Ouarzazate to Agdz
Dadés Gorge
This morning after another surprising breakfast of bread, we paid up the hotel bill, loaded up the car and backtracked the 180 or so kilometres to the Dadés Gorge which took us a little over two hours to drive. Now that we had the luxury of the car and the ability to plan our own itinerary and route, we decided that we really did not want to miss the opportunity of seeing at least one of these sights. We had spoken with Yussef, Dena and Joanie the day before about the gorge road and they advised that although there had been a few rock/landslides the road was far from impassable and if we had the time was definitely worth the drive.
After the initial few minutes of me again trying to wind down the window every time I wanted to change gears and Lil reminding me, ‘Keep right look left’, I think I was finally getting the hang of this driving on the wrong side of the road thing. We found the turn off to the gorge quite easily but from then on we had to slow down to between 20-40 km/hr due to the condition of the road. Due to the recent rains, some parts of the road had been swept away entirely and others were covered with rocks and dirt - the obvious remains of a rock slide. But the scenery was worth it! We stopped part way through the gorge for a photo opportunity and spoke with some other ‘tourists’ - french people that we on their way out and tried to tell us the road was blocked about 5km further on and we couldn’t get past.
No idea what they were on about as about 10 km or so further along the road, we were driving parallel with the still fast flowing river and had come to a switchback road up the side of the cliff which we could see led to a cafe or similar at the top. So up we went.
Realising that it was a cafe restaurant, we stopped. At first for the photo opportunity but then when we realised that it was nearly lunchtime we decided to kick back there for awhile and enjoy the views over our shared lunch of Tangine and berber omelette.
We headed back through Ouarzazate on our way to the Dràa Valley town of Agdz where we intended to stop for the night. However it would have been remiss of us not to stop at that little supermarket we were so fond of to replenish our stash of munchies (and of course the red wine).
The drive to Agdz again took us through some spectacular country and up some sizable mountains. However I do have to note that I can no longer complain about roadwork problems at home anymore. Not when we saw that a deviation had to be built on the side of this mountain as the road had just fallen away to nothing. Made me think twice at times about the stability of the mountain roads here but as I kept saying to myself, ‘It’s an adventure, it’s an adventure….’
We managed to score a couple of rooms in the Kissane Hotel so after unpacking the car, Cath yelling at a boy who was trying to sell her some illicit substance and settling into our room, which by the way had hot water and a balcony overlooking the pool, we got comfy in the lounge area outside our rooms and proceeded to have a late afternoon carpet picnic with some red wine. Dinner was a tame affair of tangine in the hotel restaurant and I retired early for the night leaving the girls to plan tomorrow’s itinerary (just tell me where we are going and what direction and I’ll drive there I said) and to stalk the guides of the tour group who were also staying at the hotel with the intention of quizzing them about the local roads - but I’ll leave Cath to tell that story if she so wishes.
Needless to say it was a very happy Lou that went to bed that night after being able to see the stars decently for the first time in the whole trip from the back balcony. Does life get any better than this?
