Day 8 - Fez to Merzouga

In our continued quest for structured and carefully pre-planned travel, it was decided last night by us and the Swedes that today we would travel south across the country to the Western Sahara, or more accurately to Merzouga. To avoid what would be a hellishly circuitous bus trip we pooled our resources and hired a grande taxi to take us there.

At this point I should explain that Moroccan roads play host to two types of taxis. There is the petit taxis, for the most part small hatchbacks, that play the traditional taxi role, transporting people around the larger cities. However there are also the grande taxis, which ply the intercity routes. The grande taxi fleet is largely made up of old Mercedes sedans that Europe presumably has decided are no longer road worthy These usually carry six passengers in addition to the driver.

Roadside repairs (Photo: Faber)

Anyway, our friendly hotel guide/conman/rogue was able to acquire us the services of a grande taxi and its driver. We were to spend most of the rest of the day encased with this gentleman in his hurtling metal coffin of death. Most grande taxi drivers have well-earned reputations for driving recklessly, but I think our driver overtook several of them on our way south. The car's speedometer didn't work, though after some contemplation I decided that this was probably for the best, and seat belts weren't so much optional as non-existent.

Waiting to cross the Middle Atlas (Photo: Faber)

Concerns about a violent and bloody death aside, the trip south was amazing. The scenery was absolutely astounding, not to mention varied. We were held up for some time prior to crossing the Middle Atlas. The passes had been snowed in and we had to wait for snow ploughs to arrive before travelling in convoy through the mountains. We then descended the other side into sweeping plains, dominated on the horizon by the Atlas Mountains.

Convoy delayed in mountains (Photo: Faber)

Unfortunately the grandeur of the scenery was not matched by the soundtrack. The driver appeared to have only one 20 minute tape of Arabic music, which was on high rotation for the many hours of our journey. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with Arabic music, but listening to the same few songs for hours on end was almost enough to induce psychosis. Communication with the driver was limited, as none of us shared a language in common.

Scenery en route (Photo: Faber)

As darkness fell we arrived at Rissani, the last town before our destination. We had by this time swapped our clapped out taxi for a vehicle better suited to the coming terrain - a surprisingly new 4WD. After an unfortunate, though not entirely unexpected, detour into a carpet shop we plunged on into the desert.

After some time bouncing around through the dunes - acutely aware of how isolated we were, which is a fantastic thought this close to the Algerian border - we arrived at our auberge, a hotel built out of mud brick in the kasbah style. By this time it was nigh on impossible to tell were we were. The flickering light from the auberge did not penetrate far into the surrounding desert, but after a day spent cooped up in a taxi the hotel was a welcome sight. Tossing our bags into our room we made a bee line for the food. After several days in Morocco we finally got to eat what appeared to be a real tangine - that is to say one that had been cooked in a tangine rather than just served in one.

As we turned into bed and the generator was turned off a whole new level of darkness and quiet settled over everything.