The night didn’t feel as cold as the night before, although it was a mere 12°C when I got up at 07:30. Winter and snow is definitely around the corner. We had a quick and easy breakfast with cereals, bread and coffee. On time we left the camping after waving goodbye to a young couple from Tübingen, who were camping there for a couple of days and climbing the rock walls in the Todgha Gorge.
The road led us out into plains and further away from civilisation. The landscape changed again to a moon-like surface. Many dark rocks and no vegetation at all. Once in a while we saw a few houses near a few acacia trees. The sun was burning hard and Brahim, sitting on the sunny south side, had to cover himself not too be cooked well done.
We were asking ourselves, what these people who live here, do for a living. Brahim explained, that they either have a couple of goats or are Moroccans who are from the region but now live in big cities such as Casablanca or abroad and earn their money there.

We made good way and soon reached a village, where we stopped two weeks ago on our way back from Pizzas On The Piste. This time, we filled up the vehicles and our jerry cans. The petrol station attendant was very busy. He had to handle simultaneously a group of BMW motorcycles from Italy and Poland, before it was our turn.

With full jerry cans and tanks we continued and turned off the main road onto a piste before the city of Rissani. The piste took us across the rocky plains to a rock formation called Gara Medouar. It is an erosion cirque, nicknamed the “Portuguese Prison”, where one can find
etrilobites and anmmonites, and stands tall at an impressive 858m elevation. Historically, it was
used to hold African slaves being sold to Portugal, hence its nickname. The place is stunning, and because of that, several films were produced here: Bond’s Spectre (2015), The Mummy (1999), The Mummy Returns (2000), Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010), The Secret of the Sahara (1998).

We entered through the main gate and found big tents being set up behind the wall. Later we realised what they were for. We drove up the track leading to the top of the hill. We parked our vehicles securing then against rolling off and went to admire the beautiful view over the desert. Two female tourists had tortured a little rental car all the way across the plains and up the mountain. Soon the tranquility was massively disturbed by a red Spanish Porsche driving up and parking on the highest spot, to be followed shortly by ten more Porsche Cayennes from Spain. They were apparently all part of the Porsche Experience, an all-inclusive travel tour with a Porsche Cayenne, in this case, for people with too much money and no manners. Fortunately, we had already taken our pictures and swiftly made an exit to leave them to the mountain and later have lunch in the tents next to the entrance.

We reached the garrison town of Rissani. Lots of soldiers on the road, either on foot, on a bicycle or in a military truck.
We followed the Route National 13 through some very empty landscape until we started seeing the mighty dunes of Erg Chebbi in the distance. They came closer and then, we turned off to the camping I had chosen from the many here on the basis of the positive reviews.

The camping at the back reaches all the way to the dunes. The proprietor told us that we had free choice. Brahim, Trevor and me walked across the camping to look for two suitable spots for us. Next to three big palm trees we found just that and started setting up camp.
Lunch was quickly prepared and we enjoyed it with a lovely view onto the yellow sand dunes of Erg Chebbi.

Around us we hear lots of engine noise from motorbikes and quads heading into the dunes or coming out of them. Sometimes too loud and disturbing.
Most of the camper cars here are German or Austrian. My blue number plate, of course, is a good starter to a conversation. A chat with the neighbours followed, who turned out to be from Traunstein, a city our family knows too well. We used to have a holiday house there.

Brahim attempted to have a snooze in his tent but that had already warmed up so much that he fled it again quickly, calling it a Hamam. I retreated to my hammock attached to a palm tree and my car to write this blog, only being bothered by thousands of flies. Charlotte and Trevor went for a very refreshing swim in the camping swimming pool. Happy days!