From the Eagle's Nest to the Anti-Atlas

I know, I know... the next leap is big, but necessary. Besides experiencing all and filming/editing the videos, there is hardly any time to do the blogposts. I want to do better. And stay more up-to-date. So here's a little compromise: The future posts will be more up-to-date, the next ones here will be long and a summary of the last months in Morocco.

After Christmas we went on towards South to reach the Nid d'aigle . In between, there was the first stop at a mechanic. He couldn't replace the gearbox, but at least he was able to remove all the rust from the tank.

Nid d'aigle:

When we arrived at the paragliding hotspot, we immediately met another Swiss family who live in their camper van all year round and spend half the year outside Switzerland. They fly too, well the dad with his kids. We spent almost 11 days here. At the beginning, the soaring didn't go so well because the wind was always too weak. But with enough time and patience, the good days arrived and we could be in the air for hours. We got to know other Moroccan pilots who always helped us and gave us tips. There was also a crazy donkey who sometimes came to visit us for breakfast.

Here, the landings were very difficult for me. Once I ended up in a cactus field and once even more unfortunate: with a sprained ankle. This was of course painful on the one hand, but on the other hand it also meant that there was nothing more I could do here, because apart from flying, there is actually nothing around the Nid d'aigle.

Anti-Atlas:

So we continued on our way through Morocco's landscapes. From Olivier we had received many tips and were now exploring the Anti-Atlas, the mountains in the South of the country. Wild camping was incredibly easy here and every place breathtakingly beautiful (if you finally learn to ignore the rubbish that unfortunately lies everywhere and can adjust to the fact that Moroccans often come by and want to chat a bit).

We visited the souq in Tiznit and the small medina, we spent my birthday and a few more days at the blue stones in Tafraoute - an area we had almost exclusively to ourselves. We slept under palm trees in the Ait Mansour valley and picked dates. There we were also invited by a villager for soup and tea in his mountain house and walked through the night illuminated by the full moon. The Anti-Atlas is incredibly beautiful. It all seemed very quiet, partly also very barren and one had the feeling of being on Mars. At the same time, the rocks were in all sorts of colours - and I'm not talking about the man-painted ones 😉 and they looked like they had been sanded down and stacked on top of each other, very fragile and yet surprisingly stable (yes, we confess, we tried to push a few over once... no chance).

Unfortunately the gearbox got worse and worse. Slowly it started making noises in the 4th and 2nd gear, which made driving more and more difficult. So instead of moving on and looking for the hot springs around Guelmim, we drove back to a workshop in Tiznit. There we briefly had hope of finding the right replacement gearbox, but this quickly vanished into thin air. We stayed a few more days in the Nid d'aigle and at the Atlantic, and then drove on towards Marrakesh.