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.