Over the Atlas to the Sahara

Picture stop somewhere in the Atlas mountains

On Thursday morning it took a while until the drivers had ushered us into the right tourist busses in Marrakech. We seemed to have landed in the only group that was mixed with old and young people. A few German and Dutch people and an Italian/Polish couple. Then we were off on a long drive through the Atlas mountains. The highest point we passed was 2200m and there was snow too. It reminded me of pictures I had seen from Nepal. The highest mountain in Morocco is Toubkal with a little over 4000m. There even is a skiing region near Marrakech.

We stopped a few times after narrow bends (dangereux virages) to take pictures. At one point I saw a truck with a huge dust cloud coming around the next corner. I thought it would be a good idea if we all slowed down a little. Which our driver did in the next moment when he stepped on the emergency break and we were all hanging in our seatbelts (yes, so far all the cars here had seat belts and they made sure you wore them too). For a moment we saw nothing but dust. The truck had passed us but when the dust was gone too we saw that we were about 5cm from the car in front of us. They hadn’t been as lucky and had crashed a huge hole into the car in front of them. We all started breathing again and when we were sure that everything was ok, we drove on. Apparently, we had lucked out with the driver we got again. We drove on to our first castle, Kasbah Ait-Ben-Haddou. The sight of this was awesome. A lot of cute built clay houses. They have to take care of these mud houses all the time that they don’t get destroyed by the weather. Again, a guide imposed his services upon us but at least this time he was friendly and so we learned some things about the castle for 25Dh. However, first we had to cross the river by jumping from rock to rock, which was fun (on our way back, we took the bridge). The houses pretty much had one goal, to keep the cold inside and protect from enemies. Therefore, it was quite chilly and dark in there. I liked them much better from the outside. Many movies like Gladiator and Prince of Persia were shot in this town.

Ait Benhaddou

Later, Johannes and I had lunch in the shade of a building and then I walked around the small “modern” village to find an avocado juice. The people here were a lot friendlier and actually wanted to talk to you without getting money from you somehow.

We drove on to Ouarzazate, the film mekka of Morocco. Unfortunately, the big part of my travel group was not interested in paying the 50 Dh to go visit the film studios. It would have been very interesting to see for example Cleopatra’s film set. Then we spent another few hours driving past a 1000 different kasbahs. I’m not kidding, there were so many. If you like castles, you have to drive through this area and look at all these amazing formations built out of clay.

Ait Benhaddou

Here even the normal villages seem more proper than up north. I felt myself relax and think that here I would like to see more off. We continued through the pretty Valley of Roses and then entered the windy curves into the Dades Gorge. Luckily, our driver really seemed to know every bend and everybody in our bus appeared to have a strong stomach. Since we had booked the cheap tourist tour, I also expected that we would stay in a cheap hostel. Therefore, I was surprised when we stopped in front of a nice looking building and then even received a real hotel room with a private bathroom. We were surrounded by the walls of the gorge and always heard the splatter of the river that ran through it. After arriving, everybody was drawn to the warm fireplace in the dining room, where we hungrily waited for our dinner. First there was soup with a typical Moroccan taste, which we had to eat with a big wooden spoon. Then followed a huge pile of couscous with vegetable and chicken with a fresh orange for dessert. Everybody was satisfied and then we finally had time to get to know some people from our group a bit better.

 

Dades Gorge

Although there was a heater in our room and I had two thick blankets, I cannot say that I was exactly warm but I slept really well despite that since I wasn’t woken up by a singing muhezin or other noises this time. In the morning, it sounded as if it was raining but it was probably just the river. When I got up, I realized that it actually was raining pretty hard but that didn’t further bother us, while we were eating delicious Berber pancakes for breakfast. Again, we boarded the bus to wind our way back out of the gorge and soon there were blue holes in the sky and the warming sun came out. We drove past great plains, old volcanoes, goats and camels. Unfortunately, the sunshine didn’t last long and so at our first stop in the Todra Gorge, we got soaked with rain. I hoped that the clothes would dry until the evening, when we would spend the night in the Sahara. Before we could actually enter the gorge, we had to watch a demonstration of how they make carpets in a carpet factory. Then we finally went to the gorge across very muddy and slippery paths. The Todra Gorge with its high walls to both sides was an awesome place! I would have loved to stay there longer and in dry weather tried climbing (there was a via ferrata too) but of course then we were in a rush again and had to leave after about 10min.

Todra Gorge

Then followed a lot more driving with a lunch stop at a restaurant in the middle of nowhere. After that we drove to a camel farm in an oasis near Merzouga, the door to the Sahara. Everybody got their own dromedary and it lifted itself up in that funny way. Like a real caravan we rode into the sand dunes. It looked quite funny. The sand dunes looked beautiful, especially in the setting sun. We rode for what seemed like an eternity (about two hours), which was too long for my butt and my legs. I have to say that riding the elephant in Chiang Mai was much more comfortable than riding this dromedary. Plus, I had more confidence into my gentle elephant. These camels here didn’t like it too much when you wanted to pet them. Anyways, Jimmy Hendrix carried me to the Berber tent camp where we would spend the night.

On the high dune

Firstly, we started climbing the huge dune that was next to the camp. That was hard work because with every step you took, you sank down in the sand again at least half way. But the view was amazing and it was cool to stand on what seemed like an almost vertical hill. I think it will take me years to get rid of every grain of sand that is sticking to my body now.

We jumped down the dune in kangaroo jumps and then I tried myself at sandboarding for a while before it got too dark. I actually liked that much better than snowboarding, because you couldn’t hurt yourself in the soft sand. Unfortunately, carrying the board up the hill was extremely tiring.

Luckily, dinner was served soon after that, since I was starving again. There actually was a nice tent with tables and guess what? It was almost warm inside the carpet tent. We had another chicken/vegetable tajine with rice and bread. After dinner, we enjoyed the stars. We could see the milky way, a few really bright stars and I saw two shooting stars but unfortunately it was a little cloudy. It didn’t match the amazing star filled sky that I saw in the Whitsundays. One of the Berber said that for the stars, the best time to come to the desert is August. After a cup of tea with the guides in the kitchen tent, we tried to get some sleep in our colorful 5 bed tent. The cots were rather hard and of course it got freezing again, so I didn’t mind that we had to get up early to ride back to the oasis during the sunrise. That camel ride was beautiful, since it can be extremely silent in the desert. But again, my body was glad when we could get off the saddle back in the oasis 🙂 We had another delicious breakfast with Berber pancakes and marmalade. Everything that has fruit in it here tastes amazing!!

Then we were off on the looong drive back to Marrakech already. The different landscapes we saw were amazing! There were many green fields with palm trees, canyons and gorges in different colors. Of course we had to get back across the Atlas mountains and believe me, the windy roads on Swiss mountains are nothing compared to here. So many curves next to such steep cliffs and always up the hill and then what it seems, back down into the valley again. A motorcyclists dream. We were thinking about starting a fund for a tunnel. But our driver did a great job and after a lunch and a few toilet breaks, we arrived in Marrakech 12hours later. The plan was to go to Essaouira directly, however we moved this journey to the next day and enjoyed a good meal that wasn’t tajine or couscous and had one of the most needed showers of our lives 🙂

Visiting the US isn’t complete without a nice road trip

Grand Canyon

At about 4pm, we finally left Las Vegas on I-15 North towards Grand Canyon. After about a two hour drive was our first stop in St. George to buy some food and water supplies at Walmart and then we had dinner at a Thai restaurant across the street. This time, my Pad Thai was delicious.

We drove on and finally found a camp site in Jacob’s Lake for 20$ (without showers). JB’s tent was more for 1 person than for two and so to really fit we had to sleep with each other’s feet in the face J But I really like this way of being able to just put the tent anywhere (well in the US on campsites because we didn’t really see rest area stops like in Australia) in a beautiful nature spot and sleep among trees and grass, being woken up by birds and sunrays.

The next day, we started the entrance road to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon NP. At the entrance, we bought the annual pass for 80$ and then proceeded towards the visitor center. It is located next to a beautiful lodge at the picturesque Bright Angel Point.

I hadn’t remembered which part of the Grand Canyon I had been to in 2009 but obviously, it was the South Rim, because everything here seemed new to me. And very impressive. After having seen so many canyons and gorges in Australia, the wideness of Grand Canyon still didn’t cease to amaze me.

We drove to Cape Royal from where we walked to Angel’s Window and then had lunch in the shade of the trees close to an outdoor chapel on the brim of the canyon.

On the third attempt, we finally spotted the starting point of the Cliff Springs walk. That was really cool with orange overhanging cliffs and the path was often shaded by trees.

In the end, we drove to Cape Imperial. From there, Grand Canyon looks never-ending, spreading along the whole horizon.

Although, we had achieved a lot in the first half of the day, we still had enough time to drive to Page. And that with about a 100mile detour do to a landslide over the normal road. We had dinner in a delicious pizza place and then found a campsite on the Wahweap Campground at Lake Powell.

Unfortunately, the shower building was so far away from our campsite, that we drove back down by car. In a machine, I exchanged 2$ to get 8 quarters, with which we paid for a 17min shower (if you don’t have to pay for a shower on campsites in the US, the campsite is a lot more expensive).

The night was a bit restless because there was a group of drunk adolescents close by. They were French, like 80% of the visitors in the US seem to be at the moment. In Australia, almost every person I met was German and now here, everywhere you turn to, people speak French.

We enjoyed our daily breakfast donut with a beautiful view on Lake Powell. Then we drove to Horseshoe Bend, which luckily, was accessible, although it was along the road with the landslide. It was still early morning when we got there but the heat was already picking up. We walked across the sandy path to get to the edge of the cliff and have a nice view on the beautiful bend the Colorado River had carved into the rocks here. The different colors look so intense next to each other, you shouldn’t miss this stop if you go to Page, Arizona.

Horseshoe Bend

Then, we drove back to Lake Powell, to take a cooling bath before heading on to Monument Valley. We stopped at the Welcome Center to enquire about horseback riding. Someone then told us to go to the Visitor Center to get a better deal. Normally, you’d have to pay an extra 20$ just to get to the visitor center, from where you then drive down to the monuments (you need a 4×4, which we didn’t have). Since, we weren’t sure whether we’d really do the horseback riding, we asked whether we just could quickly drive up there to ask about the price. To our surprise, they let us in for free.

The best horseback ride option would have been a sunset trip but for that we’d have had to wait around for at least two hours and there wasn’t really anything else to do there. However, from the visitor center, we had an amazing view on the monuments, which you don’t have from the road. We saw everything! I didn’t really feel the need to go down there and see them from up close. Plus, we thought we could go horseback riding in Arches or Bryce Canyon. So, we hit the road again to drive towards Moab, the closest town to Arches. And wow, what a beautiful drive! That road was amazing. We weren’t the only ones who felt this way, because there were cars stopping everywhere along the road to take pictures of the straight long roads and monuments.

We camped at the cute Up the Creek Campground for 32$ and walked to the Mexican restaurant for dinner. I miss Pokéz in San Diego.

Monument Valley

The next morning, we drove into Arches NP. It turned out that all the horseback riding here was outside the park and therefore we postponed that idea to Bryce. It was very hot in the park and therefore hiking wasn’t so agreeable. We still made it to the big Landscape Arch and saw the famous Delicate Arch from further away. I liked the Windows section the best.

In the afternoon, we drove on towards Bryce. Black storm clouds started to appear on the horizon and unfortunately, we were heading directly towards them. It started raining and it got colder by the mile. A night in such a tiny tent would have been very unpleasant and therefore we opted for a motel.

The next morning was still raining cats and dogs and so we profited from the wifi at the motel and tried to find an accommodation in San Francisco, which wasn’t so easy either. There is a big music festival coming up and I think all the people from the festival decided to come to San Francisco before that.

Arches

Before noon, we finally made it into the park. It was still raining and the clouds were hanging deeply in the rock towers of the canyon but to just do the drive to the viewpoint and take a picture-tourist thing it was ok. Luckily, the sun then came out and the clouds disappeared. I have been in Bryce in 2009 and I loved it. It’s like a wonderland built out of orange and white sand that somebody had let dribble to the ground and build castle towers with.

We had saved Bryce Point for our last stop and in my opinion that actually was the nicest spot of all. We then even tempted a 5 mile hike. It could have started raining again but luckily it was dry all the way. The paths were a bit muddy but it was awesome to walk in between these rock formations. It was a bit like a labyrinth with one way. We weren’t the only people who decided to go down there despite the weather and guess what, they were all speaking French! Sometimes, I forgot that I was in the US.

We made it back to our car before sunset and then took Highway 12 towards Boulder. The guy at the motel had told us that that was the second most scenic route in the US. I forgot to ask about the first one but it’s probably Highway 1 along the West Coast.

Bryce Canyon

We stopped in Escalante because it looked like a cute place to spend the night and it was very cheap compared to the other places too. We had a very delicious burger and then decided to take a cabin for 50$ instead of camping (for 16$, the cheapest we have seen), since it was still freezing compared to the other nights.

In the morning, we continued on to Boulder. From here, the route really started to be beautiful, with a wide landscape and canyons. When we then continued on to Zion, it started raining again. We were hoping that it would be better weather once we arrived in Zion.

We finally reached it at 4pm. The canyon was dry and it was a nice drive through the mountains. In the visitor center, we looked at what hikes we could do. I would have liked to do Angel’s Landing but on the website they had written that it was closed a few days every week to recover the park and we were one day early for it to be reopened. However, in the visitor center, it then was written that the East Rim and not the West Rim trail was closed. So, I asked whether the hike was possible and the guy confirmed that it was. Great, now we only had 4,5 hours until the last shuttle bus and the hike should take about 4 hours. Either, we’d make it or we’d have to walk an extra 2 miles back to the car park. We would have hurried a bit more to get to Zion if we had known that this trail was open.

Bryce Canyon

Anyways, we then took the free shuttle to The Grotto station (no public vehicles are allowed in the park, which probably is a good idea ecological wise.

The hike had an easy beginning on a concrete path. We saw a male deer drinking from the river. Then there was a steep zick-zack path but we were very surprised when we already arrived at the top. We had planned for a very strenuous hike, like the description said but there was no way we’d need four hours for this. Well, we weren’t at the top yet. Now the fun part with climbing along the mountain crest began. There was a metal chain to hold on to. You wouldn’t want to be up here during a storm. It went 400m straight down to both sides of us. But the views down into the valley were absolutely stunning. It looked like a place where dinosaurs could still be alive and poke their heads up in between the trees.

Once at the top, there were still other people up there having a picnic and enjoying the view. And there was even a pair of cute chipmunks playing around. I want one as a pet.

View from Angel’s Landing

On the way back down, luckily safely back on the big path, a tarantula (!!!) crossed our way. One of these big hairy things. Ugh, couldn’t it have crawled across the path a few minutes later? I had to leave Australia and come to the US to see one of them. A few more meters down, we then saw a foe and her baby, that made me like nature better again.

In the end, we had only needed 3 hours (with breaks) for the hike and therefore made the shuttles without any problem.

We drove out of the park to have dinner in the charming Springdale and then already covered some miles towards Las Vegas. We found another expensive campsite for 31$ a little outside Hurricane.

Our last day with the rental car we spent driving back to Las Vegas. We dropped the bags off at JB’s couchsurfer’s house. They were so nice to just let me spend a night there too. Since we still had a lot of time before returning the car, we drove to Primm to have a look at the fashion outlets there. But they weren’t the same as they used to be anymore either. Plus, it rained again and the roads were flooded with rivers of water. Still, we made it back to Las Vegas before our assigned time and dropped the car off quickly. Leaving “Paige” behind was a bit sad, since we had such a good time with her this week.

Two deers in Zion

Since JB hadn’t really seen anything of the strip yet, we went to have dinner there and spent 3 more hours in the casino jungle before taking the bus back to the couchsurfer’s house.

It was good to have a relaxing night since the next day and night, we had a 16h bus trip from Las Vegas to San Francisco ahead of us. We still didn’t have any accommodation because all the couchsurfers were full and no cheap hostels left. If worse comes to worse, we’d just have to take a motel. Like with this road trip, something would work out in the end. And this rather spontaneous week in these canyons and national parks had been amazing.

It has been an amazing trip!

On the road again (Darwin to Alice Springs)

After a night separated from the group in different hostel dorms, we met up at 6.30am again to be picked up from Jan, our next tour guide. We picked up some other people because a few from our top end tour had left us. Now we were 17 girls and a Danish guy, an Italian couple in their sixties (we adopted them as our grandparents) plus Jan. There even is a Swiss girl from Solothurn 🙂
Jan is very energetic and so he spread a good mood among the group right away. We had a pen with which we could draw on the bus windows on the long drives but first, we all had to enter the Weet Bix-challenge. Weet-Bix are compressed cereal shaped into small bars. You take about three of them and soak them in milk to have a bowl of cereal. It’s an Aussie thing. However, the challenge now was to eat it as quick as possible. Without any liquids. That was torture! After a while it was like swallowing oversized pills. But we all survived and the winner only took 1’11”.
After 1,5 hours, we stopped at a gas station we had already fueled up yesterday on the way back. It should have been just a short toilet break but then Jan got a call that he forgot to pick up one girl from Hong Kong and so we all waited the 1.5 hours while somebody was driving her down. Jan brought out some oranges (they taste different here) and a didgeridoo, where we could have ago. I was as successful as I had been in Switzerland with the Alphorn, which means I only produced a weird elephant noise. Luckily, that happened to most people.
Then we went on a short walk to have a look at some flora and the WWII war cemetery.

Jan entertaining us in the evening

Finally, our group of 20 people was complete and on we went.
We had lunch on a grass patch in Kathrine and then drove for another half an hour to Kathrine Gorge.
There is a nice exhibition about the area in the visitor center (and air-conditioning). It was another really hot day. Therefore, some chose to do the 80$ boat tour, while we others went on a walk with our guide. We hiked to the top of the gorge. The views were stunning but we had to earn them in this heat. Luckily, there was a water tap with cold (!) water at the top. The water was pumped up from underground that’s why it was colder.

Then, we walked back down to the visitor center, passing different kinds of trees and flowers. Afterwards, it was time to jump in the river and I was really looking forward to it after the walk. However, because the water wasn’t clear here and there were saltwater crocodiles in the area, everybody was very hesitant with jumping in the water. Even after Jan had jumped in. And the employees in the restaurant said it was safe too. In the end, it was only me and the other Swiss girl who went for a swim. We didn’t see a crocodile.

Back in the bus, we drove to the shopping center in Kathrine, where we had half an hour to buy more things we might need and there was wifi too!
Then, we lucked out that there was no other group at the campsite. We’d have had to sleep in swags with only a small kitchen tent but instead we could have the big kitchen and cabin tents with beds and electricity inside! And a bedside table too!!
For dinner we had pasta with chicken and vegetables and afterwards we were sitting around a campfire for a short time but soon, everybody was overwhelmed by tiredness and retired into the cabins.

Natural hot springs ❤

The next morning, it was freezing! I had to keep wearing long clothes until our first stop in Mataranka. We didn’t swim in the Mataranka hot springs because that’s a manmade place. Instead we went to the Bitter Springs 3km out of town.
Now, we were glad that it wasn’t so hot yet because the water was 34º bathtub temperature. And that in a beautiful blue creek in a palm tree forest. It was wonderful! We stayed in the water for at least an hour. Swimming along the creek was cool too. Except for the many big spiders that towered in their nets right over the water. I just pretended to be a crocodile and kept my head half in the water.
At 10.30am we were on the bus again heading towards our lunch stop; the Daly Waters Pub. It’s the oldest pub in the Northern Territory and has a very cool set up. It’s filled with things that people leave behind and funny signs. Also, the food and drinks were cheaper than in Darwin.

Sunset from the roof of the bus

During that break, our driver tried to fix the air-conditioning of the car. The belt broke and so the bus had been making weird sounds for the last 40min of the drive. When we set off again, it worked for five minutes but then weird noises were back and from now on, our air-con were the windows. It’s ok but after walking in this heat I would have preferred to really cool down.
From there it was pretty much just driving and having toilet and fuel stops until Jan parked the bus along the road in the middle of nowhere. The country side was flat and wide in all directions. That’s where we watched the sunset. From the roof of the bus. Standing on the roof of a car in a wide open space was a point on my life list. Really makes you feel free 🙂 Now I can check that off.
We even had a sunset platter with olives, feta, crackers and a dip. Momentary upgrade to a 5 star tour 🙂
When the sun was gone, we drove to our campsite on a cattle station. Banka Banka was an actual caravan park with a nice kitchen building and good showers and toilets. We had a delicious bbq dinner and afterwards sat around the campfire, where Jan played the guitar and didgeridoo.
Then, it was finally the night where I’d get to experience sleeping in a swag. I was expecting the nice looking ones from the people I had met along the way. However, ours just were bags on the ground with two thin mattresses inside. The grass with all these bags on the ground looked a bit like a disaster had happened…

There was no mosquito window for the face, so either, you zipped yourself up all the way and had bad air, or you left your face in the open. I just wore my woolen hat, a jacket and cuddled in my sleeping bag. Like this, I was actually warmer than the previous nights in the tent! Plus, it was quite comfortable and we even had a real pillow! I felt bad for our Italian grandparents who are doing this trip in their sixties and weren’t expecting to sleep on the ground. But they seemed fine too this morning and now they will have great stories to tell 🙂

When my alarm rang in morning, I was surprised that I didn’t wake up when the Singapore group that was sleeping next to me left their swags. I really must have slept well!

Devil’s Marbles

On the road again, Jan was asking us quiz questions over the microphone. We stopped at a few roadhouses for toilets (we are drinking so much water in this heat) and at the Tenant Creek Telegraph station. Then, we reached a fantastic place called Devils Marbles. The marbles are granite rocks that were shaped into round and oval boulders over the years. They looked really cool and so we went on an explorer walk and had some fun with taking pictures.

Devil’s Marbles

Lunch we had at Wycliffe Well. One of the funniest places I’ve ever been to. They call it the UFO capital of Australia and everything is in an alien theme.
From there, we pretty much drove straight to Alice Springs with just a few stops at gas stations and to take a few road kill pictures of ourselves on a long straight stretch of road. At the Tropic of Capricorn line, the whole group held hands and on three, we jumped from the tropic into the desert. That was fun and we entertained the whole parking lot. Welcome to the red center!
Once we arrived in Alice Springs, I couldn’t believe I actually made it here. To the center of Australia. Was a long but exciting and amazing journey from Perth along the South and East Coast and then from the top end down to here (and I’d do it again).