"Barkane / Zegzel Gorge" Berkane by earthflyer

The Journey to Oudja from Nador
My day started of well this morning I met another backpacker who just got of the ferry from France, he's the first backpacker I have seen in this part of Morocco and he's name is Mykal form Slovenia and like myself is just travelling around Morocco for a couple of weeks.

We both left Nador this morning on public bus to Berkane, Mykal plans where to go straight to Oudja on the Algerian border then travel onto Fez the next day but he liked my Idea of visiting Zegzel Gorge in the Beni-Snassen Mountains which he didn't know anything about and was curious to have a look since it was en-route to Oudja.

Once we arrived into Berkane it was a dusty modern town that looked like it dosn't see many tourist. From here we tried to arrange a taxi to Zegzel Gorge and back but it was a challenge considering that we both don't speak any French, Spanish or Arabic but a young student helped us with the language barrier and to our surprise the taxi driver said he will take us to Zegzel Gorge and show us around and then take us onto Oudja which is only 1 hour away and the student will come along too, as he is heading there aswell, but like alot of students many want to pratice there english with the foreigners so we gave him a free ride to Oudja.

Zegzel Gorge is a series of gorges running about 10km and very picturesque with great views all around. There is also a vast cave system complete with stalagmites but is no longer open to the public. all around the gorges there are little caves, some are fenced off. After looking around Zegzel Gorge we headed onto Oudja where we said our goodbyes to the taxi driver and student for which we had a good laugh with the translation but Mykal & myself where tired after a long day on the road and soon found a hotel to crash for the night. Neverless we both where glad to stay in Oudja which is a very clean and modern town compared with Berkane which was very dusty.