The main highway leading to Monterrey from Santiago, Nuevo Leon, Mexico.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Santiago, Nuevo Leon, Mexico.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Matehuala on Sunday!

Friday, March 3, 2023

That was an interesting drive!

Max likes driving mountain roads just as much as our North American motorhome Sherman did. So when I saw a route heading to our next destination that was more direct than the main road, I did some more research. And yes, it was a twisty, curvy mountain road, with reviews that warned of narrow sections with no guard rails.

But, it was also paved and in overall good condition. And a couple of other motorhomers said that they had done it without issue, but that it was "interesting".

And it was definitely interesting! But the road was actually easier than I was expecting it to be.

Scenery along the way.

And many of these photos are just scenery, so I won't bother captioning some of them.



Looking back at where we came from.



This area has a lot of agadirs. Yes, Agadir is the name of a nearby coastal city, but in the Berber language, an agadir is a fortified building, or citadel. And many of the small villages we drove through have agadirs. Most of them were built in the 1600's and are in deteriorating condition.






This poor donkey is working hard!

We had driven for about an hour when we stopped at the town of Alma. I had read of an agadir that was still in good condition, but recent reports said that it was closed to due to safety reasons. We parked in the town itself and walked almost 2 kms to the agadir.

The agadir near Alma, Morocco.

Zoomed in.

So as we're getting close to the path leading up to it, and old toothless crippled guy stops us. He digs out a piece of paper that has been dug out many times before (it had actually deteriorated into two pieces) with something in French written on it. He managed to get across that he wanted 50 dirham ($6.55 CAD, $4.85 USD) each, which is ridiculous. I scoffed at him and we continued walking. We've read that the locals will often try to get cash out of tourists any way they can. I might have given him 10 or 15 if that's what he would have asked for to begin with. 

But when we got up there, it was all closed off anyhow. And I really do think it's not safe. So all we ended up doing was wandering around the exterior.

"Dangir!"

"Dangir!" written on the entrance door. 

And when we went to the other side, we could see sections that have recently collapsed.


It sure would have been interesting to see the inside.

Looking back at the town of Alma.

We walked back to Max and carried on north.

There are a lot of old ruins like this.

Another agadir in another town.

We drove for another hour and then stopped for lunch.

View from our lunch spot.

While we were stopped there, this woman and her donkey came to get water. 
We hadn't even noticed that there was a hole in the ground that was some kind of well.




Another agadir in the distance.

Zoomed in.

This guy passed us. With all of his sheep on the roof!




'Eventually we came down from the mountains to a wide plain.

Camels!

We drove through the small city of Taroudant to the Le Jardin Campground. It's a big place with about 65 sites and by the time dusk came around it was pretty much full. Not our kind of place at all, but a lot of people are set up to stay long term. As we've said many times before, we're glad that people like different things.

But, we're going to hang out here for another night because we want to go into town today. We need some groceries and an ATM. Hopefully the machine won't eat Ruth's card... it's the only one we've got left!

Yesterday's drive, 146 kms (91 miles).

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And in Canada...

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