Two Gorges

 April 25-26 - both 80-km riding days, first to the Todra Gorge, then the Dades Gorge, side by side gorges carved by rivers flowing out of the Atlas Mountains.

First some more riding on the windswept sandy desert, with the wind again fortunately being on our backs...

Marked contrast between irrigated land and the surrounding areas....

...through the town of Tinghir...

...and into the Todra Gorge...

In camp, our cook Mark is preparing a delicious lamb dinner.

Next morning it is a back-track out of the gorge through Tinghir - we were amazed at the size of the town and especially the extent of building new residential buildings in a town on the edge of the desert - we wondered what the economic attraction would be for a growing population.

On to the next gorge, the Dades Gorge. The lead photo in this post is a series of switch-bak in this gorge, but, full disclosure, we did not ride out bikes up or down that part of the road - we caught a lift with one of the support vans to do the sightseeing.

The rock formation across the gorge from the campsite is know as the 'monkey fingers'.

Camping tonight is in the courtyard of a hotel...

There is an air of opulence in many of these hotels although upkeep of things like plumbing doesn't match that.

COVID is certainly a factor in that tourism in the last two years has dropped to nothing with a corresponding effect on the economy. This hotel, just down the road from where we stayed, appeared to be brand new, ready for action, but without clientele.

The next morning, we again backtracked out of the Gorge to continue generally westbound along the edge of the desert, One of the rock formations looked to me like a bearded wise man watching down on us.