The adventures of the red van: Morocco Part 1

Red dragon is fixed and ready to get amongst the donkeys and tractors on the Moroccan roads. The boat ride over is fairly uneventful; however the border crossing tests the nerves. All the cars are herded into an area where many men both official and unofficial, are waiting for their victims! After staring at customs form in Arabic for 5 minutes we enlist the help of unofficial man, clearly we didn't tip him enough because half an hour later Paul is upstairs getting his passport stamped as exiting the country and Lou is quietly concerned as to her husband’s whereabouts. On his return, Paul announces that we are probably not closer to entering the country than we were an hour ago.

Finally allowed thru the border we make haste to the first of many campgrounds of questionable hygiene. We wake to the incredible sound of the call to prayer, it is at this moment the realisation hits that we are no longer in cushy Europe we are now in the wonderfully exotic North Africa!

We arrive at Moulay Bousselham a small fishing village on the north west coast of morocco. The campground backs onto a lagoon famous amongst bird watchers for its flamencos and hundreds of other bird species. Local fisherman try to sell us some freshly caught eel, they sense they are not going to make a sale to they step up the sell by skinning it right in front of our van……. hmmmm lost my appetite. Instead we go out for dinner with some new campground friends Corina and Jimmy. We stumble across a tiny shopfront and meet Dris the owner who has only been open 1 week and is still very keen. Wearing a crisp white shirt and tie, he has to kick his family off the only table present to serve us, there is no menu we are informed we are having Moroccan soup, mint tea and chicken tagine (we are all suspicious we may be eating the meal intended for his family).

Over the next few days we experience the local food markets, butchers (no such thing as refrigeration just hanging carcasses and parsley to keep it fresh). The Moroccan bread is delicious and the eggs are as free range as they come!!! We dodge the glass on the beach sand and attempt a surf with very tiny waves. Take a boat ride out onto the lagoon with non-english speaking guide, the only knowledge he manages to impart is that there are no flamencos this time of year, this comes as a shock to us considering his enthusiasm two hours earlier to show them to us! We finish our last night here drinking a shot of garlic schnapps care of our Swiss friends Jimmy and Corina!

Onto El Jadida, we find ourselves a campground that is in town and Paul returns from a toilet analysis saying "i wouldn't if i were you" doesn't fill Lou with confidence. Cold showers, no lights and a few creatures..... this combined with the fact that Lou left the good Aussie thongs in the supermarket carpark today means we give showering a miss. Managed to find a supermarket selling alcohol so we stocked up for a year, more or less (wouldn't wanna run out)! The beach here is chocca block full of Moroccan men playing football. We visit the citadel in the old walled medina, the floor is covered in water which reflects the light from a single opening in the ceiling, lighting up the building columns and arched ceilings.

The drive from El Jadida to Essaouira was worth every single donkey and cart we had to dodge along the way. A lot of people walking, sitting, standing, sleeping, working by the side of the road. Lots of friendly waves, and lots of offers to purchase our bikes. If all of this doesn't keep you entertained there are the speed signs that drop from 80, 60, 40 and back to 80 all within 50m. The entire drive was incredible! The farming land was right down to the ocean, meaning no roads to access the beach (must hire a camel), oh and the occasional phosphate industrial plant.

In Essaouira, Lou is struggling to keep herself covered up considering its 30' outside (muslim country). We dodge the offers of a camel ride along the beach and finally make it into the” maze-like” medina. Lou makes a purchase of some Argan oil from a “womens Co-operative”. The Argan nuts grow on Argan trees, goats come along and eat the nuts, digest the outer shell and poo out the rest, the local women come along and collect the remains and crack the nuts open revealing an almond like nut. This in turn is ground and pressed to produce oil…. Long story cut short, is it’s full of vitaman E and Lou commences rubbing it all over her face!

We plan to return to Essaouira with Shaun and Katie (Australian friends who fly over to spend Christmas with us) in a few weeks, so we move onto Sidi Kaouki, a tiny one horse town/ beach village. Two little restaurants in town, you must order your tagine a few hours beforehand, no shops, plenty of goats and the odd turtle crossing the road.

We wake the first morning to a donkeys head peering into our van. We are a little confused at first but it turns out it is only the local bread man doing the bread round, who needs shops anyway….there really is not nothing quite like donkey breath first thing in the morning! A few hours later and the fish man arrives and we purchase fresh bonito tuna. We finish the day off with a man selling cakes and biscuits and we are more than satisfied.

The next town we visit is Immessouane, on the road there we stop to give an elderly Moroccan man a lift, with no common language that we can share, it was a silent trip that ended with a heartfelt thank-you. Not content with this good deed, two minutes later Paul is pulling over to give a small boy a lift, Lou is not even convinced that he was in fact signaling that he needing a ride and fears we may have now kidnapped a small child. All ends well and he is dropped to his door.

Immessouane is a fantastic little surf town, we pitch our camp right up on top of a headland overlooking two of the local surf breaks. It is here we pick up our two German friends Daniel and Dennis. The four of us stick together surfing for the next week. Dennis is travelling on his own in the equivalent of a Falcon station-wagon, and Daniel has a tiny tent, a new surfboard and nothing else. Needless to say they both enjoyed the luxurious red dragon! Many a van coffee was consumed, particularly whilst talking shelter in our van thru a dust storm. Onwards we move to Taghazoute Moroccan surf mecca.

The surf was looked at, talked about and forecasts were checked regularly but it seems wild weather was set in for quite some days. We go for a hike into the hills and come across a herd of camels just strolling along the road. We get amongst the local food markets, the Moroccan people don’t buy one or two of something they buy kilos. We’ve worked out by now that if Lou is no where near Paul and he keeps his mouth shut, we get everything at locals prices (thanks to his ever increasing beard). On the last night together the four of us have a farewell dinner in a fantastic Moroccan style tent with (not enough) cheap Moroccan wine.

Christmas day is spent in Imlil Village in the high Atlas Mountains. The road up to Imlil is essentially one lane with crazy taxis flying around hairpin corners, roadworks, donkeys, goats, and vans loaded full of hay to ridiculous heights. We spend two hours playing “chicken” with the oncoming cars (the locals win every time of course) and treat ourselves to a hotel for Christmas. Our room has a wonderful view of the snowcapped highest mountain in North Africa, Toubkal. We spend Christmas eve sitting by the fire with two old Moroccan Berber (mountain) men, we share some chocolate with them and they smile and keep repeating the only english phase they know which is “good-good-very-good”. Christmas day picnic consists of too many snacks, “Tagine Roast”, lemon tarts (French influence) and strawberries. We miss home but the view makes it all okay!

What we have learnt;