On My Way to Ouarzazate

January 5^th, 2025 

It rained a bit overnight and was still overcast and a bit windy, but I woke up and decided it was time to move on.  Today it was one of the usual 3-hour drives to Ouarzazate (oo-are-za-zatay…took me a while to figure that one out), a city of 71,000 residents which is renowned for its film making studios.  It is the “Hollywood of Morocco”.

This "motorhome" was parked near me in Taroudant.  There are a fair number of them rolling around Morocco, mostly owned by Germans it seems.  Pretty sweet looking setup!

I had to go into Taroudant to get data for my sim card.  I thought it was interesting to see a Kodak store still making a go of it.

The first hour of my drive headed east through plains with low clouds hanging in the sky which provided the odd downpour.  I was amazed to drive through one section where the field beside the road was one big, wide flowing river of chocolatey brown water as far as I could see.  Thankfully it wasn’t deep enough to spill onto the road.

The flooding plain.

The rains continued.

Then there was a brief respite as I reached some foothills, and I saw a very cool rainbow with a very shallow arc.  But then as I began to climb in altitude, I drove into the low clouds and visibility was greatly reduced for about half an hour.

What a cool rainbow.

Heading into the clouds.

Reaching a high plateau, the clouds dissipated and soon it was a completely different kind of day with blue sky and cumulous clouds forming.

A rare waterfall in the desert mountains.

I pulled over at this one spot where I saw an interesting rock fence, about 30 feet long, that was adorned with some horns of some kind of goat, I think.  There were rocks with shiny minerals and off to the right was a small rocky dwelling with one closed door and one open one.  It looked like an abandoned shack.

As I started to take a few photos, an older man appeared from across the road in traditional garb.  I hadn’t even seen him.  He was polite and said hi in French but then wanted to show me something special in the small shack.  I told him I wasn’t interested in buying anything, but he insisted that I could just look and that I would enjoy it.  

The strange wall.

We wandered over to the hut and inside, on a counter, were a bunch of crystallized rocks and some other trinkets.  The rocks were beautiful, but I wasn’t interested in buying anything.  I gave him 10 or 15 dirhams (a dollar or two) for his time and for taking the photos of what I assumed was his interesting “horny” fence and headed on my way.

Hard to see as I snapped this as I was driving, but I was surprised to see a small forest of coniferous trees.

Where I came from...

...to where I'm going.

Looking out at the plains ahead.

I stopped to make a wrap for lunch in a small town and noticed these three guys, possibly foreigners, on these hilarious clown bikes.  They each wore a backpack and looked to be going up into the high plateau where I just came from.

Good luck dudes!

Lots of vehicles like to straddle the centreline.

So many corduroyed hills.

"Talking about some good striations..."

It was a gorgeous drive.

The terrain reminded me a bit of the southwest of the US.

I was getting close to Ouarzazate and I couldn't help but notice a very bright light in that direction.  I was pretty sure is a solar power complex that has thousands of mirrors that point to a tower to generate heat...more on that in a future post. 

This was a strange, partially finished neighbourhood on the outskirts of Ouarzazate.

I rolled into Ouarzazate in the late afternoon, found the campground and settled in for the evening.

Octi's spot for the next three days.

My view from Octi towards reception of the campground.

I relaxed in the van, blogging while watching another Africa Cup of Nations football match.