as they kept obstinately speaking their native language in opposition to Arabic , the cultured elite language . In order to not make compromises , many of them preferred to engage in agriculture in pre-mountain areas . Shepherds , instead , kept their nomadic status continuing the practice of transhumance , moving flocks at high altitude in summer and back to plains in winter . We met nobody while rising high among the rocky tracks of RN704 to reach the Tizi N ’ Ouano at an altitude of 2,800 metres . It looked like Allah really had fun while constructing these mountains , sculpting every contour line like the layer of a maquette . It was an out of time experience to have lunch in an auberge , nothing more than a shelter lost in this wasteland , and you can appreciate it better once you return to asphalt and civilisation . After crossing the Todra gorges , we headed to Merzouga , in the Erg Chebbi , for a first glimpse of desert .
Crossing a boundless Hamada , a rocky desert surrounded by arid plateaus looking like the lunar surface , we turned aside the Gare de Medouar . This horseshoe-shaped rocky hill , whose open side is closed by thick walls , was used by caravans as a shelter during sandstorms ; for a brief time , it was a stop along the track of the slave trade operated by Portuguese . The hardness of the landscape left no doubt about the efficiency of the Portuguese Jail and the little girl we met there , the daughter of the friendly fossil vendor , was so surrealistically comfortable that she looked like she had teleported from a city school . We finally reached the oued Draa , at the centre of the Country ’ s biggest oasis ; eighty kilometres of palms and casbah , fortified citadels made of mud and straw bricks . Losing oneself in the narrow streets allows interesting discoveries ; small houses
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