greeted us as he beeped the alarm of his bike. The darkness made communication difficult but we figured out he worked for a mine further up the track, pulling something called verdigris out the ground. I've tried to find out what this is but as yet no luck, something to do with the copper stained rocks we guessed, can't promise a prize but any answers most welcome! We also worked out we should expect a hoard of workers to arrive the next day at 8.05am, oh well no lie-in then! After saying there was no problem with us coming for a look tomorrow morning he road off west in to the hills where a dog was barking and a light hovered on the dark silhouette of the land.
The dog woke me in the morning, snuffling around the camp, it ran off yelping when it realised we were there, I felt lucky it hadn't pee'd a good morning in my ear. Now the sun was coming up I climbed the hill above us as far as I could to take in the lay of the land, the yellow sunlight being slowly poured over the green shapes picked out every rock and contour. When I got back Robin was making friends with a kid about ten called Mohamed, it was his dog that had come exploring. He headed off but as we were packing up returned with his mother and two brothers from beyond the hills! We exchanged smiles, some words and gestures and Robin found out how many goats and other animals they had using the powers of animal impersonation, then the mother started gesturing wanting something to eat. We never travelled with more than we needed given how limited our luggage space was so we parted with half our breakfast biscuits, after all the little family looked like they needed them more than we did. A couple of 'shukran's and they again disappeared in to the hills.
The hoards of mine workers were well over due by now, riding over the rise to where the mine was supposed to be our failures in communication became more apparent; Mohamed's family looked like they ran the mine, by meeting the two parents we had by now actually met all the miners! The loose stoney trail climbed back and forth up the hillside, steep jaggy rock reaching up on the left and down on the right, below were the black goat hair tents of the family and small round stone pens holding the animals. At the end of the track the view was amazing, three hundred degrees of mountainous lunar landscape, black rock peaks bursting through grey sedimentary layers and the soft green chippings, dark volcanic rocks littering every surface. This was also where the mine was; several deep JCB cuts in the summit, fragments of translucent quartz lay around the place and a diesel compressor sat to one side. Just as we started the tricky descent on the trail we heard a voice from below, the mother was climbing up the rock face, she said hello again and climbed past us, taking a shortcut to the mine. She giggled to herself as she stumbled backwards and nearly dropped off the edge!
Our next stop was Todra Gorge, but not before riding through a swarm of bees. They clattered and popped over the fairing and visor but thankfully didn't get in the vents in my jacket. I felt bad, they smelt of flowers and I could imagine their faces as the remainder stared at the KTM shaped hole in the group.
Todra was a deep cutting in the sandy coloured rock, some times the sides came straight down or over hung on their way down to the crystal clear river at the bottom, other times they were layered bulges like stacks of giant donuts. Most of the road at the bottom was rough concrete meaning it could expect to find itself underwater at some point of the year. There was even a hotel hiding under one overhang, we both agreed it looked like it was living on borrowed time! The first half of the gorge seemed well touristed, the latter less so, in fact other than us there were only a couple of Dutch motor homes, bouncing along slowly.
Robin was following me as we came in to a very poor looking village on the left of the roadside. A boy and a girl about four and eight ran out, arms and legs flailing, in front of the big camper we were currently behind. It braked but while still moving they started trying to climb up it, shouting about bonbons. The mother or big sister ran after the smaller boy and grabbed him off the vehicle but the girl, with a desperate look on her face kept banging on the windows. The drivers was obviously unsure what to do, the girl was quite distraught and they obviously didn't want to injure her. Then the mother shouted and distracted her long enough that the driver moved off, crying and shouting she ran right past me and grabbed Robin, shaking him, in my mirrors I could see the bike vearing and she grabbed first the handlebar, then his arm and finally the pannier. We'd spoken to Barak, one of the guys who worked at Julia's about the whole cadeux/bonbon thing and he said as a kid he remembered tourists turning up and showering them with pens and pencils and sweets. It seemed these poor kids had been lead to view every foreigner as a Santa Claus, understandably they were upset when he didn't have anything to put in their stocking, tragically they were risking their lives to get his attention.
Slowly the gorge opened out in to a valley and when it got wide enough the base began to fill up with more cultivation, sides of the river lined with small irregular fields. Suddenly a large bush ran across the road followed by a short rotund woman, shouting at it. Just below the bouncing branches four mischievous donkey hooves were visible, we had to pull over to avoid laughing ourselves into a ditch as the bush 'ee-oh'ed its self down the road!
Further along we passed a cliff that was wall papered with bright carpets, sheets and clothes, drying in the sun while the family worked the crops below. As I turned back to the road a bike was coming the other way with the rider waving frantically, he was gesturing to stop, an oval country sticker on his fairing read 'TIM'. It was none other than Mr motocycling-in-Morocco himself, Tim Cullis, after a chat! Tim contributes regularly to ADVRider and other traveling wed sites, writing guides and articles for people heading to Morocco by motorbike, Robin had a stack of his info printed out and I had some of his guides in my phone, it was nice to meet the man himself! We exchanged news about the roads we'd ridden and got some pointers for the route ahead before a group photo and saying goodbye.
The map marked the roads surrounding Tizi-n-isly as 'Difficult or dangerous',  though 'and' may have been more appropriate. A narrow strip of tarmac, frayed at both edges and pot-holled down the middle was a two lane highway, at best the kerb like drop to the dust and gravel at the side (or at worse the plummeting drop to the doom below) made passing oncoming traffic a challenge. Most drivers went out of their way to make room though before arriving in Tizi one fire engine ironically had forced us off the road. Tizi itself was a busy town with streets full of people and animals, built on steps up a steep hill, it felt as real and un-touristified as it could get. The road kept climbing and higher and higher we went on our way to El-Kebab. We'd chosen Kebab as a good breaking point for the night and it wasn't far from the route Doug had recommended, while the town may have had a disappointing number of fast food outlets it did take us up so high and presented such an amazing vista it felt like we could see all of north Morocco.
There was a small track on the GPS just beyond the 'Bab which went straight up the next hill and looked like it might be good for camping as the lower hills and valleys were usually farmed but higher areas less populated. As we climbed it began to resemble the 6-day Trials, but steep gravel slopes, washed out ruts and exposed boulders were only half the problem, the steady flow of surprised looking people and animals and people riding animals down the track made it tricky, stopping engines to let a goat herd pass was always followed by a tricky, scrabbly hill start. At least they were coming down, the hill top would be empty we thought, but no, green pastures and more and more people and villages!
After riding most of the track before it returned to the main road houses thinned out and an even smaller branch took us up to a summit where a quarry had been dug, finally the end of the line. From here the view was just immense, there seemed more hazey horizon to look at than the eye could take in. Mountains seemed to roll all the way up to the Mediterranean which the imagination could almost place right where they met the sky. It was quite a spot to pull out the mats for one last camp and our second last night in Africa.