Dadès & Todra Gorges to the Edge of the Desert

January 9^th, 2026

Today was going to be another driving day.  I was between 4-5 hours away from Merzouga, one of Morocco’s deserts, but with stops along the way, I figured I’d be on the road for the majority of the day, which was indeed the case…but what a drive.

 

It started off with driving through the Dadès Gorge, which was just a few kilometres from the campsite I stayed at last night.  It was quite narrow with tall rock faces on either side with the Dadès River running beside the road, but it wasn’t very long. 

About to enter Dadès Gorge.

Driving through Dadès Gorge.

The road began to snake up the mountainside as the sun started to light up the eastern faces of the striated rock.  I was getting closer and closer to the snowline.  I couldn’t help but stop numerous times to snap photos.

That's actually a frozen waterfall!

This is looking back from where I came.

Good job Octi!

Good morning Morocco!

Look at the snaking canyon.

The buildings in the distance are almost camouflaged.

And to think that this little river created those canyons in the previous photos...

Hitting the snowline for the first time in Morocco.

I didn't see any other traffic for a long time.

What a gorgeous day!

Starting to come down from the high pass through the mountains.

A beautiful ridgeline.

Soaking it all in.

I passed a few shepherds with their herd of goats and then saw a local woman in her 60s by the side of the road trying to catch a ride.  I decided to stop and give her a lift.  She climbed up into my front passenger seat, and I instantly regretted that I hadn’t lowered my window before she got in…phew.  Let’s just say that she didn’t smell like roses.

 

She didn’t seem to speak any French so our conversation was limited to me patting my chest and saying “David”…and that was it.  As I suspected, she was just going to the small town in the distance.  She motioned for me to stop.  As she got out, she rubbed her thumb and forefinger together while muttering something and it was obvious she was hoping for some money.  Well, she’s got gumption that’s for sure.  She got a free ride, might as well go for the jackpot.  I shook my head as I thought I’d done my good deed for her already and headed on my way while rolling down my window for some fresh air. 

A lake formed by a dam, just 4-5 kilometres from where I dropped off the woman.

The other side of the dam.  The road then dropped down and followed the canyon...making all drivers put a lot of trust in the dam not breaking!

Still driving through the canyon.

Seemed like a strange place to live to me...but it actually wasn't too far from a small city.

The first palm trees that I saw in the canyon.

There are some rock climbers just below the middle of the photo...the little black dots.

The start of the Todra Gorge.

Driving through Todra Gorge.

Of course there were vendors selling souvenirs beside the road.

It was impressive.

Popping out to the palm tree groves of the small city Tinghir.

Okay...I must be getting close to the desert!

Those are small, almost identical hills, almost like waves.

There's a tourist place near Enderby, in BC near where I live in the summer called the Red Barn.  It sells touristy stuff but also baked goods, smoked salmon and all kinds of stuff.  Outside of the Red Barn, to get your attention and make your little kids in the backseat say "Daddy, can we stop here?" are statues of animals and dinosaurs, along with some goats running around.  Well, this looked to me like the Moroccan version of the Red Barn!

Seeing the big dunes near Merzouga.

There were this strange squares made with little fences of some kind of straw.  I couldn't figure out what they were for but the next day I learned that they were constructed to stop the sand from blowing on the highway, as that has been a hazard in the past.

The "sand immobilizers".

Almost there...

That's an impressive dune.

Arriving into Merzouga.

I found the place, met one of the adult sons of the owner who was name H’med and then met his dad, Mohammed.  Super nice guys.  I enjoyed some tea while talking with Mohammed and he ran down my options of things to do while I was here (all in French, so I didn’t catch all of the details) and he was going to sort me out in the morning, starting with a three-hour tour with H’med.

 

The night before arriving here, I had a strange dream that involved some weird bobsledding, the details of which I won’t bother with, but in the dream I ran into a paragliding friend of mine, Pierre.  I used to know Pierre in Victoria back in the early 2000s and we met up in France in 2010.  I’ve seen him once since in Lumby so it’s not like we’re close, but for some reason he ended up in my dream. 

 

Anyways, the campground in Merzouga where I’m at is called “Camp La Liberte” (Camp Freedom), which is a great name since I work at the Freedom Flight School in the summertime.  But get this, what is Pierre’s last name?  Yup, Laliberte.  Crazy!

Octi's spot for the next 3 nights...right at the edge of Erg Chebbi.

Driving to Dadès Gorge

January 8^th, 2026

The plan today was to drive to Dadès Gorge, only about a 2½ hour drive so I wasn’t in a big rush to leave in the morning.  I was planning on a small sidetrack to check out a solar power station, about 10 kilometres to the east of Ouarzazate. 

The Ouarzazate Solar Power Station, also known as the Noor Power Station, is not just a huge farm of solar panels which generates around 72 MW of electricity (1 MW can power between 200-1000 homes) but it is also a “concentrated solar power plant” (CSP).  In fact, it is the biggest CSP in the world generating 510 MW!  The whole plant covers around 3000 hectares.

Getting closer...

A CSP uses thousands of mirrors that are all focused on bouncing the suns rays to a central tower where molten salt is heated up which in turn is used in a steam generator to produce steam to create electricity.

Look at all of those mirrors.

This is a stock photo I found of the mirrors at another CSP.

It was pretty intense.

It was bright to look at, even with my sunglasses.

The obligatory Octi pic.

I’ve flown near one of these in a commercial jet near Las Vegas and they are impressive to see them from the sky, but I’ve never been this close to one on the ground.  It is gobsmacking.  Such incredible technology.

This is what a CSP (not this one) looks like from above.

A 360 view of the area.

Back on the road, I had contemplated stopping to check out Kasbah Amridil, another 50 kilometres down the highway.  Yesterday, my tour guide Shareed at Kasbah Taourirt had mentioned it a few times and it used to be on the 50-dirham bank note.  However, it was after 2 pm by the time I reached it, and I decided to just snap a few photos from the outside and continue on.  I hadn’t even had lunch yet…and I think I was “kasbah-ed out”.

Kasbah Amridil.

Some random abandoned building by the highway.

Some random camels feeding by the road (there's one on the right that's not as obvious as the one in the middle...there were 5 or 6 of them)

The mountain range stretches for 100s of kilometres.

A cop car with its lights flashing came towards me, in the middle of the road.  He signalled with his hand for me to pull over as he passed by...and here's why.  A couple of military tanks were being transported by some big trucks.

Into some hills at the end of the plains.

Some strange looking rocks.  There was a campground called "Monkey fingers" in French...I guess that's what someone thinks they look like.

There are a couple of abandoned buildings hiding in the middle of the photo.

Some other building hiding in the hillside.

As I neared the campground that I had selected for the night, there was one sweet section of switchbacks that I enjoyed driving up.

Starting up the windy road.

Part way up the switchbacks.

Looking back from where I came from.

Octi's handling it fine.

Reaching the top.

Impressive roadwork.

The Dadès River is somewhere, deep in that crack.

That's a hotel just above the middle of the photo...seems like a remote spot.

The campsite was owned by a hippy-ish Swiss woman named Aya who was super friendly.  The place was nestled in a narrow valley with the Dadès River flowing right beside it.

The campground.

This is the restaurant, but I had some food in the van so I never ventured inside.

I was offered some tea and as I sat down to enjoy that, a Swedish man showed up in his rental car.  We chatted for a bit until his family, who had walked through the main part of Dadès Gorge, joined us for a short visit.  They were doing a daytrip from Ouarzazate to check out the gorge.  It was supposed to be a weeklong vacation for them, but they lost a couple of days due to a snow delay leaving Sweden.  They flew into Marrakesh, drove to Ouarzazate, to the gorge and now had to backtrack to catch their flight.  That’s a lot of driving in 5 days!

Aya had some chickens, but also a peacock and a peahen.

The Dadès River.

Aya had an area by the river with some hammocks.

Octi's spot for the night.

It was a nice view from the campground.

The colours got a bit better at sunset.

A German couple in their early 60s showed up later in their minivan, but apart from a quick hello, I never did chat with them, the only other tourists staying at the campground.  Aya had told me that it went down to -10 C the night before.  I was concerned about my waterpipe freezing and Octi has developed the slightest drip in a pipe from the water tank, so I decided to drain the water before going to bed.  Thankfully it didn't get that cold.