Sunday 22 October 2017

Meknes to Imilchil

The last two days have been epic.
Epic wow moments.
Epic. Oh please let this be over.
Stunning landscapes.
Freaky landscapes.
Huge landscapes.
Super friendly locals, we had numerous invites for tea, which we had to turn down for reasons you'll see below.
The Epic, Oh please let this be over, well that’s the escape for the river ravine. I remember a B movie, more like a C movie I watched years ago about a Russian tank crew who got lost in Afghanistan and drove up a ravine, it didn't end well for them. For some reason I start thinking about that film And the never ending single track mountain roads with no barrier and maybe 500m drop offs. Most definitely the scariest roads we've ever been on! Marie hates these types of road. I tell her it’s aversion therapy and she should be cured by now.
An overland tour company pulled into the campsite last night and, as you do, I got into conversation with the tour leader. She asked what our plans were and I showed her our route for today. So cutting a long story short she convinced me that we should head for here instead.
Lac de Tislit
Location: geo:32.196896,-5.6372414
She even showed me a route on the map. So off we set for gentle saunter through the Moroccan countryside. It starts off great, the only concern being we'll never arrive due to the numerous photo opportunity stops.
About an hour in the road turns into a typical gravel piste, no problem. We meet a couple of locals coming the other way who stop and via our ridiculously poor French we figure they're telling us that we're on the wrong road.
So we back track and we end up in a village with no apparent road out. We blunder around like a couple of complete tools for a while. Crossing irrigation channels that have bridges across them barely wide enough for the Sprinter. Marie has to get out and direct me across, even then the tyres are hanging off the edge.
So we end up paying a local kid on his bike 20Dh to direct us out, onto more or less the road we’d already been on.
Anyway happy days, back on tarmac. Until the road disappears into the adjacent river. As we're pondering what to do a Polish couple in a Toyota Landcruiser pulls up behind us. They crossed on the same ferry as us from Spain, small world. She runs on ahead, following the tracks in the river bed. Maybe 1km ahead the road is intact so between us we decide to press on. All good.
Unfortunately the road disappears again. It’s now a question of press on or turn around. We press on, at times it’s pretty extreme going, even the Toyota LC80 struggles. It then partially breaks, sounds like a universal joint at his rear axle is on its last legs.
We both decide to turn back, until a local farmer appears and tells us there’s only another 4km of this and then it’s tarmac. Question. Is our French sufficient to comprehend what he’s telling us, maybe it’s 40km he does point to a lump of tarmac washed down by the river as he’s explaining. It does turn out to be about 5km.
It's maybe 7 to 10km of river bed to go back so we carry on. Marie is having a hissy fit at all this, I'm not enjoying it too much either. Has someone moved the Darian Gap to Morocco?
We finally get out of the ravine that seemed to go on for ever. Both of us are now beyond going “wow look at that.....” We're still 79km from our destination, Doh!!
The scenery and terrain are stunning though, it’s difficult to describe and I doubt the photo's do it justice. They could do a Martian film here. It’s red, purple, green, white, that’s the mountains, not the vegetation. But after maybe 5hrs in that river bed we're not looking. It was bloody hot as well.
So we arrive at the lake. The Auberge/camping is like something out of the Shinning. The lady who welcomes us is lovely though. She’s cooking dinner for us right now, hopefully it’s good. I’ve eaten some dates and a few crisps whilst driving. I’m knackered, maybe that’s enough off road for now! Marie definitely never wants to see another switch back mountain road with no barriers and a 40 year old overladen truck coming the other way! I think we were at 2,400 metres at times. We're camped at about 2,000 metres so it’s a little chilly now the sun has gone down.
 Some stats:
Average speed 10.2mph
Max. Speed 80.2mph
Height gain 5,387 metres
Height loss 3,956 metres
As I say, it’s been an experience. Marrakech tomorrow. The sat nav says 5hrs, so that’ll be another 10hr day





Now for the boring petrol head stuff.
I'm seriously impressed with the Sprinter. It struggles with ditches/axle articulation but it did it. At times it’s tricky balancing the throttle, traction control, forward momentum and the turbo boost. It works best when you can hold a constant throttle, maintaining a non damaging speed  and allowing the traction control to do it’s thing. If you lose forward momentum and you're off boost, as you are a lot of the time if you don’t want to rip the thing to bits, it can stall. It’s then tricky to get going again without giving it too much throttle/boost. Coming from a G Wagen I'm  conscious that, to me at least, the front diff and drive shafts look pretty light weight. I guess, given its commercial vehicle roots, the rear axle and half shafts are pretty robust though. Maybe that’s the reason the torque split is 65 rear 35 front? In any case I really don’t want to find the mechanical limits!
For a van though, impressive! It does drink the fuel in this type of environment though. 7.5mpg!! Overall for the 180km it’s 12mpg.
Meknes.

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