Driving on our own through the desert – a good idea? We hoped, yes, when we left Merzouga. We had spent 2 nights around Erg Chebbi with a lovely sundowner on the dunes together with a fellow traveller.




Before we even had reached the end of the tar road, we were stopped by a local, who explained to us, that the usual route to cross the Oued Rheris near Ramlia through deep sand is not possible at the moment because of the rain from last September. He offered to take us to a different and easier crossing further north. As we had no actual information about the conditions near Ramlia, therefore we agreed to being guided just until we had this infamous riverbed behind us.

He was riding on his motorbike in front of us, guiding us north at Jdeïd, and then west through a broad valley where the locals were mining some minerals. The route was not straight forward, impossible to find if you don’t have the GPS track or a guide.

He needed a couple of stops on the way, first to buy 5 litres of fuel, the next to get help to open his tank so he could fill it up, the third to refill motor oil.




It got interesting, when we came to the wide riverbed and were driving through sand around little hills and bushes, up and down, going south again. Finally, we reached gravel, and soon we were on the other side of the river without any deep sand or “fech fech” – a very fine powder in which your car goes down like in quicksand. The ride was too bumpy to take any photo.

We crossed a green valley, where the camels were standing up to their bellies between the plants. Now on our own, we found a track taking us back to the main route and followed that to the west.

As it was already late afternoon, we found a track, a little bit washed out but doable, to get on top of a mountain, from where we had a fantastic view. This was our first stop for the night. (30.662409, -4.638418) One of the most fascinating places so far!




At the Auberge Hassi fougani, where we had turned off from the main route, we had promised to come the next morning for breakfast. After we had slowly climbed down from the mountains, it was nice to get served a lovely Moroccan breakfast in the middle of nowhere.






We came past the village Tafraout Sidi Ali, and used the Internet reception to send a sign of life back home. After the village, we crossed a clay plain, where we stayed on the well-trodden track, not trusting the dry looking surface of the plain.





Later we took a turn to the south to cross an endless plain for about 30 km. The tracks were good, and it was a pleasure to drive through that landscape. Many motorbikes came the other way, but beside of that we saw nobody until suddenly a woman was sitting next to the road, selling most peculiar hand-crafted camels. Of course, we bought one, which now is our mascot.

We came past some military check points, as we were very close to the border to Algeria. Only once, we had to show our passports, everybody was very friendly.

For a lunch break, we stopped in a wide green riverbed, where some agriculture was possible. We saw a field of pumpkins and many rows covered with plastic, where we couldn’t make out what grows below the cover.

From here, a tar road would lead to Zagora, but we stayed on our track, which now was getting a bit worse, with a very stony route leading up a mountain, which is part of a meteorite crater. We were looking forward to seeing that, therefore we endured the bad road until we reached the top, where we stopped for the second night. (30.096399, -5.281009)






The next day, our car had to climb down into the huge crater, where we first met a man with a motorbike and later a father and son at a well, which had water in about 8 metres deep. They were all selling stones from the meteorite, which fascinated us, so we bought 2 stones.






After we had climbed the rim of the crater on the other side, it was a more comfortable drive again, until we reached a tar road, which will take us north to Zagora. On the way lies Tamegroute, where we will stop for lunch.

We had enjoyed this route through varied desert landscape. The tracks were quite easy, only the part up to the crater on the second day was a bit tedious, but not a challenge. The desert seemed to be as green as it can get, with flowers and plants in many areas, thanks to the rain from September we suppose.
Up to now, we have no information how the river crossing near Ramlia would have been. If you recently passed this section, please leave a comment.
We will now visit Tamegroute and then spend some day at the Oasis Palmier camp in Zagora to get some work done.
If you want to follow our route, here is the link to the track.