Leaving Boumaine Dades we followed N-10 east towards Tinghir before heading northeast up the Todras river gorge. The gorge did not disappoint with narrow twisty roads dividing tall vertical cliffs.
Rising above the gorge we followed the river valley which proved to be quite fertile with large palm tree growths and various agriculture. Further still we found extensive formations being built for a future dam. It seemed surprising in that the valley seemed very arid and did not seem likely to support a dam.
We found a lonely cafe that overlooked the valley and stopped for an espresso, served up by the local proprietor Ali. We were likely the only customers he would see that day. He couldn’t speak english but we managed between us in French to some degree, and ended up sharing a cigarette with him.
Returning to Tinghir we stopped by at the Chez Michele convenience store in Tinghir to purchase some beer ( beer is not available at the Hotel Yasmina where we were spending the night).
The road to Erfoud proved simple enough and we were relying on Garmin to map out a suitable route to the Hotel near Erg Chebbi. Our Garmin was programmed to avoid unpaved roads, however the final few kilometers to the hotel were only passable by unpaved desert roads. This seemed to give the Garmin license to use any other unpaved roads it deemed useful in getting to our destination, and as a result sent us over about 16 km of desert road that we would have much rather avoided. It was quite challenging with sandy sections that could easily bring the bike down. The trick was to keep on the throttle to lighten the front wheel so that wouldn’t happen.
We did eventually make it to Hotel Yasmina which is beautifully located right at the edge of the Saharan Dunes.
