March 27th to 31st: Moulay Bousselham

We moved today from Marrakech 300 miles north to our last port of call in Morocco. The campsite is by a lagoon that connects with the sea at the village of Moulay Bousselham, where there is a fine sandy beach. The village takes its’ name from a 10th century holy man and is a place of pilgrimage as well as being a weekend resort favoured by wealthier Moroccans.

We did, by the way, solve the mystery of the half-finished buildings, mostly dwellings. It seems that Moroccans typically build their own houses by saving up and doing it a bit at a time, and it might take 10 or 15 years to complete. They don’t have a mortgage system as borrowing and interest are frowned on for religious reasons.

Had to include this last shot of an unfinished house, only to show the scaffolding system generally used. They obviously need to get through this stage of construction fairly quickly, at least before woodworm sets in!

Thanks, Morocco, it was wonderful!

26 March; Operation Overload

These photos show just some of the overloads and dangerous loads we saw, certainly not the most extreme examples, as you rarely have the camera ready at the right moment.




The most dangerous load that we saw was carried by a moped, weaving at high speed through the souks. The moped passenger was a youth holding a large sheet of glass (4ft by 3ft ish), flat face forward, with his bare hands. The most burdensome load was a woman carrying a 15kg gas bottle on her head.

24 March: Tourist Marrakech.

The large central square in the Medina (old town) comes alive after dusk with a host of performers: African bands, snake charmers, acrobats, storytellers, food stalls etc. They all collect money for watching the performance or taking photos and all ask for ridiculous amounts initially. The group here wanted the equivalent of £4 for a few snaps, but we only gave what we thought was reasonable, so they got £1 (10 dirhams).

The picture above is of the interior of a madersa, a Koran school. This one was refurbished in the 1560’s and is covered with intricate designs and, overall, gives the impression of great peace and harmony. Experts think that the same craftsmen worked on this building as worked on the Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain.

The El Badi Palace (was there an el Goodi?) dates from the same period as the madersa, but is now a ruin. Above, Jane takes the part of the ghost doomed to perpetually wander the crumbling subterranean passages. The photo below is of the icon of Marrakech, the Koutoubia Minaret, completed in the 12th century, and visible for miles, given the absence of tall buildings here.

23 March: The High Atlas

These are the highest mountains in North Africa and rise steeply from the plain, 30 miles south of Marrakech. On this particular route into the High Atlas, the road runs out at the village of Imlil (alt. 5,700 ft.). It’s a trekking centre so you can continue on good tracks by mule, on foot, or 4X4.

We carried on walking a short way up the path toward Djebel Toubcal, the highest peak at 13,681 ft., avoiding the guides touting for hire and even guides who’ll find you guides!

21 March: Visitors

We picked up Ralph and Gemma this morning from the airport. They had booked accommodation in a small riad, a building constructed around a courtyard, usually an open courtyard. Charming and very Moroccan, as you can see.

Slight problem: the riad is somewhere in the souks. A souk is a market, and in Marrakech these are huge and located in labyrinthine streets and alleys that are largely un-signed. It takes us an hour to find it, asking directions many times and fending off numerous traders and peddlers. As the crow flies we have covered about 300 metres.

The souks are an almost overwhelming experience of shops and people, crammed in together, all busying themselves with hustling, selling, bargaining, browsing, passing through, or just waiting. It’s a hubbub of people, but when you look hard there are not many transactions being finalised: like Tangier port it’s superficial bustling about without much end product. What it does is give purpose to the trader’s day as he works persistently and at great length at prising money from passers-by, be it only occasionally successfully.

19 March: Marrakech

We moved camp yesterday to Marrakech- this is us en route- and are staying 7 miles from the city centre. Marrakech is a hectic place to drive in with little lane discipline. Bikes, mopeds, donkey carts etc. weave in & out, and there’s double-parking everywhere. Traffic police with whistles stand at all major road junctions attempting a veneer of control. But against all expectations the vehicles keep moving.
It sounds like a nightmare, but actually isn’t, for one fundamental reason – very little aggression on the part of Moroccan road-users. Maybe we UK drivers could learn something here.

Today we visited the Jardin Majorelle, a garden named after its French designer Jacques Majorelle and now owned by fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent. It is beautifully elegant, like the haute couture of Yves Saint Laurent, but in practical enjoyment terms can’t compare to a lawn with a marigold border or a row of broad beans on the allotment.

16 March: to Tafraoute

Tafroute is a small town in the middle of the Anti-Atlas mountains. It is in a beautiful setting and a centre for walking tours. The scenery en route was spectacular and worth the 7 hour round trip. The town itself is very laid back, as the photo shows!

Tafraoute is surrounded by large rock formations: this one is called Napoleon’s Hat.

15 March. Massa Lagoon

Massa Nature Reserve is 2 miles up the beach from Sidi Ouassai campsite. This is a top Moroccan bird sanctuary because the lagoon never completely dries up, so has a large resident population, and many migrant species in spring and autumn. We walked up the beach to the reserve and, after eating our picnic, came across one of the park guides. We’d seen very little up to that point, but the knowledgeable guide took us to places and pointed out birds we’d never have spotted, e.g. spoonbill, redshank and little grebe. Photos of birds look like distant dots unless taken with specialist equipment, and that’s why there aren’t any.

Jane had twisted her foot back in Agadir, so we decided to go back by taxi, which the guide arranged. Surprise, surprise, his dad was the taxi driver. While we were waiting for dad, the guide kindly let us wait in his family’s living room. They weren’t too poor a family, but look how sparsely furnished it is: the only other item, the TV, is just off camera.

14th March. Sidi Ifni (60 miles south) and Tiznit (30 miles south)

The treaty of Fez in 1912 partitioned the control of Morocco between France and Spain. Spain got the northern 50 miles or so and another smaller strip in the south that included the port of Sidi Ifni, with France getting everything in between. Sidi Ifni was not occupied by Spain until 1934 and they left in 1969, having rebuilt the town in the art deco style of the 30’s. This blue and white effect gives it an Andalucian look and feel, which seemed to us out of place in Morocco. It also lacked the usual hustle and bustle of a typical Moroccan town, so was more like a faded film set.

Tiznit is the norm: numerous little shops, a market and masses of people. Colin might have been the man in the photo had he been born in Morocco.


General comment: Spain and France’s occupations of Morocco proceeded along very different lines. Spain acted as conquerors and did little except subjugate the population. The French saw themselves as colonists, wanting to develop the country for trade, so introduced education, developed the road network, and brought in systems of administration and government while still retaining Moroccan traditions and religion. This is why Morocco’s second language is French rather than Spanish!

13th March- Driving in Morocco

If you’ve never haven driven in Morocco you’ll be asking, “what are the roads like?” Tarmac roads connect all towns of any size throughout country. So that’s ok, you think… but just read on a little:

Road improvements. The roadmen attack the road while you drive around them. Very few cones are used and you shudder over partly filled trenches, piles of rubble and reduced lane width that still takes traffic in both directions. In the photo a new section of road is being built to the right and we are routed along a rutted, potholed track carved out of bits of the old road and beaten earth with some hard core.

Road maintenance: not much of it. Consequently, busy main roads soon wear into ridges and potholes which you learn to minimise by slowing down and/or swerving, whilst little-used roads often have perfect surfaces. The only rapid repair we observed was to a huge, bone-jarring hole (yes, we hit it at speed) outside the king’s palace in Agadir. Where was that hole again?

The lip: see photo. Tarmac is applied without building up the verges to the same level, thereby creating a lip of zero to 8 inches drop. On busy worn roads the tarmac edges also erode like the east coast of East Anglia, and the roads themselves are not generously wide to start with. You see the problem: take your eyes off the road for one second, like I did, and the nearside wheels of the car have run off the road, and the lip is now preventing them from getting back on again. Do something quick!!! So you haul hard -probably too hard- on the steering wheel, and the car whips back onto the road, now heading for the central line and the oncoming traffic. Fortunately, our car quickly re-stabilised. Can you imagine the embarrassment of filling out an insurance claim “collision with donkey cart, donkey written off. “?

10th March- Sidi Ouassai

We’ve moved 50 miles south to Sidi Ouassai. The photo is of the original fishing village mini-kasbah, only recently connected to the nearest town by 5km of tarmac road.

The site is new and overlooks the beach. We have a really nice ocean view. There’s no grass or bushes here and the green alongside the caravan is weeds.

On arrival I asked what power the electric hook-ups were rated at, expecting a lowish 4 to 6 amps due to the camp's isolated location. You need to know so you don’t trip the fuses by putting on too many appliances. I was told each pitch here has 32 amps. Our caravan’s only rated for a maximum of 16amps. So here we are, right in the sticks, near the edge of the Sahara, with the biggest power supply we have ever encountered! Morocco is a land of contrasts and surprises.

8th March- The Environment

Morocco is desperately trying to modernise. Large numbers of building projects are in progress everywhere. However, nothing seems to be happening on most of the sites: they’ve got so far and then stopped. In a few cases the developments appear to be unfinished (pic below) but are actually completed because they don’t always render walls, put in roads and clear up construction rubbish (or other rubbish), but if you’re desperate for somewhere to live that’s not so important.

Rubbish appears to be a matter of indifference to Moroccans, and it’s dumped fairly indiscriminately, but you have to look at it from their viewpoint. As an example, two weeks ago an eco-warrior at the campsite organised a beach clean-up. In a couple of hours the team of over 50 transformed the beach and each of us had filled several black bags of mainly plastic junk. The locals looked on in amazement while the eco-army swept along the strand: if Allah had decreed that the tide should wash copious quantities of rubbish onto the beach, who were they to argue? Maybe the locals were right, because two weeks later the beach was just as full of grot as before the big clean. Allah: 1, Eco-army: nil.

Taroudannt Tanneries.

The tanneries comprise sets of open-air vats where leather is tanned by soaking in cattle urine and pigeon droppings. The smell is such that no one had the slightest doubt that these are the true ingredients. Some years ago we had a line of “made in Morocco” Clarks men’s boots, with each foot enclosed in a plastic bag. Opening the bags revealed the reason- that same horrendous smell!!

The skins are dyed using chemical dyes and washed through afterwards in more vats by men in waders. We can imagine in past times, before waders were supplied, an industrial condition called “tannery washers pickled leg syndrome”.

Many different skins are processed. The photo is of a heap of camel skins. You could buy a whole camel skin rug, hump and all, if you didn’t mind repeatedly tripping over the hump. Gives a whole new dimension to the meaning of the word “humping”! Col settled for a camel leather belt instead, a snip at 50 dirhams(£4).

Tue 3rd March: Taroudannt

It’s a two hour drive inland to the walled town of Taroudannt. The walls, dating from the 16th century, run for 5 kilometres and completely encircle the town. They certainly look ancient, as the photos show, but it’s the wonderful old brush that’s had three new heads and two new handles: they keep patching them up. The original building material was pisé, a mixture of mud and gravel and that starts to erode quite quickly with winter rains but we noticed that current rebuilding works appear to (sensibly) include concrete in the mix.

We toured the town by calèche, a horse(nag!)-drawn carriage. This was interesting but not riveting, apart from the tanneries that merit a separate section (next).