Tuesday 16th May - An endurance test to get to a spectacular waterfall - 519km (trip total 3324km)

Today was always going to be a long day, once I had decided to give Rabat, Casablanca & Marakesh a miss and focus instead on more rural sites & experiences. My first target was the Cascades d'Ouzoud to the south east of Marakesh, I've always liked waterfalls and this one promised to be a stunner.

The route was over 500km and even making use of the toll roads where possible, google estimated it to be about 7 hours continuouse riding - in fact it took nearly 10 including a few stops.

The roads hugged the coast until just after Casablance, with frequent views of the sea. These were actually quite pleasant as toll roads go, largely empty and often lined by very fragrent trees. There was a nice colling sea breeze for most of this part of the journey too.

We also got to go over Africa's longest & highest suspension bridge, across Oued Bouregreg, which opened inly last year, is 950 meters long, with three lanes in each direction, a 100 meter deck height and two main towers of 200 meters height with an architecture inspired by the Islamic arts and architecture.

Things changed once we left the toll road at Casabkanca and headed inland towards Marakesh.
The roads got smaller & more dusty & the temperature rose to around 38-40 degrees with a hot dry wind. It was quite hard going, but provided some glimpses of local life.

Then as we continued around and beyond Marakesh, the roads becam more interesting, but still just as hot.

By late afternoon we were well into the 'twisty bits', which lasted gor about 2 hours up towards the Ouzoud gorge. These were excellent, but it was so hot and we were seriosly starting to flag so it started to become a bit of an excecise in endurance.

Anyway just as the sun as falling, giving everything a warm orange tint (including my face!) we rached the falls - and suddenly it was worth all the effort.

The total drop is 110m with the longest of the 3 sections 75m.

Ouzoud is the berber for grinding grain, apparently, and the buildings at the top of the falls used to have working mills.

Even in the hot dry weather, there was still a decent flow into the river canyon below.

I had booked rooms for the night in one of the converted buildings right at the too of the falls, just meters from the edge. A loveley spot to chill out after a long day's riding.