From Desert to Gorges

Our guide Ali told us that every 60-70km the landscape in Morocco changes. It is pretty incredible what we see in a day!

We were up early to catch the sunrise. Because of course you MUST see the sunrise when you are in the Sahara.

Even though it is freezing cold.

But then the sun comes out and it is warm again.

We headed back by camel. I bundled up and by the time we were back at the pickup spot, I was warm again!

I had a crazy camel this time. Sam was in front of me and my camel seemed to really want Sam’s bag – or his butt. Gotta love my face, lol:

It was funny – and a little scary at first. I think I’d be good at a rodeo as my camel acted like a bull and I had to hang on!

Although camels are not the most comfortable, it was a great experience. Brace yourself for many camel photos:

And we said good bye to our new friends:

We had a full day of driving – but stopped in lots of different spots.

We stopped at a fossil workshop (where our guide used to work in the mines).

We saw a Ksar (like a village where many families live in one large a castle looking building).

We headed to the Tinghir and the Toudgha gorges.

We had a really good lunch.

We had a good laugh too because they day before our lunch was terrible – and we told our guide – “We even had to go buy more bread” (our server just wouldn’t pay attention to us so we went and purchased things even though our meal was included!). So not at lunch – we heard them say “Make sure these people always have bread!!” (And every meal since we’ve had ample bread, lol, it’s become a funny joke now).

We had another local guide take us on a hike through the Toudgha gorge. We probably could have done it ourselves, but then would have missed out on the back paths he took us.

He also took us to another home where the Berbers were making carpet… we were welcome (and they prepared tea that Josh had to serve) until we said we weren’t going to buy a carpet then they politely and swiftly wished us a good day and sent us on our merry way!

We finally arrived at our hotel in the Dades Gorge, “Auberge St Pierre”. It was absolutely beautiful. Our fave so far. We wished we were staying longer! The kids had their own little apartment – it was so cute!