Er-Rachidia, Morocco

We spent the last two days in the Todra Gorge, trekking and relaxing at one of our favourite hotels so far on this trip.

We took a CTM bus from Ouarzazat to Tinerhir, and then a grand taxi (a shared taxi -- six of us in a car for four) to our hotel, Auberge-Camping Le Festival, in the middle of the gorge. The road from Tinerhir travels along the bottom of the gorge, and in places is only 20m wide with 300m walls on both sides. It's really cool to see.

Our hotel was built out of stone from the surrounding area. The people who worked at the hotel were really friendly. After dinner, they handed out instruments (percussions for us and the other two travellers, sitar and guitar for them) and we played traditional Berber songs. It was really relaxing.

Yesterday we did a little trek through the High Atlas. It was supposed to be four hours through the mountains to a berber town called Tamtattouchte, and then two hours back along the road to our hotel.

We started from the hotel (1600m) at 8am, and followed the occasionally marked trail up a dry river bed. We picked out trail markings every 10-15 minutes, a small pile of stones here, or a red paint mark there. After two hours, we didn't see any more markings; however, we had a general idea of the geography and so weren't too bad off. We had to crest the range at 2400m, and then walk down the other side towards the main river (which the road followed). It was a beautiful walk, with only the two of us and the High Atlas. We ran into a couple of nomadic Berbers, but that was it.

A friendly dog from the hotel had followed us, and we hoped he would turn around at some point. But he kept with us, and so we had to share our water, with Heather cupping her hands for the dog to drink from.

It took us four hours to crest the range, at which point we could see the main river in the distance. We found a feeder river (dry at this time of year), and followed the river bed down. It was a bit difficult, and it took us two hours to descend to the main river (which did have water), and then to the village.

At this point the dog took off in Tamtattouchte. We were worried about the dog finding its way back home, and so ran all over the village trying to chase it down. He was scared of the local kids, and didn't have a collar, so when I found him, I had to carry him through the village back to Heather. We must have looked quite the sight, two tourists running about the village yelling for a dog. We attracted a merry bunch of about 20 kids, all eager to be part of the adventure.

We had lunch at a restaurant, and then debated walking back to our hotel. It was 15km down the road, and it was already 3pm so we decided to take a grand-taxi back (with the dog).

We got back to the hotel, at which point we found out that the dog was stray, and had showed up at the hotel about two weeks ago! He was well-behaved and looked to be well taken care of, so we're not sure where he came from.

This morning we took a much more leisurely two-hour walk, down the road through the gorge. It's amazing to see the 300m walls rise up beside the road. Unfortunately there are plenty of makeshift stalls selling souvenirs, which mar the pictures. I guess they give scale...

Right now, we're in the middle of bus rides to get to Meknes. It was a short bus ride (two hours) from Tinerhir to Er-Rachidia, where we're waiting for our overnight bus to Meknes. CTM only runs buses overnight between the cities. There are other private bus lines with dayside buses but they're not as clean or punctual as CTM.