Boudenib

Like many other people, we are locked down. However, a few weeks ago, before Morocco imposed a lock down, we were still wandering around the desert north of Boudenib.

After our last big off-road trip, I was becoming concerned about the state of our tyres. The spare has a repaired sidewall puncture and is mostly of use as a psychological comfort. The other tyres are looking very battered. They are covered in small cuts and have several chunks missing. The main tread is nearly worn down to the first shoulder. Still safe and legal but really starting to look like they have done several thousand kilometres of rough tracks. The tricky bit is that we will need to get back to Europe before we can replace them. Ideally, we need to get back to Germany. Potentially they have another 10,000 km to do. We decided we should to stay on the tarmac. Well mostly. Finding some nice parking places required a little bit of wandering but other than that we tried to make life a little easier on the tyres. They have done great service and although they deserve a rest, we still need them to hold on a little bit longer.

The roads were empty. All the tourists had gone home. The motorhome tourers had mostly gone home. There were never very many locals. We just about had the place to ourselves. The map showed a scenic road leading south to the main N10. The valley was indeed quite pretty. A river with water in it is actually quite unusual in these parts. There were palms and grazing goats, mountain views and pleasant vistas.  The road was scenic but it was also wide, rough and dusty. As if many trucks had driven along it recently. The reason presented itself when we rounded a corner and spotted the dam in the final stages of construction. The scenic valley is about to become a scenic reservoir. Before travelling, we lived by a reservoir and still consider ourselves reservoir people. We appreciate a good dam and this one is going to be particularly good. Very steep and high. Reminiscent of some of the alpine dams. Going to trap a lot of water as well. Taking a rough sight line around the valley, I reckoned the reservoir could easily be 10km long.

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Emerging onto the N10 we drove towards Boudenib but were lured off the road just short of the town. There is a sort of shortcut down to Erfoud from here. It is not really a shortcut because although the route may be a shorter distance than the road, it takes a lot longer. We needed somewhere to camp so thought we might drive down it a short way. Before long, we were out in the open desert. Found a lovely place to camp and in the morning carried on. We promised the tyres that this was definitely going to be the last bit of off-roading.

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Next day we found a souvenir shop. Sort of. There was a table carefully laid out with souvenirs for tourists. Fossils, carvings, bracelets and other trinkets. A sign indicated the price of each item and there was a purse to leave money in. That was it. No building, no people, nothing more at all. We were in the middle of nowhere. We had driven along deserted tracks for hours. There really was nobody for miles around. Just this little shop on a table. It was actually quite nice to be able to browse without the usual sales person hovering around. I bought a trilobite. Later, using Google, I discovered they were selling on eBay for slightly more than I paid for it. I got a bargain. After leaving, we drove on for several more hours before seeing a shepherd tending his animals. He waved at us cheerfully. Maybe it was his shop. I have no idea.

In the late afternoon, we found a well but it was far too deep to draw water from. The submersible pump has about 30m of rope. This well was much, much deeper. It was deep enough to be quite scary. I spent quite a time peering into the darkness and dangling sticks on ropes. Meanwhile, Diane was already committed to doing the washing so we stayed put and I set up a clothesline.

The following lunchtime we eventually made to the end of the shortcut. We had successfully turned a two-hour drive into a two-night trip. This was in part because we stopped for ten minutes to watch a herd of camels. The camel man offered us some camel milk. This held no appeal to us at so we politely declined. In the evening, we arrived at a place called Meski. Here we found a very scenic place to camp overlooking palmeries at the river Ziz.

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