Sud-ouest du Maroc
07/02/2023
I flew into Agadir the day before for a one-week offroad tour with my father. He picked me up at Al Massira Airport.and we made our way southbound to stay at “La Dune“, a campsite in Sidi R’bat for the night. The 80 km drive took us about an hour and a half and by the time we arrived it was already dark.
The morning of 7 February we had some breakfast and coffee for a good start into the day.
We then packed everything up and made our way to the nearby beach Plage Sidi R’Bat for the first pictures of the day. As you can see, there was a storm building up over the ocean in the distance.
When leaving the beach it started to rain for a while, but that did not stop us from covering the long distance of 300 kilometres to Tan Tan. While it does not sound that far, with an offroad vehicle and across winding mountain roads it took over 4,5 hours.
Tan Tan is the southmost Moroccan city before the Western Sahara and was our last chance to stop for gas before entering the rock desert near Pont Oued Drâa for the start of our offroading adventure. After filling up our tanks it was time to go off grid and enter the rock desert in western Morocco.
It was not long until we had left the realms of civilisation and were driving through almost entirely untouched nature. “Almost untouched”, because we came by some ruins of a former palace. It was located on top of a hill and offered a wonderful view of the surrounding areas.
It was not long until the terrain got a little more challenging. It is a basic rule of offroading that tire pressure needs to be adjusted to ground conditions for a better drive: roads need high pressure for stable rotation of the wheels, rocky grounds call for rather medium pressure, and sand demands low pressure to ensure the car ‘floats’ over the dunes and does not get stuck.
After adjusting our tires accordingly, we had fun driving through the dunes for a while. It was not long before our Spanish friend Pepe got his car stuck in a dune. Off course we were able to pull him out without too much hassle.
We continued westward and came by a herd of camels accompanied by a sole herder on top of a hill. He stood out impressively against the dramatic sky.
A brief while later we set up our camp in between some hills and noticed the herd come by our location. Of course, I quickly grabbed my camera and took a picture towards the setting sun. What a scene!
With temperatures decreasing, we made a campfire from some dead wood and had drinks around it. We then went to bed in our rooftop tent and slept in the silence of the night.
Our track
The yellow line demarcates our track from the campsite in Sidi R’bat in the north all the way down to Tan Tan for gas. We had a quick lunch stop in Guelmim (middle of the track). As you may be able to tell, most of the track followed a road for hundreds of kilometres before entering the rock desert towards the ocean at the bottom.
A bientôt!