Morocco 4x4 overland tour, day 10 rest and beer after a difficult day

Day 10, was a day for all of us to calm down after a very busy day mucking about in dunes.

Firstly I'm sorry to keep you waiting for Day 10, I have been very busy at work and did not find time to update my blogg, boo hoo I hear.

Anyway, as discussed in the last blogg, after our desert adventure and a mad dash in the middle of the night to find somewhere to stay we ended up in a small Dar at Tamegroute, the Dar's name was Jnane.  It was quite a checking procedure because the owner was expecting a large family and all of us lot turned up covered in sand and probably looking like we had rolled about in the sand.


It took the owner about an hour to sort our rooms out before we all sloped of to bed for a well earned shower and some needed rest.  Some of us were a little grumpy after spending the whole day what seemed like travelling around in circles so we decided not to travel the following morning.  What we did find out was a library next to the hotel and an underground town.  So we decided to get a guide and go there in the morning.

I took some pictures of the dar in the morning.

The dar food area.

A tent, if you fancy sleeping out in the open.

The gardens

The library the 'khizana habsia' of Tamegroute, with its thousands of manuscripts was one of the richest of North Africa. Some fine examples of the collection of manuscripts (now 4200) are still on display in the zawiya today and attract many tourists from Morocco and abroad. Among them are a 14th-century Quran. I nicked the above from Wikipedia.

The library entrance

Our guide showing Rachel how to use the knockers

Rachel banging the knockers

Walking away from the Library, our guide in the background

Dog tired

Anyway, in the morning we meet our guide and set off around the town for a three hour tour of the library and also the pottery's and a walk within the town.  Now I'm not one for a guided tour, but this was a great relief from the previous days efforts and we all enjoyed it.

Mr Guide

Part of Tamegroute village

Even darker underground

Yay a break in the gloom, Rachel posing

Blimey this goes on for a while

A couple of locals going about their daily stuff

Typical pottery shop

Random trailer and window

Pots baking in the sun

Potters working with local clay

Potter making tagine pots

Even more pots

The tour of the local pottery was fun, Sid had fun on the pottery wheel, for a while he looked like Douglas Bader and they even had some gas powered ovens made by Germans.  We did get to look at some of the finished products and the go to a local shop, via the underground town, all good yay!

Sid making a large brown penis, with a child watching?

That's better, no penis to be seen now

Semi dry pots

German gas powered oven, which the locals cannot pay to run

The finished product

More finished product

Local street sign

Shakey Stevens lives here

Hmm, help get me out of here!

The Garsides did not come on the tour because the 90 now had two flats in need of repair so they spent their time fixing tyres etc whilst we were bogging at people making pots and also walking about.

Changing the front tyre, Morocco style

Ken lending a hand

Hmmmm P38 missing its bull bars

We ended up at the end of the tour going into a shop for a no pressure selling session from one of the locals.

Ken looking very thoughtfull

Moroccan stuff

Adam dressing up like a blue local

I personally did not end up buying anything, but some of us did.  It was a good morning and we really did forget the previous days efforts.


At about lunch time we decided to go onto towards Tata and headed out of Tamegroute with Sid short of his onesie.


The journey towards Tata on the N12 was a mix of no-road, un paved road, pave road, and road with men working on the road, in the road.  What a laugh, also the odd camel was knocking about.  I have never driven around a roadworks before, but I have now.  We did have one or two moments when the rest of the chaps were a long was behind, but this was fair enough as we were chucking up some dust for a while.  I'm sure the N12 will be fab in a few years.


We ended in Foum-Zguid, well just short in a campsite/hotel called Bab Rimal, we just pulled in asked if we could camp in the car park, we then proceeded to have a beer of ten.  At this point you really need to know that buying ten small beers in Morocco is like buying two bottles of good scotch in the UK, it is expensive.  Oh well we were on holiday, we needed a break and this worked well after the mornings activities.

Pool at night

Pool vista

Wonderful start to a sunset

So the night ended up with some of us a little tipsy, but everyone enjoyed it, even the mad ones who went for a swim.

Morocco 4x4 overland tour, day 9 we got lost a bit

Lost in Lake Iriki

Ok so remember the previous day was amazing, we camped out in the desert after having a fantastic fun day.

The route we had planned was to go west from where we were (I must get the sat nav coordinates) to an Oasis Source Sacree Abd-Er-Rahmane at and the cross Iriki north and end up in Foum Zguid.

The day started well, there we no or few tracks and I think because of the problems James had earlier with the 90 he got a squeak and decided to check it out, Mike and Jerry took the opportunity to get a Tiffin in.  I drove off for a quick comfort break, this time without camels.

Look a camel!

We drove west to the Oasis and got there well before midday, Rachel and Jerry went and bought camels made from recycled stuff.  Rachel tried out here new car and we then decided to head out North West to Forum Zguid.

The local Camel selling place

Sid admiring camels

James managed to get a puncture.

Puncture no 1

I do not think much of the car Rachel bought.

Nice series 2

Ok, I have to admit probably should not have turned left into a dry river bed and kept heading north towards the mountain tracks.  However I did and we ended up at a crossroad in the river bed and Ken said go right which we did.  About 2 a miles later I was stuck in the dunes, James got a puncture and Adam/Sid were stuck in the P38 about 1/2 mile behind.

The river bed crossing here were quite dull unlike the ones we found a day later.

After some faffing I got out thanks to James and then parked waiting for the others, I walked back to see where the P38 was, James popped along and towed them out as well. At the point I think we realised James 90's ratios had been further lowered making it pull like a hell.

I remember at one point saying something the the CB like "oh gosh sir that was bad luck it seems the sand got to me a little and I'm not at all happy".  With all of us together again I went for a walk to see what was about and try to see if we could get to out to the track.   I saw a grouping if three trees nead some rock, but I didn't think we would make it, I believe we ended up about, 29°52'50.3"N 6°07'14.6"W

Look it up you will see the track we were aiming for just north.

We decided it was best to re-trace our tracks and go back to where we turned the wrong way.  At this point the weather got windy and there was obviously a sand storm coming in.

So we set off, tracing my way back I got stuck again, as did the P38.  I waited to be rescued, I did not know that James was pulling out the P38 and also pulled the bull bars off of it.  If this was not bad enough my car was sinking a little more so I dug it out and waited for Ken to come to the rescue. 

Anyway, after much snatching and pulling we did eventually managed to get out of the sand and end up on some rocky outcrop, which as it turns out was not where we thought we had entered the lake bed.  The tracks we had made were gone and I guess we were lucky to know the rough way we were going, well not really we still had the GPS.  Anyway, on foot we found out where we should go, we re-inflated out tyres and headed all the way back to the Oasis.  OK that was bad, back to where we started hours earlier but this time in a sand storm.

So, what next, a quick team chat and we decided to try to get to back to Mhamid, things must have been bad Mike and Jerry did not have a meal.  So off we set; however, setting off the storm just got worse and worse and worse, you get the picture right.

We have two landies

Err where's Mike?

Grr sand everywhere

With the P38 getting hot and James having lost some tools when his back door came open after we hit one of the now common dips Rachel and I took the lead again after.  I had calmed down and we picked our way around the dune fields past where we had camped the night before back towards the main road and back to town for a hotel, camping would have been nasty with the wind.  Ken also lost a loo roll, I have no idea how but it did cause some merriment in a long and quite frankly stressful at times.

We were in a sand storm, at night, with my buggered headlamps, moving fast trying to get out of the desert.

Eventually we got to the main road, but the visibility was that bad we could not see the tarmac when we were only 20 meters from it.

Just before we got to the road Ken pulled up and said "What a fantastic drive, I have not thought about my house all day", err err.  Ken loved the more extreeme stuff.

It was 10pm by then we needed to sleep so we set out for a hotel.  We found the Sahara Sky hotel who promptly pissed everyone off with some absolutely stupid suggested charges for the rooms, and also trying to cram us all into as few a rooms as possible.  It was only when we walked out that the manager came running out and tried to give us a better rate.  This is considering they could not serve us food.  We probably would have spend £600 in the bar that night is we had stayed, but it was thier loss.  Anyway, well and truly pissed off we went back to a Dar at Tamegroute.

They had rooms.  On entering reception the owner said "good you here after your call earlier", I said "yup" everyone else said "No", I guess I wanted a room and a shower more than eveyone else.  She did accomodate us and we all got rooms and a show, blimey the amount of sand which fell off me was unreal.  There was the usual confusion over who was staying with whom but when this was sorted out we all had a shower and got together for the evening meal.  Sid was not happy at this point and we all agreed to have a sleep after a meal and work out what we would do tomorrow, however we decided the rest of the trip would not involve F'ing SAND!!!!

The next morning the owner of the hotel had arranged a guide for us to look around the town, apparently it had the best ancient Arab library in the world and also a underground village.  I'll cover this in my next post.

Oh and my little camera packed up!

Morocco 4x4 overland tour, day 8 or 9

The most amazing dunes and fun

Our overland Tour to Morocco was getting even better now, fun fun, fun. We set out from Tagouite to travel to some dunes the north of Mhamid and have an early night after the previous days efforts. However, before we move onto the day itself I would like to say I was in need of a poop that morning.

Now a lot of people talk about having a poo when wild camping, but no one seems to put any real practical advice on the subject together on the Internet other than dig a hole poop in it and then burn your paper.  Can you imagine the smell. I therefore think its time for this to change.  I will say I respect the notion of digging a hole to poop into and burying your poop for it to degrade. All seems ok. Some people wait for days till the next good place to go, some just headed off when needed and came back relieved.

The problem I have with a wild camping poop is my knees dislocate easily.  So the thought of squatting over a hole only to find my right knee cap pops and I end up in the hole with what ever I have deposited there earlier does not appeal to me.  So I decided I needed a plan.  The plan I devised which was to drive Larry into the desert for a mile or so, dig a hole and then sit at the edge of my rock sliders and have a poop whilst reading the service manual between two open doors. Rock slider ha ha, how appropriate a name that is.

Anyway I was confident that unless someone was coming directly at me head on then there was no chance of anyone seeing what I was up to, so I could relax.  So there I was two doors open, shorts down reading a service manual for the car, then....

Have you seen Lawrence of Arabia, I have three times and the opening sequence  was re-enacted when I was having a crap, I saw it all unfold before my eyes.  As I said earlier, the locals pop up everywhere, even when you are doing personal stuff.  I did not expect to see one on a camel coming towards me when I had some rope hanging out.  I wondered if he would sho

Now this left me in a predicament, should I pinch it off and have a quick wipe, burn the paper, bury the poop and go; or tell the chap to go away rope hanging out and all and finish what I was doing?

Fortunately all the other guys got stuck on dunes at that exact moment in time and I was called on the CB to help so I took the 1st option above.  I got back to the group only to find out they had all go out of trouble.  So off I went again into the dunes for a 2nd attempt at said poop, which by then had lost its romance.

Can I give any advice here on wild camping toilet movements, nope.

Anyway back to the day, we drove to the north of a dune field and setup camp in the 44c temperatures, I got my tarp out for us to shelter under.  We decided to wait till it was cooler to start playing about in the sand.  This meant setting up a tarp for us to shelter under.

Need a little help here!

Andy and Mike took the opportunity to have a snooze.

Andy snoozing

Mike snoozing

Then we started to practise our Dune driving.

We all settled down for a while, except Ken who insisted in parking his 110 on a Dune and get it stuck, typical.

Ken parked

R watching everyone

Nice springs

Getting ready to be towed

Opps buried properly

Yay I'm out

Boo 90 stuck

P38 getting air!

The rush hour

Anyway, we had an awful lot of fun, everyone was playing in the sand and when night came along I gave a brief astronomy lesson.  Sid and Adam retired to the cocktail lounge and Mike, Rachel and I slept out under the stars, not together though.

Oh Range Rover dining and tiffins

I really can't say to much about this day other that it was fantastic, everyone was on a high, we all had a good play, Mike and Jerry had extra fruit during the evening three course meal, I believe it was peaches.  Sid and Adam had cocktails and even let us have some, we managed to blag some wine as well.  Even James was back to his normal self, big smiles.  I think the photo below sums up the area we were in nicely.

James and the Dunes

Oh how the next day was to change it all.