Moving on South

Continuing the adventure, heading south for the Gorges of Ziz

North Africa is a place you think of warmth, not on this morning...it was freezing as we drove south out of Fes towards the Middle Atlas and the town of Midelt heading for the gorges of Ziz.
We were on the road well before 6, with the light slowly fighting it's way up into the clear blue sky, seemingly struggling with the cold morning.
We had an excellent early run, out through Sefrou, with folk making their way to early prayer, wrapped against the chill of the morning. On out down towards Boulemane, we came over a rise and the view laid out before us was stunning in it's very barrenness, flat for miles, with the High Atlas in the distance like a row of white teeth, snow shining in the early light.
It was awe inspiring, it coincided nicely with other requirements (it is amazing in a landscape that appears as flat and barren as it did, that one could actually go and hide behind a rock not even the size of a football and be hidden from sight for a call of nature!!) so we just stopped for 20 mins to enjoy the early warming of the sun and the silence surrounding us after the bustle and traffic of Fes.
The road was as if a ruler had been laid across the terrain, very efficient of early road builders, when they saw a stretch where they could put a long straight line in they did. The soil here as rocky as it is, is probably one of the easiest places to build a decent road, sweep the surface off, pack it down a bit, some drainage and bitumen, et voila!!! C'est fini!!
We carried on for a while further and found a spot by a large “inselberg” (called that in Southern Africa where they are lumps of eroded granite rising from flatish plains) for some breakfast, some meditation and to dry out the tents and stuff from the early morning departures dew.
Breakfast and tea done, we decided to see if we couldn't find the old lead mine at Aouli, the map showed a bush track going there and continuing on, looping round back to Saida and then rejoining the main road south of Midelt.
Having guessed at the turning, off we went, following the tarmac to begin with, detouring off to the sides looking at old mining sites and then the tar ran out and we were onto dirt, crossing a decidedly dodgy looking, but incredibly strong bridge, eventually coming across the old mine.
I'll let the captions under the photos explain what we found, but the mine and the folk that lived there had a hard life, even the old French management houses which were built high, still had big sealed flood gates to stop the rising waters in flood coming into the houses.
We are not sure why it was abandoned, but as you can see from the pictures, the flood defences they had were nowhere near enough to stop mother nature in full flood!!
Folk still lived there, in the labourers compound, which was wisely build much higher, well out of reach of the waters.
The road continued past great slag heaps, to the village of Ahouli itself, where we were invited for tea by a berber woman, who did tell us the road went no further....as usual, local knowledge is rarely wrong, the road crossed the river and although we didn't follow it to the end, it petered out into some fairly impossible looking river and mountain country, 2 vehicles and lots of time may have found a way....but we had some tea and headed back the way we came, aiming for Rich and the gorges.
We discovered after the little jaunt on the dust roads that there was rather of a lot of dust on the inside, more than there should have been, OK,OK it's a Land Rover, but further investigation revealed that Brother had not fitted the rear bottom door seal, leading to a big gap, working a plan, this was remedied with gaffer (duct) tape and a cut up part of a dog lead....worked surprisingly well for the rest of the trip!
We passed through the spectacular Gorges of Ziz, the stretch of road coming into Er Rachidia is an amazing introduction for us of what was to come at the Gorges of Dades and Todra, our first tunnel, Tunnel Zaabal, hand cut through the rock.
Before passing through Er Rachidia, an odd sight was to be had in the large dam outside the city, Barrage Hassan Addakhil, the lone palm tree in the water, not a small one either, how it has survived there, is a bit of a mystery. Then a bit of a blat, we wanted to be close to Teneghir for sundown and find somewhere to camp.
We eventually did the “pick a spot, any place will do as they are all the same!!” and trundled a way off the road and manoeuvred to find some wind shelter for the tents and us from the warm wind blowing towards the mountains, little did we understand what was going to happen by morning!!
Sunset and dinner, early in the sack, the silence simply wonderful, broken by the odd truck on the highway a couple of kms away, the star studded sky was true “African sky” no city glow, just stars to the horizon.
We were both awoken at about 3.30 in the morning by a howling, freezing wind coming down off the mountains, it was easily 50-60 km/h, what woke me was my tent flapping as I was unable to hammer the pegs into the rocky surface, it was anchored by rocks and a corner had come free and was being picked up by the wind, along with a dust storm!!
I got out and sorted it out with some bigger rocks, discovering when I tried to get back in the tent, the design of the tent at that particular angle into the wind was creating the perfect tornado of dust and sand inside the tent....
That was sleep over, I had to dismantle the tent and shake out all my kit and sleeping bag, getting in the car till the sun came up and the wind started to die down. The warm wind must have been the days sun warmed air rising up towards the mountains, to return with a vengance after it had cooled during the night and being denser, picked up a lot more speed and of course a much lower temperature....it was freezing!!!!
The morning light was stunning and not being asleep, gave me the perfect chance to wander up on the hill above us and get some exercise and get some warmth into my body. The resulting odd photos of the only living things I could find on what could probably best be described as “a moon like surface” (no I haven't been, but it matches descriptions I have read, lots of rock and bugger all else!!)

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