Jacques Gandini's new guide has just been published. With Hoceine Ahalfi, they explored Jebel Sagho, this magnificent and very wild region of southern Morocco, with breathtaking landscapes located east of Ouarzazate and south of the valley of Oued Dadès. Interrupted by the health crisis, the publication of this eleventh volume of the " Tracks of Morocco " collection brings together 59 routes totaling 2,500 kilometers and 1,100 waypoints .
Jebel Sagho is the eastern extension of the Anti - Atlas, a volcanic mountain with granite hillocks, basaltic organs, chaos of black shale, pink sandstone... at the gates of the Sahara. As far as the eye can see, large wild, arid spaces. A wasteland made for the lonely DPM. And a thousand miles around, silence as the only companion. An absolute plenitude and the desire to hit the track. From flat expanses to rolling mountains, from sharp reliefs to steep canyons: pure, original nature. The character is strong, rustic but the heart is soft. The soft and suave colors. Ochre, pink, brown, purple, the color chart stretches out in a gradation of shimmering pastels sometimes accompanied by overwhelming heat. Eldorado in the heart of the desert, rare are the oases; modest green spots in the infinitely large, they are the reminders that we are on African soil.
The wild charm of Sagho is due to its exceptional geology: high cliffs and steep peaks, tabular escarpments and deep canyons through which caravans of camels and mules circulate. When we arrive on these immense plateaus, the lunar horizon is so vast, that is born the desire to go everywhere at the same time to see if elsewhere, it is really as beautiful !
The Sagho also surprises with the richness of its lights: limpid like those of the nearby Sahara, or sometimes half - tone, as in the neighboring Dades Valley. Sagho is also the Morocco of the last Berber nomads, descendants of the ancient Aït Atta lords. In the fall, after leaving the snows of the High Atlas, they pitch their dark woolen tents on the slopes of the Jebel until spring. They can neither read nor write, but head with certainty in the middle of the Atlas Mountains and the Moroccan desert. In Sagho, they built houses of raw stone, dug wells, planted almond trees, cultivated wheat, barley and various vegetables. Others have formed herds of goats and sheep, camel caravans. Mostly sedentary today, semi - nomads or nomads...
