Off Roading Into The Sahara

We headed down into this valley in southern Morocco renowned for its natural beauty and mountainous surroundings that leads through Ouarzerzate and Zagora and down towards M'hamid, a gateway to the Sahara. According to several locals the 200 km stretch between M'hamid and Foum Zguid was a fairly easily crossed desert piste that was worth taking for its awesome views of desert dunes.

We hadnt made it as far as the desert dunes when, on a mountain road n ear Zagora the jeep blew the head gasket again! Then again it did last blow it on the M25 in London so the new one lasted a good 3000 miles. Of course we quickly met some locals who arranged for a Land Rover specialist, the wizard, to pick the jeep up, tow it to Zagora and give it proper fix. So a couple of days later, with the jeep not only fixed but improved by the Wizard and with off road tyres fitted on the bikes we headed off across the piste into the desert but decided against taking a guide as we had just spent so much money on repairs that we couldnt afford one!
We had only gone a couple of kilometers in ridiculously difficult sand that pretty much had Palli and Caroline both exhausted so we decided to camp there for the night and enjoy the sand dunes before turning back around ther next morning.

The next morning, after a brilliant night under a starry sky, a full moon and real feeling of freedom in the middle of this amazing landscape, Caroline awoke with a severe stomach ache, vomiting and unable to ride. Then we ran into a local guide who told us we had strayed off the right path and that a couple of hundred meters away was the right track that was only an hours drive to where an encampment was, midway to Foum Zguid. So we put Caroline in the jeep, ignoring her pleas to get back on proper road, becouse us men knew that turning back was too costly an option to consider, as it would mean several hundred kilometers added to our journey. Left Haukur guarding her bike, armed with a phone, food water and the DV camera, and the bike keys(in case he could learn to ride it by himself), and then Palli was to return for the other bike(and Haukur) a couple of hours later in the jeep. Needless to say this plan went completely wrong, the track was extremely difficult to cross on the bike especially with heavy sand dunes intermittently crossing the otherwise reasonable rocky track making the bulky Africa Twin more than a handful to manouvre. Then we were lost, had no idea were we were, with the track splitting into several directions and temperatures rising, the bike getting completely stuck in sand, one hour quickly became three. We then decided to abandon our plan after a ""suggestion" from Caroline and find a guide to take all of us back to Haukur and get back on the main road. Which we successfully managed to do with Palli ferrying both bikes across the dunes. We stayed a night in M'hamid before taking the long way round to The Western Sahara.
So back up north for a few hundred km's and then across to Agadir, a problem with C's bike on the way for good measure which we got fixed in Agadir and 2 days later set off a fresh down south and into Western Sahara. We are half way down and after camping near the dunes last night we are hoping to head across the Mauritania border in the next day or 2.
So with sand in our eyes and everywhere else....fingers crossed.