4. Morocco Central - Small Mountain Tracks
Monday, 17 March 2008 11:57 pm
Tuesday 17th March 2008:
The local town of Ouarzazate is home to many movie studios and the Atlas Studios offers tours so that was our next stop after catching up on internet etc.
It is the Atlas Studios where ‘Gladiator’, ‘Jewel of the Nile’, ‘Mummy 1 & 2’, and ‘Ten Commandments’ were made. Walking around the sets there are reconstructions of Egypt, slave markets, and the town of Jerusalem.
The latter took one year to construct and was used for 45 minutes in the movie. Behind the impressive facades were just plaster-of-paris and bamboo frames.
Camp that evening was typical of my camps; up a track to the top of a ridge some 8kms from the road. The valleys spread before us.
We set camp and walked around discovering some old mines and the remains of smelter works. On checking the maps we discover these are old silver mines.
Camp 12: Old Silver Mine Camp.
Distance travelled: 79Kms.
Total: 5371Kms
Tuesday 18th March:
This was a great day of travelling mountain pistes and tizis; tracks and mountain passes.
The sealed road headed south them arched north again…so why not take the dotted line that joins the two. It started firstly as a bitumen road and slowly deteriorated down to a mountain goat track. We amazed ourselves in the navigation through the many turn offs that headed into mountain villages and goat shelters.
The track was rough in places roughly hewn out of the bare mountain side with many a near vertical drop off to the side. It wound its way over the Tizi at 2,4000metres, with snow not so far off to the side. Fortunately the only vehicles we met was a Dutch push bike rider, then two French 4x4 vehicles. Apart from the pleasant exchange it was good to confirm our directions were correct; and we also met where one could pass without difficulty.
The track was 140Kms long and took 5 hours.
Following lunch in the very dusty and wind swept town of Aoulouz it was then on to Morocco’s most spectacular and dangerous road; well at least according to ‘Lonely Planet’…the road over Tizi n Test.
This sealed road snaked itself up a near vertical mountain side. In 17Kms we rose 1.4Kms to 2,100metres. Many times as we quickly glance over the side of the road we can see our road numerous times zigzag back and forth below us.
I thoroughly enjoyed the road, unfortunately Lyn finished up with a headache constantly worrying about oncoming vehicles on the very narrow road, particularly around the numerous blind corners.
We could not find a camping spot, and drove till 7pm when finally we saw what we thought was a camping ground. It turned out to be a tourist hotel bathed in wisteria, and if we had dinner there, then camping in their grounds would not be a problem. We gratefully accepted, unfortunately it was the most expensive meal we have had, and the worst meal. It was however in very pleasant surroundings with log fire, comfortable cane chairs, and a bottle of Moroccan red wine!
Camp 13: Wisteria Camp.
Tuesday 19th March: We just can not help ourselves…we found another dotted line. Why drive the 40Kms into Marrakech and back out in the next valley when there is a perhaps perfectly good track leading over the mountains.
This one was good, slightly used, and tracked 1,800metres up the side of the valleys. Often looking very quickly over the side was a near vertical drop off down to our original track below.
The views were breathtaking.
According to the map there was another short cut to the road to Oukaimeden our next destination. Confidently we found the turn off and headed off on the right hand piste. This was even narrower and clung precariously to the vertical rock face.
There was no where to turn around should we need, let’s hope no other vehicle approaches. We continued like this for 8Kms through and past villages that also clung precariously to the mountain side.
The track slowly getting less used as we pass by each Kasbah house. Finally we needed to confirm our direction. The Moroccans speak their local language and French, no English. With our bad pronunciation of the town of Oukaimedan it was confirmed that we were on the wrong track. Bugger!
Finding a suitable place to do a 6 point turn re retraced our steps. Much to the delight of the boys in one village who insisted on attempting to ride on the rear bumper bar of the truck as we very slowly (5-8KPH) negotiated the tight track. It was very disconcerting knowing that those boys could do themselves harm, yet I had to concentrate on the track as below the left hand mirror was a vertical drop. Thankfully they soon tired and allowed me to return all my attention to the road.
Finally back at the ‘T’ junction we continued on the same road for 2kms and then found the sign to right to Oukaimedan, this piste looked very unused and by this time Lyn was ‘pist’ed off’ of pistes.
Continuing we soon joined the bitumen road to Oukaimedan.
At 2,300metres we drove through and into the clouds, finally at 2,6000metres we arrived at the only true Moroccan sky resort.
There is a little snow/ice on the road side and it is a cold 10degrees outside. We can not see because of the dense cloud cover but I estimate there is no real snow cover because most of the accommodation is deserted. Actually the place looks very run down.
Rugged up, we had yet another tajine (hot-pot) for an early dinner at 5pm and watched the truck disappear in the increasing cloud only 100metres from our table.
BBBrrr its COLD !
Constantly we are offered by sellers, fossils, crystal geodes, beads, silver jewellery, Berber daggers etc, if not to buy then they are happy to swap. To date I have been offered 2 carpets for my hat, and a fossil for my jacket. Lyn was offered a fossil dish for her shoes. Lyn has some under sized shoes; let’s see what we can swap those for!
With visibility at 50metres we slowly followed the road to a parking spot were we set camp.
Camp 14: In the Clouds Camp.
Distance Today: 118Kms.
Total Distance: 5796Kms.