This is fun

After making  it over the atlas mountains I restocked in "Morocco's Hollywood " and then took a recommendation to head to Finnt, a desert oasis where I treated myself to some Berber hospitality and took a rest day (video of drumming dudes were workers at the hotel).  I left the next evening and had a sunset ride on the dirt road to another undeveloped  oasis where I camped under the milkyway.  The next day I was crossing open and barren desert in 105° heat until I got to the Dadés River valley.  The next day was spent riding through picturesque towns in and out of the Dades Gorge.  I made full use of the cool morning  and evenings and found a nice spot to pitch a hammock during  the afternoon.   

Today, I woke up at the sources the Dades,  and started heading up over the atlas mountains up above amazing canyon landscapes butting against  dramatic mountains.  There was nothing for 60km, and the whole time I was on the "piste" road i only saw the following  people: Three women on foot with heavily loaded pack mules, a couple on a scooter, a car, a truck, three goat herders, camels, a nomadic  family, and another truck. It was a dirt road, but actually I kind if get it now, the whole gravel riding thing.   This road was perfect.   Challenging in all the fun ways without the road ripples and sand traps.   The ascent was long, with the hardest non-stop section climbing 900m over 12km of especially technical gravel roads.  10,000ft elevation at the pass.  The descent was a ton of fun, there were super technical  sections  where I was standing up and and riding the brakes hard (I love this bike).   And there were other times where I was just cruising in top gear on hard clay and gravel, even catching some actual air several times hoping little road bulges.  I even did some semi-technical single track riding on the switchback  short cuts.   Full suspension without panniers would have been a blast, but there's something  pretty  satisfying  about doing it with this rig.  I stopped at the first sign of civilization I saw which was a little  cafe run by some young dudes, one of them spoke Spanish.   I hate and hung out and played guitar for a few hours, then descended the last 16km of dirt roads to the first of a string of towns (and the beginning *spotty* asphalt). These towns were definitely way different  from the ones on the other side of the pass, seemingly  much poorer, and the people looked more turkic.  The people in these upper mountain towns, and the herders and nomads I saw on the pass definitely made the whole thing feel way more foreign then before.  The rest of Morocco has kind of just felt like Europe built out of adobe, with an Arab twist.  Except the desert part... that was nuts.  These mountains felt like a world that the west hasn't influenced at all, a culture that is completely foreign to anything I have any idea about.  Plus lots if kids screemed and chased after me asking for stuff, which is annoying, but I landed a couple of solid high fives.  Now I'm back down to about 7,000ft in the middle of the mountain range, back in the sort of towns I'm more used to.   I'm gonna spend another $20 for a hotel with a shower and meals and wifi.   No complaints here.  5 stars.