11th March
A cloudy day to start with and a sand storm to finish! Still you can't have perfect weather all the time can you? Drove the bike to town and had lunch at the OK coral! Its a bit like that Merzouga, tie your bike up at the ranch and have some grub. Watch the touts have a showdown with another tourist, who doesn't stop and the place goes all sleepy again.
We take off in search of a lake that can have water in it and flamingos but alas it's as dry as the sahara desert! Salt basins are abundant and cracked earth for miles. It's quite spooky really, we are surrounded by black hamada hills with no one in sight, mirages appear as the sun starts to shine and skeletons of small fish litter the ground. How do they get here? It's the middle of the desert? Amazing isn't it!
We leave the salt lake behind and head for Taouz, the last town on the tarmac road and only 20 kms before Algeria. The sand dunes become black dunes as the road cuts through small low mud dwellings and empty sahara. Mountains appear all around and we seem to be in a bowl of sand. Then the town appears and the road comes to an end. This is literally the end of the road! Toauz is small but has a college! And the one cafe is teeming with young friendly people, so we stop for a coffee and chat with the locals about what it's like to live here. They say it's good but it gets a bit warm in the summer! Down a piste we go to an old foreign legion fort and are met there by a friendly chap who shows us around and tells us that he lives in another old looking place close by and works in fossils. Can we have a look? If you want, he says. So he zooms off on his mobilette, losing us with ease and hides around a corner much to his amusement, before taking us to his humble home. Low, square block buildings greet us with a workshop outside. Its so understated. The stones lying on the floor to the uneducated are, stones lying on the floor! To him, they are potential business prospects when opened with his diamond saw. He shows us how he chooses a 'stone', cuts it open and gets either a hit or a miss, ie a good fossil or a bad one. This one was a miss, so he shows us the polishing process with a good Ammonite and we ask if we can buy them. They will mean more to us than anything from a Bazaar. At £3 for the pair, its not only a bargain but a gift. The whole experience is now condensed into these two little halves of a little creature, from a long time ago. Magic!
While we chat we notice that not only the wind has picked up but also there's is a lot of sand in the air! A sandstorm! 15 miles to drive to the van, ho hum, but at least we have a good tarmac road to follow. It's a demanding drive but the bike as usual, takes it in it's stride. The wind is strong but the road is straight. Back at the van we relax and reflect on another remarkable day in Morocco. Around every sunrise is another adventure! We are blessed with these adventures. Insha'Allah
Hope you are all well
love Ted and Krysia
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