26th Feb: Aourir (nearest village to the campsite)

Just a reminder that Health & Safety is paramount in Morocco. This unfenced square hole was a permanent feature in Aourir (aka Banana Village), and the interesting point is that it was purpose built, right in the middle of a busy pavement. It was about 3 feet deep, so a nasty fall was the reward of strolling along inattentively. Could this have been its purpose, to gee up people’s general awareness? Further, could we benefit in the UK from importing these Moroccan holes to make us more self-aware and responsible for our own safety!

Eat here at your peril. The clue is in the name.

Visitors like us who bring their own vehicles to Morocco are rightly concerned about breakdowns. This is an example of the cavalry and certainly looks man enough for the job. Suspicion is that the breakdown recovery might be somewhat too robust: fingers crossed we won’t need to find out.

And finally, a last view of the shoreline outside the campsite: we will be leaving in a few days. It has been a delightful setting and most relaxing: a highly recommended location.

The Camels are Coming!

Actually they’re here, next to the campsite. The site has been carved out of a coastal strip of scrubland the remainder of which provides grazing for a herd of several hundred camels. This is a quite extraordinary sight at first, but as they are there all the time you soon get used to seeing them scattered about. This photo is a typical evening scene.

The young camels look bizarre and cute at the same time. This little one looks as if his legs have been dipped in white paint.

And this one only has eyes for Jane! She stroked it for about 10 minutes, and the camel gradually developed that glazed, transported look of ecstasy that says, “ I want you to do this FOR EVER”. We moved off eventually to continue our walk and the camel remained transfixed for a short while but then ambled towards Jane, we presumed, for some more affection. Suddenly it broke into a run- heading straight at Jane. I shouted a warning and she quickly leapt out of the way, sustaining a bruise to her arm (as opposed to a set of hoofprints along her back). A guess at the camel’s thought process – “If I can’t have you, then NOBODY will”.

The best camel stroll had to be the new baby. One camel was lying down with the camel herder in attendance. We approached cautiously so as not to alarm the female, and within about 10 minutes a baby camel was born. You could see it getting stronger by the minute, and within half an hour was sitting confidently alongside mum but fell over every time it tried to stand up. The shadows were now long and the sun near setting: it looked as if they would be sleeping and resting until morning, so we left them in peace.

Feb: Civil Unrest in Morocco

On a more serious note this time. With all the unrest in Arab countries, are we under threat of political turmoil here in Morocco? There is a wide gulf between rich and the numerous poor, and the country is ruled by a powerful royal family. So considerable discontent might be expected, and indeed Sunday 20th Feb saw demonstrations in Rabat (the capital), Casablanca, Marrakech and several large towns. These mainly passed off peacefully, but in one town 5 people died in a bank that was set on fire. This turned out to be criminals who had used the cover of the demonstration to try and rob the bank.

About 35,000 protesters turned out in total, but this is not a large number for the size of the country. Actually, the King seems quite popular and the protesters were not demanding the abolition of the monarchy, rather that he should transfer more of his powers to the elected assembly.

The country is more liberal than most other Arab states, so people don’t feel so repressed. There is freedom of speech, and the influx of tourists and the TV allow Moroccans to see the wider world. The Internet and mobile phones are readily available and cheap.

Tourism also gives all inhabitants a chance to benefit. On the campsite there are private individuals providing the following services: caravan/motorhome cleaning, made-to-measure leather goods, a painter of pictures onto your caravan, fishmonger, greengrocer, general store, awning maker, fancy goods, oil & honey stall.

There is grinding poverty here and low literacy rates, but the economy is expanding, particularly through tourism, and the general feeling seems to be that everybody has a chance, and an improving chance, to make a better life. Morocco is certainly nothing like Gadaffi’s Libya or the fundamentalist regimes, and I’ve had no indication that the average Moroccan wants to take to the streets to move in any sort of extreme direction.

Feb 21st: Paradise Valley and Immouzer Waterfalls

The road to Paradise valley heads inland from the coast at Banana Village, a few miles from the campsite. After half an hour driving through arid countryside, we arrived at the river that signals the start of Paradise Valley.

The river is lined with palm trees and cuts through a long gorge that can just about accommodate the road and the river. The road must be impassable after heavy rain, but is well surfaced although not very wide.

The valley ends abruptly after 6 or 7 miles and the road starts to climb sharply, giving some splendid views. Lots of hairpins, and the going was slow, so we took a break at a café with a terrace looking back towards the way we had come. Photos of panoramic views never seem to do justice to the depth and scale of the scenery that you perceive at the time, but this is the fine view from the café terrace.

So onwards and upwards to the waterfalls. These carried a much greater volume of water in past times: nowadays irrigation requirements have siphoned off most of it, but on certain festival days they allow the whole flow to go over. What we saw was impressive, so the full works must be spectacular. The falls cascade down in stages and from several separate points. From the top of one of these water drops a local man was making jumps into a small plunge pool, probably a 30 metre dive, all for the hope of a few dirhams tip. We picnicked by the falls and had coffee in a nearby café, from which the following photo was taken. It was a truly delightful day, with warm sunshine all the way.

Feb16th: Sidi Ifni

Today we are visiting Sidi Ifni, 100 miles south of Agadir and not far from where civilisation runs out and the desert, stone and rock rather than sand, takes over.

On the way, we called at Aglou Plage, a small, very new beach resort in the middle of nowhere, where we picnicked for lunch. Small it may have been, but it sported a military guard post that can be seen on the right of our group, complete with keenly alert sentry feigning a soporific pose in his chair. He did have a use, though, in commandeering the key to the beach toilets for us to use. These were squat toilets, for the use of which we were invited to leave a 1 dirham tip (8p). But leave it where? Ah yes, lob it into the floor hole, Three Coins In The fountain style, whilst making a wish invoking the protection of the anti-dysentery angel.

This is the smart new prom at Aglou plage, clearly designed by an architect with railway experience.
And now 50 miles along a lovely coast road to quirky time-capsule, Sidi Ifni.

It’s totally blue-and-white art deco architecture, having been built between 1934 and the rest of the decade by Spain, who occupied the town as Spanish territory between 1934 and 1969 when Morocco blockaded the land borders and the Spanish evacuated. Here’s another example below, the lighthouse. The town is built on a headland commanding beautiful views of the sea.

Many of the buildings are in a state of decay as the photo beneath shows, which would have been a magnificent structure in its day. It’s a shame that this town, unique because all of the architecture is of the same design and period, is simply falling to bits. It is currently just retrievable but will soon go beyond the point of no return, and this is the likely scenario because there is no huge tourist potential to tempt the necessary investment this far south.

We returned via Tiznit, another walled town, but dusk was falling and we had another 2 hours to the campsite, so we didn’t stop. A 250 mile long day out, but well worth it

Feb13th: Taroudannt

Taroudannt is an ancient walled town 2 hours drive from the campsite. We drove just past the town and found a delightful picnic spot with the snow-covered High Atlas range in the background.

Taroudannt’s walls and some buildings are made of pisé, a traditional, easily obtainable building material comprising mud and gravel. The disadvantage is that it is quickly eroded by winter rains so needs constantly patching up. But this is also an advantage in the tourist age because the rapid weathering process gives any pisé structure a centuries-old appearance within a few years.

The town centre is a warren of fascinating alleys and atmospheric covered-in markets, easy to get lost in because there is no way to orientate yourself. Can’t somebody in the electronic world come up with a virtual ball of string? A SatNav would do except they don’t seem to cover Morocco. However, Derick our ex-navy man did produce a compass that, quite literally, led us out of the maze!

Feb 12th: Agadir

We caught the local bus from outside the camp gates, 20 minutes into the centre of Agadir. Agadir is not noted for its historic buildings as the city was completely destroyed by the earthquake in 1960 that also killed 15,000 out of the 50,000 inhabitants. The gate below is the entrance to the garden that commemorates this tragedy, being built out of bits of the rubble.

The city was bulldozed following the earthquake rather than patched up, to prevent the spread of typhoid, and the rebuild seems to have been successful in creating a functional yet pleasant town. The impression is of space, with public parks and no tower blocks or tall buildings apart from the minarets. It may be that fear of another earthquake steered the planners away from high-rise, but the end result compares most favourably with the UK concrete slab soul-less new towns of the 50’s and 60’s that are from exactly the same era. The mosque shown here is particularly attractive in its proportions.

But rebuilding Moroccan attitudes can be much tougher! Take begging, for example. It is traditional in Morocco and giving alms is sanctioned by the Moslem religion. However, the current king Mohammed VI decided a few years ago that begging deterred tourists, so he banned it. But hard-core beggars still persist and this is a dilemma for both officialdom and the tourists. We have so much more than the average Moroccan, what harm does it do to give a few dirhams to a beggar?
So here we are at this cafe when an old beggar woman (probably about our age!) hassled us for money. Instantly, a security man appeared and attempted to shoo her off, but she was having none of it, and went for him with her stick. I was sitting between them, in the empty chair nearest the road, and quickly made a dash for safety.
The security man was polite and respectful to her but firm, and actually took the stick off her. She shuffled off shouting, being reunited with her stick when she had reached a safe distance. So what does a tourist do? The answer must be to give money only in return for a service you need, that way people have the self-respect of having earned it. Old ladies excepted, of course!