For four weeks, we have been in lock down. But, five weeks ago we were camped near the river Ziz before driving north again into the High Atlas. This area has many gorges and rocky mountains. Todra is possibly the most famous gorge certainly the most visited by tourists. However, there are many others. Perhaps not quite as steep and dramatic as Todra but still very steep, dramatic. Also more remote, quieter and less commercialised. We took the road north from Goulmima up a fascinating gorge. Next day we emerged high up in the mountains where we could spot that we were close to a village by the amount of rubbish laying around.
Ubiquitous rubbish 
Companies that sell bottled water do not make water; their business is mostly about manufacturing plastic bottles. 480 billion plastic bottles were made in 2016. Less than half will ever be recycled and many of them will end up littering the countryside and waterways. It takes 450 years for each of them to decompose. Baloo has a filter system to produce drinking water. This works very well. We rarely buy bottled water and this helps reduce the amount of rubbish we create. We also save our vegetable peelings to feed the goat and take our own bags when we go shopping. Getting rid of rubbish can be a problem. Very often in the towns and cities, we can leave our rubbish in a bin. Unfortunately, this is not necessarily a great solution. Outside every settlement are rubbish dumps. Typically, these are simply an area, by the road, where rubbish is dumped. These places are smelly and attract flies. Often there are dead domestic animals left to rot down. Usually there will be piles of smouldering plastic emitting choking fumes. Camping, or even stopping, anywhere near these garbage heaps is a really, really bad idea. Morocco banned single use plastic bags in 2016. A move that was not as successful as you might hope. None the less, it has helped. Disposable nappies are a major issue. Great piles of stinking and fly infested diapers right next to the road. A single heap of festering disposables convert any pleasant lunch stop into somewhere best avoided. I imagine part of the problem is a general lack of waste collection and disposal facilities. There is also a bit of a cultural issue in that it appears to be quite acceptable to leave rubbish anywhere. The popular and scenic beaches are littered with broken glass, empty tins and yet more nappies. Even the remote camps far out in the desert still have their fair share of rubbish.
We camped a good way from the village and next day took the bike down Todra gorge. I was not too sure how Baloo would fair in the gorge so the bike seemed the safer, quicker and most fun option. As it turned out the gorge is easily passable by trucks much larger than Baloo. The pandemic was properly starting to kick in by now and all but a handful of tourists had long gone. We pretty much had the place to ourselves. This was a bit weird because I know that more usually the place is a heaving mass of tourists, guides, vehicles, sellers, makeshift stalls and bogus parking attendants. We did enjoy the peace and quiet.
Back to the truck and then we started making our way north. We had no idea what was going to happen over the next few weeks so we figured our next move would be to head to Fez to stock up at the big supermarket there.