6 hrs, 3.0 kms



Thanks to my 4 day week schedule, I'm able to do 3 day trips any time I want . Last week I was pretty wiped out after my Skoura hike… but now I’ve got my mojo back and I’m ready to give it another shot…

Well… sort of…

See, I still have one more desert Superhike I want to do: up in the northeast there are a series of cool oases that I’ve visited: Errachidia… Aoufous Valley… Arfoud… and Rissani. I’d really like to honor that whole area with a Superhike. The only problem is that, to connect them, I’d have to hike some long stretches of open desert… and after my last experience in Skoura, I’m just not too sure I want to do that again, even in the wintertime.


I debate this back and forth for a bit until I finally come up with a compromise: I will do a Superhike in that region, but not necessarily connect all 4 or those oases. I’ll just connect three, hit my 100 km marker, and call it quits. No more pushing myself to the limit .

And so, for the umpteenth time, I head to the Casablanca station for an overnight bus to Errachidia.

Actually, there are no overnight buses to Errachidia. So, just like what happened 4 years ago, I go as far as Meknes, and chill out at the station until 5 in the morning to catch the first bus south… not comfortable, but I’ll manage.   Things are looking good until we reach Azrou. It’s very cold, and it doesn’t seem like the bus is in any hurry to get going. I get shuffled from one bus to another to another, still not sure what’s going on, until someone explains, "the road is blocked because of the snow".

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. It snows here in Morocco.

Actually I’m not to worried about the delay. It’s the getting back that concerns me. I’ll be coming back on a tight deadline, and a snow delay could spell trouble. Maybe crossing the mountains for a 3 day trip wasn’t such a good idea . Finally we get going, and I’m treated with a spectacular scenery of freshly fallen snow, covering the ground and trees—I haven’t seen fresh snow since Pennsylvania five years ago and forgot how beautiful it is. But it’s not nearly as heavy as it was when I passed through here in 09 when it was over 2 meters high in places.

Finally the snow fades away, and we pass town after town that brings back memories… Timahdite… Zeida… Midelt… Errich…seems like so long ago… Finally we reach Errachidia, where I grab a quick lunch, then continue on to Rissani. I’m planning to do this hike backwards, working my way back towards the regions capital.

Starting the Hike

 

It’s not until 3 PM that I reach Rissani—I’ve been on the road now for 16 hours. No time to waste, I immediately start my 26 kilometer stretch back towards Arfoud. But when a group of high school chilling out by the bus station ask for a concert, I decide to oblige . They look like a fun, clean cut group of kids… I’ve been kind of lacking in good audiences lately. And fortunately I don’t look like the “rich tourist” when I pull out my camera for a group photo—as immediately after one of the students pulls out a smartphone for a souvenir photo as well…

I continue on up the road, past some friendly cops at a checkpoint… and on into the open countryside. Ah, it feels good to be able to wander freely somewhere where I’m neither hassled, threatened, or looked at suspiciously.


To my left is a road that takes a huge loop around the Rissani oasis, probably with a lot of mud castle villages to explore along the way. Maybe I’ll do that later—for now I need to focus on reaching Arfoud. But when I spot a castle village just a few hundred meters off the road, I know I’ve got to check it out. Remember, this is about the experience, not the destination.

Moulay Abdellah Dakket is another picture perfect castle village—great for a videoclip. I don’t go inside, but do explore the perimeter with its partly crumbled corner towers, tiny windows peeking out over the oasis… elegant main entrance. Yep, it’s good to be back.