Todra gorge - Ait Ben Haddou

Remember I wondered who's next to have tummy problems? Well, it's actually all of us now with me being the worst case. A complete nightmare that I can't remember when it was the last time I had anything like this but I will spare you the disgusting details. Completely exhausted and dehydrated I got myself on the bike. We met some extremely wide roads on the way that looked to me as if they started an airport and then changed plans:

We often met this kind of walls in the middle of nowhere:

Heading west we made a detour to Dades gorge which is a well known must:

Really unique rock formations in that gorge:

The last half part of that route up to Ait Ben Haddou was the worst I've ever done as I was completely drained, unable to walk more than 10 meters in a row. Still wonder how I managed to arrive in one piece. After a good sleep now I am much better already.

Merzouga - Todra gorge

That was a fast ride via the N12 and the R113 crossing the desert. Nice rock formations on the way enrichen the desert route:

Just in case you forget where you are there's lots of flags to remind you:

Todra river offers to locals a chance to wash their clothes and carpets:

Todra gorge is quite scenic and impressive but we made it on Sunday which was too crowded with too many kids asking us to change them euros for dirhams all the time.

Take a closer look and you'll see the damage to the hotel (center) caused by a huge rock:

Desert

Second victim of Morocco's gastronomy from our group but not that serious again so no change in our plans. Probably a crappy  tea we got offered that I wisely didn't try. I start wondering who's next...

5:30 am we entered a Toyota Land Cruiser to watch the sunrise at the desert dunes. Before I continue commenting the experience I have to say that this car didn't miss a beat going up and down the dunes with 6 people in even on these tires:

My first time in the desert so as you can easily imagine I went speechless. I made it to the top of a dune hiking on this soft sand which of course worth the exhausting effort.

Enjoy:

Halfway up the dune:

My hair gives you an idea about how windy it was up there:

At the end this is how much sand you still have in your shoes after the 5th attempt to empty them:

Merzouga

We just had the first of the gang with stomach problems but fortunately nothing serious so we all ended up in Merzouga. The N13 crosses the desert and we made our first stop at the oasis Tafilalet. Really beautiful thing - I've never seen one in my life.

The top moment though was by far this:

I always wanted to picture a bike of mine at the Sahara and finally my v-strom was the lucky one to step its rubbers on that amazing landscape:

Fes - Errachidia

Here I am leaving my suite @ Fes having no idea what we would see ahead:

We took the R503 to make it to Midelt. The route was pleasantly fast and gave us a chance to picture some of those bare houses in the middle of nowhere:

As I was doing around 80 km/h on a straight when suddenly I saw gravel ahead. I said "Oh well...not the first time..." so continued like that but when my front tire stepped on it I realised it was a fresh deep layer of  3A gravel for tarmac ready to swallow me and my bike. The front started shaking like crazy, I was full of luggage and 20 lt of fuel with VERY strong wind coming from the right so imagine how it felt. Fortunately I managed to stop on the right before falling and jumped off the bike fast to warn the other guys (I was leading at this point).

We asked the guys working there and they told us that the nightmare is for the next 5 kms so we started again as no better option was open for us. Lots of trucks, gravel, crazy wind...terrible parenthesis.

We made it faster than expected to Midelt so we decided to spend in the overnight @ Errachidia instead. The route was getting more and more exotic and desertish so finally I got a taste of the real Moroccan landscape as the North looked often familiar to me (places like these can be found in Crete for example).

Here's my rear rim after  all that dirt:

No complains as right now we all chill by the pool: