The sunrise in the desert is always a special moment and something you don’t want to miss. Although we slept well, the night was incredibly quiet apart from the odd snoring somewhere in the valley, it was a somewhat short night for some of us. The temperature had dropped to around 16°C, higher than we had feared, but most likely it stayed moderate due to the dust in the air that served as a kind of blanket. We crawled out of our tents, stretched and already saw a yellow hue behind the mountains across the valley. As the wind had died down during the night, the dust in the air had settled and the air during the night had become clear, producing an incredible night sky and clear visibility in the morning.

I quickly got all the ingredients out to make us a quick hot morning coffee. Breakfast was still far away and we wanted to warm ourselves on the black elexir. While waiting for the water to boil, we snapped a few pictures before heading up the hill above our camp with our coffee mugs to welcome the first sun rays of this glorious morning. We were not the first ones. The Belgians had gathered there to do the same.

We chatted while watching the transformation of the sky from dark blue over light blue, and red hues to bright yellow. Many pictures were taken of the landscape, the camp with the sunrise and of each other.
Time for our descent and breakfast. While I prepared Julia’s and mine, Julia started to break down her tent and pack things away again.

We had a nice tasty omelette with more coffee and the salad, the ladies had prepared for last night’s dinner, but we had never gotten around to eat. With our tummies full, we did the dishes and further packing. The Dutch couple had some trouble with their new Hilux based rig and their fridge that had started to complain and threw error messages at them they didn’t understand. They had asked me to help trying to find the cause of the problem. Quickly got my multimeter out and measured their auxiliary electrical system supplying their fridge. It seemed that the solar panels didn’t charge the auxiliary battery and the fridge had drained the battery somehow. We could not find any fuses or even the solar charger. Luckily the auxiliary battery was still being charged by the engine though. They had to get in contact with the company that built their vehicle in The Netherlands.

Around us the first rigs started their engines, ready to leave. If you have a cabin and no tent, it is much easier and quicker to get going in the morning. We said our goodbyes and promises to share pictures.
We chose a different route out of the valley and back onto the piste. While slowly making our way back to civilisation, we admired the landscape and enjoyed the remoteness.

A few kilometres before the end of the piste, we caught up with the big Italian truck, only to find the little Kia Picanto stranded on the piste with a blown tire. Together with the third Belgian, the two, who had rented the small most unsuitable vehicle for this outing, changed the wheel. With the Italian truck driver we stood next to them and gave some joking comments. The wheel was quickly replaced with a much smaller emergency wheel. We continued to the tarred road a few kilometres north. In front of a nice acacia tree we stopped for some awesome memento pictures.

No traces of the Honda biker however we left behind yesterday, when we reached the tarmac. He must have gotten out and continued his travels.
Back on tar, we headed west towards Zagora. Also here, the mountains were much clearer than the day before. In many villages the kids but also adults waved at us seemingly being happy to see us in their remoteness.

In Alnif, we chose a different route going back to Marrakech than we took on the way over. Finally, we arrived in the beautiful Draa Valley that we followed to its origins and climbed across impressive rock formations to Ouazarzate. The traffic got denser and denser the closer we got back to the touristic routes. We drove up some incredible mountain roads, that had all been widened in recent years to make the southern part of Morocco more accessible for tourists and commercial traffic. Near Ouazarzate, we saw again the bright light glowing in the desert. It is the Ouarzazate Solar Power Station, also called Noor Power station. At 510 MW, it is the world’s largest concentrated solar power (CSP) plant in the world. It collects the sun rays, bundles them and with it drives a heat engine, producing electrical power. Impressive to see the glowing tower in the desert that supplies around one Million people with (almost) renewable energy since 2018.

We crawled back into the Atlas Mountains trailing trucks and were overtaken by many speeding taxis and locals, not taking any of the speeding limits very seriously set due to the still ongoing road works.
We arrived back in Marrakech just in time for dinner after a 525km return drive, that took us just over nine hours. But the round trip of over a thousand kilometres was totally worth it, meeting like-minded people, seeing incredible landscapes and having fun in the desert. Welcomed by friends and family at the hotel, we quickly unloaded the vehicles, drove them to their parking and headed to a nearby restaurant for a well deserved dinner.