MA10: R107
Pretty much everyone we met told us about this fantastic and beautiful drive that we had to do. Really everyone! What is this road you ask? It’s the R107 which is actually a mountain pass. It’s not very long yet everyone also kept telling us to plan a full day for it, because of its beauty. We were intrigued and made sure to fit it into our itinerary.
Luckily, the R107 is not out of our way, it actually connects Icht and Tafraout. Both places that we definitely wanted to visit. Amazing how everything seems to fall into place sometimes.
When we did our research about the pass we saw that a couple of highlights were on the way, but we would have to take a different road and circle back to the R107. The “Route Des Canyons” / “Route d’Aoukerda” is a tiny road with many switchbacks and we had heard rumours it might be inaccessible due to severe damage from heavy rainfall. It was a perfect coincidence that the traveller we met at the Tghit Canyon drove this very road a couple of days earlier and was able to confirm we would have no problem taking it. The only caveat was the town at the very end of the road is almost impossible to reach. A trade-off we were happy to accept.
We started the journey and quickly understood why people kept telling us to reserve the full day – every corner revealed yet another fantastic view. The road conditions were mostly perfect until we hit a challenge.
A power pole had fallen over and the cables were hanging dangerously low above the street. There was an unpaved parallel road where the cables were actually lying on the ground. Yet it seemed easier to pass that way than trying to go under the cables. We turned around and drove back to the turn-off of the parallel road.
An elderly local tried to explain something to us, but we had no idea what he was saying or gesticulating. We quickly reached the point of the cables again on the parallel road and saw that it was actually worse than we thought. The cables had uncurled and were lying crisscrossed in the dirt. On top of that there was a massive pothole. We tried to slowly go over, but the risk of the cable wrapping around the tires was too high as the tires lost traction due to the sand and the pothole. We were puzzled and Kathrin, who was behind the wheel, was already sweating at the thought of having to reverse the entire track back – when the same elderly local came towards us. Again talking very excitedly and gesticulating towards the paved road with the low hanging cables. It was at that moment that we understood he had tried to show us a safe way around the cables….whelp, too late now!
To our surprise he then grabbed a shovel, called over 2 or 3 other guys who also brought shovels and within minutes they had buried the cables in the sand and fixed the potholes. They smiled satisfied, we were incredibly grateful and gave them a little tip as a thank you which at first they didn’t want to accept but in the end gladly accepted. We called this the fastest Moroccan roadside assistance ever!
(Note: you’re wondering where are the photos? – We didn’t take any as it didn’t feel right in the moment)
Having barely survived this situation 😝 we moved on and shortly after reached the turnoff to the Route Des Canyons. The road was definitely in bad condition, but the authorities were already on the case and in many places they had already renewed the surface. Still we only made slow progress as we had to negotiate oncoming trucks and heavy machinery used to fix up the road.
The first highlight was the horseshoe bend / Grand Canyon lookalike. An incredible show of nature’s forces and fantastic to look at.
The Window of Life followed next. A massive almost perfectly square hole in a massive wall of rock. We had seen many photos of people climbing into it, but the path upwards was way too sketchy for our liking, possibly due to the heavy rainfall that had also destroyed many parts of the road. We were still super happy to see the hole firsthand even without being able to touch it.
Despite the warning the village at the end of the road was unreachable, we figured we would try, but quickly had to turn around as the road was completely gone and the sand way too soft for our tires filled with 5.5 bars of air. We definitely did not want to get stuck at the end of a canyon road barely anyone uses at that time.
The remaineder of the R107 was exactly as it had begun: one fantastic scene after another until we reached Tafraout. The drive took us almost the full day and left us incredibly happy!