Tout-terrain | Mini circuit montagne et désert du Sahara au Maroc: 6 days - 4 days riding

This is one of our Morocco motorcycle tours where you will arrive at Ouarzazarte airport and a short transfer to our 4* Riad style hotel, or by minibus road transfer organized from Marrakech.

Your bike awaits your arrival.

Freshen up, do the bike paperwork, then free to laze by the pool or wander into town. Dinner is a buffet in our hotel.

After breakfast, bags are stashed in the 4×4 and we go and fuel up the bikes. Leaving the town our first 30kms is reasonably fast riding across the military area, just what’s needed to get accustomed to the bikes, until we drop down into a narrow gorge and dry river bed. From here we are winding our way on fast sandy trails through the foothills of the High Atlas. Crossing wide riverbeds, some with streams running, we will find a quiet place to stop for our picnic lunch. Off again through villages and palmeries before we start climbing on wonderful twisting rocky tracks over the beautiful Jebel Saghro mountains through an area named as “Monument valley” because of the amazing rock formations. We arrive at the tarmac and our accommodation in a beautiful converted Kasbah “castle” over 200yrs old, set in a narrow village street.

After a refreshing mint tea, check into your rooms, wander around the old buildings with their quaint corners and deco. There is a lovely pool for those who enjoy cold water dipping. We meet up back by the pool for a pre-dinner drink and then go indoors for our meal of tasty local soup served in terracotta bowls with wooden spoons, followed by chicken brochettes (kebabs) with veggies and lots of chips! Fruit for desert. If the evening is cold they will light the fire and we’ll sit around discussing anecdotes from the first day of our adventure.

Distance: Approx. 230km.

10kms down the road and we turn onto our first section offroad – beautiful winding trails through palmeries and villages and then a chance to experience riding in some small dunes. Don’t let that adrenaline kick in as you’ve a long way to go to reach our desert bivouac.

We refuel in Tazzarine and then set off on a totally virgin section of desert and brush – only used by us. Follow your GPS. Some slightly tricky narrow riverbeds with rocks, followed by a very flat plateau on super-fast twisting tracks that wind around all the flat topped hills and Acacia trees that dominate this area until we get to our lunch spot at a local auberge set totally alone in a gorge. If it has been very dry you might have to work your way through large herds of dromedaries or sheep and goats as this is the only point in the area for the herders to find water.

After lunch a further 28kms to our refuelling point in the desert village of Remlia before which we will ride through the notorious “fesh-fesh” (fine powder from pulverised mud) Sometimes quite deep with hidden ruts underneath this can be a challenge, and there could be some offs. In Remlia the fuel is served from water bottles (no health and safety considerations here) and then the final 30kms to our bivouac is across vast dry lakebeds and winding sandy tracks. Final drive into the bivouac can be through the dunes.

More dune riding and then the obligatory beer sitting on the ridge at “Johnnie’s Bar” watching a memorable sunset. Back to hot showers and then a plentiful tajine and after dinner local musicians around the campfire. You can sleep out under the stars or in one of the berber tents supplied.

Distance: Approx. 205km.

We leave our bivouac after breakfast, traversing back through the dunes we turn north, and then it’s about 80 kms fast biking across the desert, through dry sandy riverbeds and fesh-fesh before we come out on the asphalt at Msissi, where we stop for a refreshment in a local cafe and then refuel.

Another section of rocky riverbed to our cafe lunch stop.

Continuing on our northerly route we cross back over the Jebel Saghro mountains on twisting trails with dramatic rock formations and amazing scenery with long drop-offs down into the rocky valleys, until we come out onto a fast plateau which leads us to the town of Dades to our next night’s accommodation. Refuelling we then have about 10kms on road to our very pleasant French owned auberge with large swimming pool and lovely outdoor courtyard where we will eat an excellent dinner.

Distance: Approx. 190kms.

After breakfast refuel and then up the Dades Gorge and off in an easterly direction following the foothills of the Atlas Mountains. Undulating, fast sections interspersed with rocky trails through major washouts and gullies, bringing us out onto a plateau. Picnic lunch somewhere up on the plateau.

Several river crossings followed by trails winding their way down into beautiful river gorges before the final 20kms of fast tracks across a flat plateau bring us back to Ouarzazarte.

On arriving back at the hotel, the bikes are checked over together with our mechanic for damages, and it’s time to hit the bar and have a well-deserved drink and remember all the adventures we’ve had.

Distance: Approx. 190kms.

Breakfast and then everyone transferred to wherever they are flying from.

Hope to see you again soon.