After a quiet night, we had a walk back down through the narrowest part of the gorge this morning. Many coaches were coming in and there wasn’t much room to walk.
We heard a guide call his group back to the bus and then say “now it is the time to tip your guide” 🙄- he already had the equivalent of a £5 and £10 note in his hand to set the example! Wow ..it’s a gorge, you can only walk up it or down it!
We walked around a lovely palmery at the bottom end. These places are so incredibly green as they are irrigated regularly. I think the idea is that they make money from the date palms but also from the stuff they can grow underneath them as it’s shaded from the heat.
In the afternoon, we tried a trek that ran around the mountain at the back of where we were parked. It was a surprisingly good path but eventually started to climb too high so we turned around. Both on the way out and on the way back, a friendly shepherd came to say hello. Both times he wanted to look at my watch which was a little odd. It’s not like it’s a Rolex or anything 🤣
Further down, we bumped into an old lady with a heavily laden horse and a donkey. “Photo! Photo!” she said, then followed it up with rubbing her fingers together in the ‘give me some money ‘ action they all use. It seems that they also teach this to children as soon as they can walk.
We encountered even more of this as we drove further up the gorge late afternoon, in fact it felt like we were running the gauntlet as we drove through the wild village of Tamtatoucht.
We were pleased to find a campsite further along in this high, barren landscape and arrived at ‘Hotel Restaurant Panorama Camping’ at Ait Hani to find its ‘patron’ fast asleep on a settee in the reception. 🤣
He took £4.50 from us, and later on disappeared on his motorcycle. Another van came in and asked us where to pay as there was no one around. Not sure where we find the delicious food, water, drain and toilets as advertised…🤷♀️
