It’s been a fantastic trip. We have done a
little less than 5.000Km with little amount of Km on the roads. We started the trip as
a big group and finished it with just 5 Land Rovers, 9 people. The whole thing
has been one of the most amazing experiences I’ve ever had.
My brother and I started the trip on Friday the 26th
of October. All the way down to Almeria and ferry to Melilla. In the ferry we
met most of the other people on the expedition.
The 27th we passed the border to Nador (Morocco)
and started by going straight to the Rekam Plateau, here we drove some hamadas
and got into some oueds, very fast tracks, with some surprises along the way… I
did hit a huge rock, but I was lucky only the support of the axle got hit. We
camped half way to Merzouga in the middle of a Hamada. Some in the group had presents to give away to kids along the way, it felt like Xmas or something.
The 28th was very similar, very long day, driving
off road all the time, some orientation was needed, as we didn’t follow lots of
trailed paths. We arrived to the Baraka (Merzouga), we had a big nice dinner.
The 29th was the day for the big dunes, Erg
Chebbi, dunes are always fun, we ended up having lunch in an oasis next to the
big dune. I realized that the 300tdi is underpowered for the big tires I run now,
so the big dunes are not easy to tackle going up, but still, it was a lot of fun.
The 30th we left and headed down to Ramlia, this
was a fantastic part of the trip, pure offroad, we saw almost nobody the whole
trip, water, mud, sand, dunes, rocks, everything you could ask for a technical offroad
trip. Again, lots of fun.
The 31st we started the route for the day (Orange
Dune) but my front spring kept on popping out, my shock absorbers are gone
pretty much by now, so we decided to return to the hostel and work on the car
to make sure I didn’t have anything else, after some tinkering, the whole thing
kept on going very well, no more problems, although my suspension was pretty
much ineffective. They threw a big party with singing and dancing and good food,
lot of fun.
The 1st we decided not to go any more south and
start slowly our return. We saw some savanna plains, very rocky terrain, at the
end, the group split into 2, some heading for the extreme hardcore trail around
Tinghir and some decided to go to a hotel and take it easy for a night. We went
to the hotel as I had no suspension, good thing I did, as the trail turned out
to be the most dangerous in the trip and wasn’t equipped for it.
The 2nd , after replacing a pin for the swivel housing in the hotel parking, we had to divide the big group as some of
them had to be back to get a ferry on the 3rd, at the end only 5
Land Rovers stayed and we took off, going through the Todgha Gorge, such a beautiful
area. Rain had destroyed the road, so what started as an easy drive through the
mountains turned out to be yet another semi-offroad trip, we drove through the
Atlas, very high, to find out everything too cold and wet to camp, so we decided
to stay at a family own hotel in a little village way up high in the mountains.
The 3rd we continued our trip through the Atlas
and we discovered yet another new scenery: green forests, greener than northern
Europe they seemed, very pretty and wet, lots of mud and water, destroyed roads
and bridges, lakes and probably the most beautiful camping site I’ve ever seen. We even saw a wild monkey.
The 4th we started the descent to Ifrane, where
we split the group once again, 3 went all the way to Tanger and 2 of us went to
Nador, we did head to Nador, since there is a nice highway there, we had time
to relax, clean the cars of tons of mud and sand and have a little dinner when
we arrived at Nador.
The Land Rover has been a champion this whole trip, no
issues, just some scratches and the shocks went south, but, kind of expected of
such a great workout for the car. I had the Terrafirma that came with the lift,
but I may go back to some Bilstein for now.
Lots of driving, but this may very well be the trip of a
lifetime…. At least for now.
Thanks to all these great people from the Land Rover club of Spain (CLRTTE), this has been a great success and I feel I have made some friends for life.
A little video:
Let me add just one more picture, I love of the trip:
