Not far out of Figuig we left the road and struck north along a piste that runs past a reservoir. This was another route from Chris Scott’s book. We liked that we could avoid driving along the same road that we had arrived on. We also like that we could avoid driving on a road at all. The track was mostly very easy, just a few places where it had been washed out. About an hour in there was a military checkpoint. We had acquired a hitchhiker by then. This is still a very common practise in Morocco. Our hitchhiker chatted with the officer. No idea what got discussed but it seemed to work and after a couple of minutes, we were waved on.
The track went around the dam and then back past the reservoir. Nothing much grows around here. It is all just harsh desert, rock and sand. Seemed a little incongruous to see a patch a blue water. Oddly, to me, nothing much was growing even where there was water.
Shortly after passing a small nomad camp, we reached a sealed road. Progress was good. We turned right towards the desert village of Iche and then arrived there while we were still pondering where we could camp. Immediately we were greeted by a man who introduced himself as Mohamed the guide. He invited us to park right at the entrance to the village. Iche, population 200, is right on the border with Algeria. Tourists are not allows to walk around unaccompanied. We were confined to our truck for the night.
Hitchhiker 
We are a long way from Torside Reservoir 
Nomads 
Palms at Iche 
Parking 
Algerian observation post
Next morning Mohamed reappeared and talked about guiding us round the village. He proudly showed me a section of a German guidebook that mentioned his name. Seems to me that most men in Morocco get named Mohamed but I smiled and nodded anyhow. The tour took about three hours. We wandered through a small valley with palms and a variety of crops. We looked at the old village, the new village, a little museum and the Algerian observation posts. We got special permission to walk a short way out of the village to see some petroglyphs that Mohamed assured me were 4,000 years old. I was left with an overwhelming impression of what a strange place Iche was to live in. Being in a corner by the border makes travel in most directions impossible. Walk a hundred metres in the wrong way from your front door and a solder will be waving a gun at you. As far as the villagers are concerned, the whole world exists in a sector 45° either side of a line going west from the village centre. Everywhere else is out of bounds.
Looks like a rock but actually a plant unique to the area 
Special permission 
Petroglyphs 
Old Iche 
Museum 
The traditional languages in Morocco are Arabic and Berber. French rule in Morocco began in 1907 and lasted until independence in 1956. During this time, the French made many maps and renamed many places by means of transliteration. Transliteration is to do with how a word sounds, unlike translation which is to do with the meaning of a word. Places were given a name that sounded, in French, like the Arabic name. Because the sounds of the languages are so different, some places have acquired several alternate spellings. In the case of the little village of Iche the trailing ‘e’ is sometimes scratched off to make Ich.