Gorges du Todra

Today we walked the four miles or so up to Todra Gorge. It was a lovely blue sky morning when we set off although a little chilly in the wind out of the sun. We stopped for breakfast, somewhat inevitably, and the rest of the gang scored it a seven. I gave it a zero. No cheese, marmalade instead of apricot jam and mint tea instead of a nice Moroccan cuppa. Hey ho. We arrived at the gorge and the many tourist stalls just ahead of the coach parties and 4WD excursion groups. It's certainly an impressive geological feature but I thought it narrowed to a couple of feet, which it doesn't. I must be getting my gorges mixed up. I think the narrower one is at Dades where we were a couple of days ago, confined to our Motorhomes due to a sandstorm. I took some photos but they don't really do the place justice, the red sandstone cliffs tower above you on either side while a shallow river bubbles through which I expect would be quite wide and deep at another time of the year.

Todra Gorge:

 

It became much warmer as we started our walk back, the wind had dropped and we were in full sunshine all the way back. Boy, was I ready for that cold can of Flag, even at £1.50 a pop and we certainly enjoyed our lunch of salad and the last of our cold meats. Just in case you don't think I deserved my cold beer these are the kind of temperatures we are having to endure in Tinghir at the moment and it looks like it's getting warmer!

Tomorrow we are setting of to Chez Pauline, described in the guide as an "organic oasis/African art gallery/farmyard petting zoo/gourmet retreat". Something for everybody in our party then. It's less than an hour away and we are hoping to stop there a day or so before pushing on to Azrou via Ar-Rachida and Midelt. The latter two places are just stopping off points for us but we'll be looking out for the Barbary Apes as we approach Azrou through the forest. But before any of that I have to attempt to follow Arsenal (2) Bayern Munich (1) on a very, very poor internet connection. There's a German van on the site here with a tv dish and I'm tempted to pop over and introduce myself with a couple of cans of Flag but I'm sure it will end badly.

 

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