![\"Buildings](\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/PcNUl6m.jpg\")
<\/a><\/br>Buildings in Gorges Dad\u00e9s<\/p><\/div>\n
After breakfast, our caravan left at 0815. However, not long after we departed I found I left my beloved earplug cover in that 2-star overnight <\/br>Farmland in Gorges Dad\u00e9s<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Roadside Caf\u00e9 near Gorges Dad\u00e9s Viewing Point<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n Our first stop of the day was a viewing point of Gorges Dad\u00e9s with open panoramic views. (Judging by the pictures, I don’t think Gorges Dad\u00e9s was open for hiking.) However, it was early in the morning and the sunlight weren’t much to our favor (because the rocks were to our East). So we didn’t stay long at that viewing point.<\/p>\n <\/br>Gorges Dad\u00e9s<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Farmland and Village in Gorges Dad\u00e9s<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Gorges Dad\u00e9s<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Gorges Dad\u00e9s<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Country Road by Gorges Dad\u00e9s<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n After that, it was an hour’s drive to the city of Tinghir.<\/p>\n <\/br>River Dad\u00e9s in Gorges Dad\u00e9s<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Country Road along Gorges Dad\u00e9s<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Buildings in Boumalne Dades<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Barren Land of Central Morocco<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Barren Land with Hills of Central Morocco<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Tinghir New City<\/br>The buildings were so sparse, it’s barely a ghost town.<\/span><\/p><\/div> <\/br>Streets of Tinghir<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n An hour later we arrived at the city of Tinghir. A local tour guide greeted us and showed us the local farmland.<\/p>\n <\/br>Farmland outside Tinghir<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Irrigation Ditch of Tinghir Farmland<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n As told by our tour guide, the local farmland was irrigated with melt water from the surrounding Atlas Mountains. There wasn’t much water around, so the local people take turns to irrigate different lands by blocking these irrigation ditches with rocks. Also, so harvest leaves of palm trees in the field as cutters.<\/p>\n <\/br>Farmland outside Tinghir<\/p><\/div>\n What’s more, as expected, these farmland got divided among sons as their parents passed away, so the farmland got smaller and smaller over the generations. The solution: some people abandoned farming and went to work in the factories.<\/p>\n <\/br>Our Tour Group in Tinghir Farmland<\/p><\/div>\n After farmland, we visited the village of Tinghir, where our tour guide showed us the local building technique in a “construction yard”. As far as I’m concerned, it was clay, straw, branches <\/br>Buildings in Tinghir Village<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Dead Rat in Tinghir Village<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Buildings in Tinghir Village<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Door with Totem<\/br>By our tour guide, the two curves in that Totem represents the High Atlas Mountains to the North and Anti-Atlas Mountains to the south, with the dash in the middle representing local town of Tinghir.<\/span><\/p><\/div><\/p>\n After that, we were invited to a local house (that also doubled as a carpet store), where we listened to host explaining the different patterns on the carpets (that we totally didn’t understand). All the carpets were hand-made, but unfortunately, seemed very much home-made. <\/p>\n <\/br>Carpet on Sale<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Streets of Tinghir Village<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n After that, we went up Gorges Todra.<\/p>\n <\/br>Anti-Atlas Mountains south of Tinghir<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Rock Formations along Mountain Roads by Tinghir<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n <\/br>Tinghir Todra River Valley<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Todra River Valley<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Mountain Road into Gorges Todra<\/p><\/div> <\/br>River Todra in Gorges Todra<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n Gorges Todra was a famous summer resort for the Moroccan people due to its high cliffs blocking sunlight and its cool creek running through. Our tour guide told us in the summer the nearby streets would be fully parked with cars. <\/p>\n <\/br>Spring in Gorges Todra<\/br>It’s said that water from this spring could bring good fortune.<\/span><\/p><\/div> <\/br>Gorges Todra<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Hotel in Gorges Todra<\/p><\/div> <\/br>River Todra<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n After that, we reached a restaurant for lunch. As usual, the prices were typical packaged-tour ripoff. <\/br>Appetizer<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Lunch<\/br>This time we changed to Barbecue, which was much better than Omelets.<\/span><\/p><\/div> <\/br>Lunch Restaurant by Gorges Todra<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Lunch Restaurant by Gorges Todra<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n After that, it was a nearly five-hour drive to Erg Chebbi Desert.<\/p>\n <\/br>Mountain Road into Gorges Todra<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Todra River Bridge of Tinghir<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Village of Afanour<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Barren Land of Central Morocco<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Barren Land of Central Morocco<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Palm Trees in Tinejdad<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Streets of Tinejdad<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Piles of Sand along Morocco Road<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Town of El Jorf<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Construction outside Town of El Jorf<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Bridge over Gheris River<\/br>A seasonal river.<\/span><\/p><\/div> <\/br>Roundabout in City of Erfoud<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Buildings in Rissani Town<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n <\/br>Buildings near Erg Chebbi Desert<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Hotel Buildings by Erg Chebbi Desert<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Hotel Entrance by Erg Chebbi Desert<\/br>We walked through these doors to our SUVs or camels.<\/span><\/p><\/div> <\/br>Camels<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n There was a shortage of camels, so my friend and I were designated to a SUV rooftop. (Later I guessed an alternative explanation was that the tour agency showed us photos of both camels and SUVs, so probably both means of transportation would be employed getting us in and out of the desert.) While my friend and six other Scandinavian boys were more than excited for the roller-coaster rides, I was more concerned with my own safety than the thrilling rides. (But with hindsight, it’s definitely fun.)<\/p>\n <\/br>Erg Chebbi Desert<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Sunset<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Sunset Glow<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Sunset<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Sand Dunes<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Sunset Glow<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Tents for the Night<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Erg Chebbi Desert<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Sunset Glow and Distant Town Lights<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n Dinner was at 1930, so that gave us two an hour or so exploring the nearby sand dunes. However, climbing them was more difficult than it seemed, as one small step forward came with 0.99 small step backward as the sand drifted.<\/p>\n <\/br>Sand in Shoes<\/br>Climbing the sand dunes were harder than it seemed, as I had to stop to de-sand my shoes every few steps, among other difficulties.<\/span><\/p><\/div> <\/br>Tent Interior<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n As expected, there was nothing more than <\/br>Candlelight Dinner<\/br>Well, they didn\u2019t have electricity, and the dinner was very basic couscous. But it was in the desert, so we grinned and bore it.<\/span><\/p><\/div> <\/br>Cat in Campsite<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n I only brought with me a mini tripod, which meant I could only place my camera very close to the ground. So the following photos of stars might seemed a little bit strange.<\/p>\n <\/br>Stars over Erg Chebbi Desert<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Stars over Erg Chebbi Desert Camp<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Stars over Erg Chebbi Desert<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n After that it was bonfire party, of people from different nations singing their folk songs. It was all nice, except for the soot from bonfire drifting around choking people.<\/p>\n <\/br>Bonfire Party<\/p><\/div>\n After the bonfire party, my friend and I decided to give another try to the sand dunes. It was only 80 meters in altitude difference, but it felt like 800 due to drifting sand. It took me four limbs and an hour to reach the top of the sand dune, and like 3 minutes to get back down.<\/p>\n <\/br>Distant Mountains of Algeria<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Sand Dunes<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Sand Dunes<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n When climbing that huge sand dune, as I heavily swayed my body from side to side, my camera accidentally fell out of my pocket. Since dust-seal was something non-existent on Canon’s G7X model (which users complained frequently about), sadly, some of the sands got into the lens. The end result was that the lens didn’t retract properly (but one can still got them back manually), and light sensing got faulty during daytime when incoming light was strong (which I didn’t know until next day evening). This broken camera solidered on to Barcelona, where became completely unusable.<\/p>\n <\/br>Camp and Sand Dunes<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Stars and Clouds<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Sand Dunes<\/p><\/div> <\/br>Distant Mountains of Algeria<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n Having toiled all the way up the sand dune, I only stayed up there like 15 minutes before the desert night became too cold for me. So I rushed down the hill, got back to the tent, and called it a day.<\/p>\n END<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Second day of our three-day Sahara desert tour from Marrakech. The plan of the day’s tour was to ride from our overnight stay near Gorges Dad\u00e9s to Sahara Desert (the exact name should be Erg Chebbi Desert), the… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[204,2],"tags":[310,311,313,309,312],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.huangyizhou.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2363"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.huangyizhou.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.huangyizhou.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.huangyizhou.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.huangyizhou.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2363"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.huangyizhou.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2803,"href":"http:\/\/www.huangyizhou.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2363\/revisions\/2803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.huangyizhou.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.huangyizhou.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.huangyizhou.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThe images in this post are hosted on Imgur. Email me should there be any display problems.<\/span><\/p>\nhotel<\/del> inn, a portent of the day’s miseries.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\n<\/a>Viewing Platform of Gorges Dad\u00e9s<\/span><\/h3>\n
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\n<\/a><\/a><\/a>, and maybe camel poop<\/del> all mixed up and piled up, and hopefully it won’t fall down. Till these days, there were still people building houses with these old techniques in the village of Tinghir as we witnessed.<\/p>\n<\/a>
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\n<\/a>Todra Valley<\/span><\/h3>\n
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\nAnd the meals were served ridiculously slow.<\/p>\n<\/a>
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\n<\/a>Erg Chebbi Desert<\/span><\/h3>\n
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\n<\/a>carpets<\/del> blankets in the tent. No light bulbs, so we navigated the whole tent with our cell phone flashlight.
\nI was glad that at least I was sleeping on a bed, not in a sleep bag.
\nAnd yes, there were bathrooms, they were everywhere.<\/p>\n<\/a>
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