Well, it looks like this will be our last post from Morocco. We are still parked at the campsite in Chefchaouen but tomorrow we set off for Tangier Med and the ferry back to Spain.
We'll be sad to leave Morocco, we've had a fabulous time here, seen some amazing sights and met some charming people. We will definitely return here, hopefully next year and stay a little longer. Unfortunately our time here this time was restricted due to having to return to the UK to MOT the van by the end of March. Meanwhile here are a few random thoughts about our time here in this fabulous country.
We found the people here charming and helpful in the main. Ok,a few folk are out to make a quick buck out of travellers but that's the same wherever you travel and if we got conned out of a few dirhams it didn't bother us too much, after all, we've got far more money than a lot of folk here. The scenery pretty much everywhere we travelled was beautiful and in some instances jaw droppingly magnificent. The desert and the mountains particularly so. We only travelled to the edge of the Sahara with our guide but it was breathtakingly beautiful and serene whilst at the same time a little bit scary. The views travelling over the Atlas Mountains were amazing, the different colours of the rock from grey through to purple took our breath away. As we travelled south we passed oasis and Palmeries. Big splotches of green in a dry desolate landscape.
Donkeys. We've never seen so many donkeys; there must be hundreds of thousands of donkeys in Morocco transporting just about anything that will fit on their backs or their saddle bags or pulling carts the size of our Motorhome (almost). Camels. The sight of herds of camels walking majestically across the sands of the Sahara is an image we'll never forget. The ride we had on a pair is something we won't repeat in a hurry. Dogs. We rarely spent a night on a campsite where the local dogs didn't bark all night; we got used to it and it didn't bother us after a couple of weeks. Barbery Apes. We felt privileged to have seen them in the wild in the cedar forest near Azrou. Cats. Far too many cats, everywhere. On the streets, in campsites, in shops, in restaurants. They say in England you're never more than six feet from a rat, I reckon in Morocco you're never more than three feet from a cat.
The roads, oh the roads. We first travelled on the toll motorways when we arrived heading to our first campsite and they were pretty good but as we travelled further south and inland we experienced some horrendous roads. This isn't a criticism of Morocco by any means just a statement of fact. The craziest are the single and a half track roads where you and oncoming traffic hurtle toward one another and then you both (sometimes) swerve onto the stony, gravelly, sandy bit off road before rejoining the road again. We found we could play "chicken" with small cars but not lorries or coaches. We would travel along major, well surfaced roads, only to arrive at a large town where the road surface had completely deteriorated and we slowed down to walking pace until we had passed through. Pot holes? Enough to fill the Albert Hall, and then some. All this while dodging donkeys, mopeds, bikes, pedestrians, goats, sheep and dogs. Moroccan drivers? On the whole pretty good, considerate and not at all impatient which is good considering the road conditions even in the major cities. The whole process becomes a bit anarchic in the cities but it works and we didn't see any accidents or collisions. As pedestrians we found that pedestrian crossing areas were pretty much ignored by drivers and crossing the road was a test of nerve and courage but despite a few close shaves we're still here to tell the tale.
The waves at Ouassai beach.
The stars. The night sky without any light pollution had us standing outside getting cricks in our necks for hours. It was wonderful.
Doorways. We thought we'd seen some great doors and archways in Greece but nothing to compare with the ones we saw here.
Goats twenty feet up in trees eating Argan nuts.
Taking tea (Berber whiskey) with our desert guide, Mohammed, and his family.
Our van. We've travelled nearly 1,800 miles in Morocco over some crazy roads and apart from a cracked mirror our motor (home) is still going strong. It's a six year old Lunar Premier H592 on a Renault Master chassis and it's done everything we've asked of it. We've got a solar panel and twin gas bottles so we're pretty independent and all we really need is water every couple of days and somewhere to empty the loo and we've managed that so far. We developed a leaking rooflight but that was fixed, thanks to Paul and his glazing tape, and we knocked the spare wheel of it's mounting at a campsite in Midelt and we fixed that three days later after identifying where the rattling was coming from! So, all in all, we're pretty much pleased with our van.
Finally, a few words about our travelling companions, Paul and Chris. http://travelwithpaulandchris.blogspot.co.uk/ We had only met them once before in the UK after we responded to a post of theirs on a Motorhome forum so it could have been a disaster if we hadn't got on. As it turned out we couldn't imagine having nicer people to share our adventures, they really are a lovely couple with a great sense of humour. Paul had put a lot of effort into planning the route, which is just as well because we hadn't. We didn't even have a map for the first couple of weeks!! As it turned out and although we have only been here five weeks it meant we saw pretty much all the different sights Morocco has to offer. Chris, who will always be known as the "goats cheese fairy", demonstrated her excellent haggling skills on more than one occasion and Paul came to my rescue when I had a leaking rooflight and a rumbling spare wheel. I don't think we would have had the fun we've had without them and it was also reassuring when we on some dodgy roads, many miles from anywhere, that someone else had your back in case of breakdowns or punctures. Hopefully we may have further travels and adventures with them in the future.
Bye for now, see you in Spain in a day or so.
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