RSF - The Off Road Cycling Club

The Adventure Starts Here

Morocco - Tamtattoucht? No Problem!

by Ivan Viehoff

 

snow on the High Atlas near MsemrirMost people just come part way up the Gorge du Dadès, passing the "monkey rocks" and other formations to the famous zigzags (so memorably photographed by Tracey Maund, see RSJ Vol 46, No 4). Children tried to sell us little toys folded from palm leaves, of suspiciously uniform construction. We enjoyed this, and carried on further up, until we found a quiet spot for lunch. Then around the corner came a gaggle of women. At least they aren’t children we thought, and we didn't realise the danger until they got to us. Then the begging began, and they just wouldn't take "no" for an answer.

Being engaged in heavy physical work we had no intention of sharing our meagre lunch with well-fed passers-by. But they had insufficient French to understand our request for civility. Whilst one was clearly embarrassed by the whole affair, others were laughing at our discomfort. We were forced to stop eating and pack up, not so easy with a half-eaten tin of sardines. It is one of those all too frequent incidents that makes travelling in Morocco, otherwise an extraordinary destination, so utterly infuriating.

The upper parts of the gorge are on a grander scale, and being much less touristed the local population was more friendly. Beyond the gorge, at Msemrir, where the paved road ends, there were a few faint snowflakes blowing around from an angry cloud hanging over the Mgoun massif to the west. The river valley was full of red and yellow dogwood stems, and bluish stems of fig trees, all in their bare winter splendour. A building temptingly advertised itself as a pâtisserie, but, by Moroccan custom, was only a small grocer. At least he had biscuits. We found a decent cheap hotel to stay and eat tagine for dinner. Visiting the village's still inhabited citadel, the children pestering us to offer guide services were not so unpleasantly persistent as elsewhere, and accepted our teasing with humour.

From here we could have continued north through the Atlas to Imilchil and beyond. But this New Year's Eve we had selected the other route, the rough, high pass over to the Todghra gorge, more usually accessed from Tinerhir to the south. Tracey hadn't been this way, but she lent us a large scale map of the pass she had collected – just a tracing of the shape of the road. The hotelier advised us of the correct way out of the village, and confirmed the information that we needed to turn right at the spring in about 2 or 3km, which should be obvious. He warned us not to take a right turn before the spring, as it went nowhere and we would waste a lot of time discovering this.

There was a market in Msemrir that morning, and he told us a truck would be coming over the pass in the afternoon taking people home, so we could be sure of getting through if the pass was too hard. After a quick look at the market, we set off early and were soon at the spring without spotting any obvious earlier right turn. We could see a signpost for the main road to Imilchil bending to the left, and there was clear right turn on a good track up a wide flat valley, though without any signpost.

After a little while, the flat area closed in, and it became an unclear maze of tracks, becoming rather faint. But after some scouting around we found a promising-looking track the other side of a knoll, cut into the hillside leading down into a concealed valley, then fording a stream and climbing steeply up the opposite hillside – a hard push.

Morocco: on the 'wrong' road from MsemrirI became suspicious when I could see the village down to the right, as this was not consistent with the shape of the road on the map. But after a while it started zigzagging and we could see a track high in the far distance to the left, which would be the right direction. The corners of the zigzags had nicely constructed retaining walls and we were making good progress and climbing rapidly. After we had gained about 600m altitude by the sweat of our brow, the track petered out. Completely.

Some distance ahead the way was blocked by a canyon no road had ever crossed, and the road we could see in the distance was clearly not attained this way. Why would anyone build such a track to nowhere, and build it so nicely? Reluctant to believe we had made exactly the mistake we had been warned about, we headed back down the hill. I found a shepherd boy who confirmed our error had been at the main road, not the subsequent maze, and I gave him 5 dirhams in my joy at the knowledge.

Back at the spring, by riding on just a few yards it became clear that there was a third route at this junction, concealed behind a big rock, looking distinctly unpromising in its narrow and surprising muddiness. Then we spotted the "Tamtattoucht" signpost, quite obvious had we approached from the opposite direction.

As we rounded the rock, three barefoot shepherd boys jumped out and made a racket that had us collapsing with laughter. One played a one-string violin made of a stick and a tin, the second struck a box as if a drum, and the third had a plastic tube he blew into to little effect. If more begging children had such imagination the Morocco tourist experience would be so much less trying. We gave them some presents, and a fight broke out over who would have the Santa hat.

If anything, this road was rougher than the wrong one. We were worried at our wasted two hours of effort, but it was a beautiful, clear, almost windless day, and we thought the remaining seven hours of daylight should suffice for barely 50km. At first we rode over a closely cropped field to avoid the muddy track. And then we joined a dry stream valley, and spent much time dragging the bikes over loose stones, in places through shaded narrow defiles. The dry river occasionally split into tributary valleys, but the decisions were not hard.

crossing the passAs the day went on a few 4x4s with tourists overtook us, and we knew we were on the right track. Stuck in increasingly unspectacular barren little valleys we had practically no view, and despite the altitude and season the sun was baking. The final climb was up a small rounded valley with a stony floor, with the track barely visible on the ground. As is traditional on our desert trips, a long caravan of Italian-registered vehicles on a group 'expedition' overtook us.

And then we were at the top, and stood in awe at the view revealed. We were at over 2,600m (8,500ft), it was 31 December, and the temperature was 20ºc. What is this the map says about risk of being blocked by snow for six months of the year? Evidently not for very long. While we took photos, the market truck arrived, no use to us now. It was late afternoon and we shot down the zigzags on the other side as fast as we dared, elated by the glorious afternoon light in the broad valley. At first the road was good, but soon we were being shaken on riverine pebbles. In places the valley narrowed to gaps between cliffs, only to widen out to broader flats. There was water in this valley and encampments of begging nomads – women with tattooed faces – ran out the moment they spotted us in hope of dirhams.

We came out to a broad, flat, grassy area where the market truck only just ahead of us stopped for 5 o’clock prayers. This was, though one would hardly guess it, a road junction, and the truck was heading north-east to Ait Hani by a faint unmapped track with a rather sandy look to it. Fortunately our road east was still firm. We had perhaps 15 to 20km to complete and little more than an hour of light, which at current progress suggested we would arrive in the dark.

We climbed over a low ridge into another valley, and after a while began a gradual climb up a rocky scarp past caves, some housing nomads, the final pass of the day. This gave us an astonishing sunset view across a high desert plain to further cliffs and mountains beyond. This wide gap had to contain the main route north from Tamtattoucht to Ait Hani.

The top of the pass was a rock outcrop, and the track ran down over slabs of red rock with natural steps: public transport could not come this way. As we came off the outcrop, the track split into a maze, and touts on bicycles sprang out to accost us. "Hotel?" "Where you go?" "Tamtattoucht?" "No problem." They tried to keep up with us on their one-speed bikes. "Tamtattoucht? No problem!"

Piles of stones had been placed in the tracks to force the tourist 4x4s to stop, the better to extort hotel commissions. With bike control rather difficult on sandy, stony tracks, these obstacles were quite dangerous. The touts pointed us to free-style across the firmer ground directly towards the village, where we saw plenty of bicycles had gone before. We enjoyed dodging bushes, up and down into little gullies, increasingly dangerous in the fading light. The touts had some difficulty keeping up with us.

Todghra Valley, MoroccoIt always seemed Tamtattoucht ought to be in the next little gap, but we kept on riding, with the screams behind us, as the light failed. Tamtattoucht. No problem. And just as it was practically dark we came to the main road, surely paved just in the past few days, still with piles of loose gravel. We could see a couple of houses – the edge of Tamtattoucht? But we went on further than we guessed as gradually the unlit houses became more frequent, with screaming children jumping out to demand pens and dirhams as finally we attained the village centre. I bawled at some I nearly hit as they jumped right in front of me, as I skidded on the still loose gravel, and they ran off terrified.

We carried on to the end of the village where a couple of hotels lay towards the entrance to Todghra gorge. All the time the bicycle touts were with us, having now come perhaps 10km. Finally the lights of the expensive hotel, where they would get their pay-off, came into sight. But we stayed in the nice cheap one over the road, where they don’t pay commission to touts on bicycles. No problem.

Remarks:
An excellent library (in French) of rough routes in the Atlas can be found at http://fred.ferchaux.free.it/itmaroc.htm, but there are some inaccuracies. The warm, dry weather continued throughout our stay, which was probably very lucky for the time of year.