Colorful rocks

In order to find some coolness in the mountains, we moved to the town of Tafraout at 1100m. Upon entering this small, manageable city, our external thermometer still showed a whole 38 degrees. Since everyone strictly observes the commandments of Ramadan even in the mountains, we also didn't find any open restaurants serving drinks here. Only in the old venerable Hotel 'Les Amandiers', on the hill overlooking the city and the pink rock landscape, were there cool drinks. We immediately booked a cool room at this hotel, because camping without shade at 38 degrees is not very pleasant. Since there were no other guests, we got the double room including breakfast for Fr. 37.-

The town and the special rock formations fascinated us so much that we stayed for 2 nights. A longer trip took us to the colorful rocks, painted by Belgian painter Jean Vérame in 1984 and now refreshed with paint by locals every two years. The further course of the track led us into the wonderful gorge of Ait Mansour. Walking around between the shade-giving palm trees and the small river was already a romantic paradise for us. Cool 26 degrees and we even found a small restaurant where we got a good coffee. On the way back, the path took us through the almost parallel gorge of Oued Tamanart. The whole thing was an exciting trip into two wonderfully cooling gorges on a very winding route.

The next day we moved to Tiznit because we urgently needed 'Ad Blue' for our diesel engine. This additive is still unknown at many gas stations in Morocco. In Tiznit there was also a very lively market with magnificent vegetables and chickens in somewhat tight cages or roosters tied to a leg, waiting for buyers. The nearby Atlantic was already noticeable in this city, the temperature reduced to 36 degrees during the day and to 18 degrees at night. We used the sleeping bag in the tent again after a long time.

Our journey continued 'off-road' from Aglou along the Atlantic coast towards Sidi Rabat and Agadir. Since there had probably been a lot of wind along the coast days before, the track was completely filled with sand. We drove almost 70km in deep sand with slightly lower tire pressure: up, down, back and forth, sometimes getting out and enjoying the dunes with spray from the Atlantic in our face, then carefully searching for the track again. Despite the dreamlike dunes and beaches, it was not a place to swim: huge waves, strong currents!