At the eastern end of the Atlas Mountains, where the High Atlas to the north meets the Anti Atlas to the south, we came to Tinerhir, the town adjacent to the Todra Gorge. A taxi took us to the gorge where the scenery was spectacular, we drove through the gorge were there were several hotels built against rock face. One of those had suffered severe damage from a huge boulder falling onto the hotel roof. The hotel remained open, just the damaged end remained derelict. We drove on through the gorge following the riverbed. Our driver pointed out caves high on the cliff face where people were still living. We took tea with the “brother” of the taxi driver at his roadside souvenir stall! The brother said he lived at the stall with his wife and seven year old son – and six goats. He said he was very poor and would we like to buy . . . – of course we bought something.
At the campsite we met the first English speaking people we had encountered since arriving in Morocco – English speaking in the looser sense of the word as one was a young couple from Inverness, there for the rock climbing and the other an Australian family with two young children on a year’s travelling holiday in a converted Land Rover.
