Merzouga to Tafroute
In the evening we picked up a couple of s with Milan at a hotel in Merzouga and had a nice time, entertaining the little daughter of a French couple with drums (and everything that made noise). For a moment Milan and me considered driving together through the Sahara pistes so that he'd be my backup car and I'd safe the 4x4. Luckily I rejected the option, as the pistes we took were nowhere near drivable in a regular road car. So I settled for the 4x4 option and Tarik arranged everything so that our driver, Zait, came later that morning in a fairly modern Toyota Land Cruiser and we could set off early enough.

A quick side note on travelling the desert pistes alone: Most of the Moroccan desert isn't too technical but mainly rocky. Yet a lot of surprises can happen on the way and the area is very remote, so help can be difficult to find. Also, navigating can be more difficult than one might think, if one isn't familiar with the area. My Satnav was obviously relying on the waypoints I entered, which were following routes MS6 and MS7 in Chris Scott's road book. Sometimes there is need to deviate from the route though, which is when regional knowledge is quite helpful. For this reason I would not recommend anyone to approach the desert alone. Bear in mind that every year tourists get lost or seriously harmed in the area, because they underestimate the challenge. Experienced desert riders will be fine though.

After getting fuel, filling up water and getting some bread and sardines, we approached the first leg of the pistes: Merzouga to Tafroute, crossig the (usually dry) river Rheris in between. That day could hardly be called desert riding, which was fair enough, as it wasn't desert yet. The route went through beautiful parts of the Jebel Sahro, pretty much along the Algerian border (don't get too close, it's mined!).


The piste before crossing Rheris

On our first day we were accompanied by some light rain, which turned some otherwise dusty stretches into the soapiest mud you can imagine. Especially Oued Rheris (Oued means river) was an absolute delight! Zait and Tarik had quite an advantage as they simply turned into crab-mode and went sideways most of the time - an option that's not available on two wheels. The challenge in crossing Rheris (which was just muddy but didn't carry any water) wasn't just the mud but also the fact that it was quite rutted. This meant that I was essentially sliding from rut to rut and ended up quite surprised that I made it through without going off. Normally, Rheris is known for being incredibly sandy by the way. And I can see that! We actually tried to avoid most of the mud at first by taking a detour slightly to the east, but the military police didn't like that and stopped us when we got too close to the border.


I had to do a bit of road building to get further; right: Behind the mountains is Algeria

Following Rheris was a stretch of relatively easy wet, but at parts also fairly deep sand and some steppe till we reached Tafroute. Almost. Just in front of it was a small river, that although looking harmless, wasn't passable. When I walked in a bit, it turned out that it was at least 0.5m deep and, more importantly, was very muddy. So chances were that we'd get stuck, or even worse, hit quicksand. So we ended up going through a palmerie till we found a safe crossing.


Left: Not safe to cross! If in doubt: walk it! Right: Yet more mud

In Tafroute we booked ourselves into a nice auberge where we had some lovely Tajine and tea. It turned out that the area we were riding through had quite some archeological importance. Attached to the auberge they had an astonishing exhibition of prehistoric artifacts. Among those were handaxes that, for all I know, could be hundreds of thousand or even millions of years old - a famous example, the Olduvai Handaxe in the British Museum is 1.6 Million years old. Handaxes are astonishing artefacts as they are essentially prehistoric multitools. As such, they mark an important stage in human development where fairly complex tools were produced - indeed so complex that people would've had to communicate and teach the production of these tools.


Handaxes exhibited in the auberge


Olduvai handaxe in the British Museum - 1.6 Million years old

Tafroute to Lac Iriki
The next morning we went on further towards M'hamid, detouring via Zagora as our host told us that the piste near Tagounite wasn't passable. Tafroute had fuel available, so I took advantage of this, and we also topped up water as the area around M'hamid is more desert climate than what we went through so far.

The piste from Tafroute to Zagora was generally straightforward. It is mostly going through sandy steppe along some beautiful rock formations. There were some more muddy patches we went through but generally it was getting drier. I had some quicksand experiences though, when I went over wet sandy patches and noticed my rear sinking in. I was luckily quick enough and throttling up got me out without problems (albeit rather dramatically and noisily). Further on towards Zagora we came across some dry lakes where we could almost go at motorway speeds. They were quite muddy at parts, but it was mostly firm mud and after the previous day I learned to read the ground well enough to have a reliable idea of the ground I was riding on.


At some point the picture quality suffered a bit. That because I went through a water hole Kamikaze-style.

The mud and sand turned more and more into dry rocks where I could go on hammering it a bit. On rocks I had a big time advantage. The other guys weren't really getting beyond 2nd gear without having to fear for their suspension, when I was pretty much going road speed. One does have to watch out for little dried out streams crossing the piste every now and then though. I was taken by surprise by some those, which made me involuntarily test my suspension travel. Again big shout to my Africa Twin! It just took it. Just had to replace headrace bearings back home...but that's a given.


Hills near Zagora

We arrived at Zagora around midday and got some lunch at a roadside grill. From Zagora, we went pretty much straight towards M'hamid. On the way we passed several palmeries, and got trough some mountains, where I had some good fun in the twisties. The road to M'hamid was all tarmac, so this was relaxing. On the way we passed several warning signs of desert conditions and it was gradually getting hotter.

After M'hamid we went on pistes again and it took only about a mile until we hit sand - some of the softest I have been in so far. The piste was going through dunelettes near Erg Chigaga, which are notorious for its Fech Fech - a very powdery sand that is often indistinguishable from the rocky ground. I followed a local on a small pushbike for about one mile to avoid some of the worst sand but just hit more Fech Fech and then more dunelettes. Eventually we made it through and went accross the Black Hamada - a vast stretch of rock desert. And very rocky it was indeed! At times we had to negotiate through riverbeds with football-sized rocks in them. Normally I would recommend momentum to manage difficult rocky passages. Not there though! I tried it first and it almost threw me off (which on rocky terrain would have been not cool at all!). So there was no alternative to going through rock by rock.


The sign is misleading. It was more a store of blankets we used to sleep outside

Eventually we arrived at Lac Iriki, and stayed in the dunes next to an auberge, whose owner was a friend of Zait's. He came swiftly and we made a fire and some tea and ate our sardines. We had the company of a desert mouse, that was very interested in our bread. We also had a few hours till moonrise that night, so we had a nice view of the milky way.

A pavilion next to where we stayed overnight

Back to the Atlas
The charm of Lac Iriki is what you cannot rather than what you can see - in other words it's vastness. The ride itself was really easy, hammering over the dry plains of the lake with only a few patches of mud or easy sand in between.


View of Erg Chigaga from afar

To the east of the seemingly endless plains one can spot some of the most beautiful rock formations (which I missed to take shots of), and within the lake are a few auberges, appearing like little castle islands. A few words on these lakes: On a map Lac Iriki appears as a regular lake, stretching as an extension of the river Draa to the Southeast between Anti Atlas and Algerian border (or, according to google maps as a pond to the north of the actual lake). It is actually a seasonal lake that is dry for most of the year and, rather than a lake, an area of wetlands following floods. When carrying water, flamingos can be seen here.

One can theoretically follow the Draa to the very south, close to Western Sahara but we decided to leave the plains towards the mountains near Tissint, where we would hit tarmac again and continue for Foum Zguid and eventually Ouarzazate. For those who want to go on, I would carry spare petrol, enough water (10l per day per head) and food for a few more nights of wild camping. As said, I haven't been further south as a month wasn't enough to see it all, but on a map the area that followed further down the Draa seemed very remote indeed. So one should probably be prepared for that. Also bear in mind that Western Sahara gets close and there is no distinct border to Morocco. Whilst, for all I know, this is still safe territory and the Polisario won't just be roaming around outside the so called "Free Zone" (eastern of the Moroccan wall, so you won't accidentally cross it), it is still close to an international conflict area and some care should be taken. Needless to say: don't get lost in the desert!


Dromedaries on the plains of Lac Iriki

Leaving the plains one rides across more Hamada - for miles and miles! This is really a stretch of piste that brings shocks to a test. Leaving the piste, for the first time, I had to go through a police checkpoint, where I would hand out one of my fiches - a prepared sheet of paper summarising passport and visa info and from where to where I was going. The officers usually like that and it speeds things up a bit. But you could handover your passport as well - Moroccan police is generally not a hassle and uncorrupt (if you aren't a journalist, or they think you are - think Western Sahara and big time camera equipment!). I actually forgot to to copy my visa number, but nobody seemed to mind - let's face it: They are after dodgy fellows, illegally crossing the desert from Algeria and not the odd tourist passing through.

In Foum Zguid we gassed up and topped up our water reserves - this is why I recommend 10l/ day/ person. We had loads of water and topped up in between, but when we arrived in Foum Zguid we were out of bottled water and were already drinking from reserves we got at the desert auberge. Well, and some, let's say, would've liked to drink that water with a bit of Immodium. From Foum Zguid we went on through the beautiful, beautiful (!) Anti Atlas to Tazenakht, where we had some lunch. Apparently, people there weren't to keen on strangers, so we pretended I was a tourist guide and decided not to stay overnight but rather move on to Ouarzazate, where we should go separate ways.

Ouarzazatte is famous for its film industry (among others The Mummy was filmed here), but I was too tired to do much sight seeing and mainly stayed at the Hotel to relax and enjoy the AC - after all it was close to 40° C.