Essaouira to Taroudant

The coast road from Essaouira was closed due to a bridge being destroyed so I had to backtrack towards Marrakesh and get on the freeway south, 4 lanes all the way to Taroudant except for the last 50km. Upto now I have not seen any police radar, today there was a blitz , they were everywhere. I got stopped for doing 93 in an 80 kph zone, the guy said 300 dirham so I gave him 300 and asked for a receipt, so he gives me back 200 and says “okay” and I say “okay and back on my bike hahaha. I met an Italian couple at breakfast and they also got stopped, doing 69 in a 60 kph zone and got the same fine 300 dirham, the guy paid and got a receipt but he is not sure what amount is on the receipt.

Taroudant to Zagora

The only reason for stopping in Taroudant was to find out if the Tizi nTest road through the Mount Toubkal National Park was open. Mount Toubkal is the highest mountain in Morocco 4167m.

The guy at the hotel made some enquiries with the locals and the Police and they said it was closed.

So the next day I carried on to Zagora, the first 150 km was quite busy and had many washaways and diversions, after that blue skies and the road climbed into the mountains between 1500-2000m, best ride so far, the scenery was rugged and beautiful. I arrived in Zagora and stopped to phone the hotel guy to get directions and a local mechanic said he would wash my bike for 50 dirham, it was covered in mud, he saw me riding past and followed me hahaha, so back to his garage and got it cleaned up.

Zagora to Merzouga

The next day I planned to ride to Mhamid but 38 km down the road there was quite a wide river and the road was closed so turned around and as it was only 10:30 decided to ride to my next destination Merzouga. Again a great ride through the mountains, no traffic and only one washaway where I actually had to ride through the stream.

Merzouga is very close to the Algerian border on the edge of the Sahara desert and people come here for a Desert experience. The Paris to Dakar rally used to come past here.

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