All posts filed under: Places

Ait Ben Haddou

Photo blog – Taliouine to Todra

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In between what you see in these pictures, imagine us undertaking more crazy six hour drives up barely surfaced mountain roads in second gear. Imagine children running alongside our van sometimes waving, sometimes throwing stones and sometimes making *ahem* lewd gestures. Imagine us waiting for herds of goats just lying in the road. Imagine us taking detours more suited to a tank than a classic Hymer, where flooded rivers have blown the roads out. Imagine us stopping for lunch and shopping at a market where there are sheep’s heads piled on the floor outside the butcher’s stall. Imagine us wandering a town that’s featured in movies, where only a few people live but there’s a rug salesman around every corner. Imagine an American film crew running up and down steps in the heat of the afternoon, their sound guy looking as if he could do with some medical help. Imagine us walking through lush palmeries, heavy with the scent of almond blossom, where quietly intent people toil at their perfect little patches of fertile earth. …

Dust to Dust

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The Rough Guide that we used for Morocco is over ten years old and whilst at times this has rendered it a somewhat unreliable source of information, it nevertheless provided us with an interesting perspective on some of the ways Morcocco has changed since the book was written. The roads, although not always great, are much improved and the increase in tourism are two obvious ways in which the Morocco of today differs from that of over a decade ago. Reading about the villages of the Anelm valley, close enough to Tafraoute for a day visit, we were told that the buildings of one were ‘bizarre constructions’ built almost on top of one another, but when we visited Oumesnat ourselves we found that there was little evidence of the original village as experienced by the author.* Once upon a time, Morocco’s buildings were formed from the earth itself. The ksars and ksours rose up from the ground in the same shades as the land that surrounded them. The people of those settlements had their own …

Painted Rocks and Punctures

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As it turned out, we entirely missed the almond blossom festival; not from arriving too late, as we’d feared, but in fact because we were two weeks early. We enjoyed Tafraoute so much, however, that it didn’t seem to matter that we were going to be leaving before the festvities began. Staying for nearly a week meant that we could adventure out beyond our immediate surroundings, and make a couple of guide-book suggested visits. Getting out to the painted rocks on our bikes was an opportunity for us to get out properly into the landscape. Having only biked between the van and the town, I think we were all eager to go on an expedition into the curious lumpy outcrops that characterise Tafroute’s surroundings. Rob and I canvassed opinion from fellow motorhomers and consulted various websites and guides on the exact distance to the rocks and the time it would take. As all parents know, cycling or walking with children is all fabulous fun until everyone gets tired and whiny and then something enjoyable becomes …

Tafraoute – Finding my Travelling Feet

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After Essaouira we headed off down the coast with vague ideas of spending some time near the sea before heading to Tafraoute in the south of Morocco. Tafraoute had long been an eagerly anticipated destination for us. It was always to be the most southerly place on our itinerary, the town where we would finally adopt a slower pace of travel. Whilst Morocco dreaming and Google-searching from my kitchen table in Hebden Bridge I’d stumbled across heart-stirring pictures of blossoming almond trees set against arid red landscapes and discovered that every year the town of Tafraoute held a festival to celebrate this transient spectacle. The dates of the festival were hard to determine so we pledged to try and get there for early February in order not to miss it and it was this aim that had kept us moving so quickly. Through the empty, icy nights of central France, the grim downpours of Northern Spain and and the various trials of our first weeks in Morocco, Tafraoute pulled us on. I think it’s fair …

Fertile Roots – dust, wind and permaculture

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On reaching Essaouira and finding the calming campsite mentioned in this post, we finally took some time to unwind. Up until that point we’d barely stayed more than two nights at any one place and dearly needed to stop for a while. Our time at Esprit Nature restored some of our equilibrium and we hoped that moving on afterwards to a permaculture project down the road would continue the settling down process. Fertile Roots, as the foundation is known, is homed on a little piece of land close to the sea some 10km up the coast from Essaouira. Although the hills behind are thick with argan and thuya trees, this little strip of earth is wind-stripped and arid. Its owner, Mark Anstice, bought the land without ever clapping eyes on it and although it could be tempting to call the move foolish, having more sympathy for blind leaps of faith these days, I call it bold. I’d been planning to visit Mark since we first conceived of travelling to Morocco but the track to take …

Marrakech, expressed

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Morocco has defied our expectations at every turn, but not necessarily in ways that we have expected. We turn up at campsites that bear no resemblance to their descriptions and the ever changing landscape continues to surprise and confuse us; but nowhere has confounded us more than Marrakech. As our campsite is a good few kilometres out of town, we initially take a taxi to the Jardin Majorelle, the artist’s garden famously patronised by Yves Saint Laurent. I’m hoping that entering the city this way, surrounded by the calm coolness of the carefully tended gardens, will enable us to acclimatise slowly, to dip a timid toe into the life of this most overwhelming of cities. It’s a gentle and stress-free environment, protected from the heat and chaos outside the gates; the blue pools and perfectly swept paths soothe us all and afterwards we walk with confidence towards the medina, with its souks and famous Jemaa el-Fnaa square.We think we are ready. Ready for all that our imaginations had promised; a sensory overload, a cacophany of hagglers, hustlers …

Rabat – The Good, the Bad and the…funny

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The Good Although we hadn’t expected to stop at Rabat, thinking that it was largely a modern city with little to offer the tourist or traveller, we were pleasantly surprised by the charm of the old medina. It was Sunday, and it felt like a holiday! Crowds of people wandered the gardens and the old town, eating toffee apples and candy floss and taking lots of selfies! We saw a collection of people around a food stall where several men seemed to all be involved in the process of making a complicated snack of many ingredients; fried sardines, little spicy dumplings, eggs, herbs, harissa and more besides, all squashed into the cavity of a round bread. We ordered one, we should have ordered more, then stood and waited with everyone else. Whilst we hovered eagerly we asked one of the men nearby what this exotic delicacy was called. ‘Sandwich’ he replied, ‘mixed’. It remains one of the best things we’ve eaten during our entire stay in Morocco. The Bad Not really bad at all and …

Stopovers 2

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Time has run away with me and I have not been keeping up with our stopovers! So here are the next ten as far as I can remember… 1. Camping Monfrague This was the first campsite mentioned in this post, that converted us to a more luxurious way of travel. It was positioned in a natural park and although in high season I imagine it might get a bit crowded, it was almost deserted while we were there. Great facilities and beautiful surroundings. Also horses, trees, azure winged magpies… If we hadn’t been trying to get South so quickly, we’d have stayed longer. The boys obviously found it such a relief to not just be parked in some bleak urban car park, that they danced and ran around singing ‘oh what a beautiful day! Everything’s going my way!’ 2. Camping Merida Not our favourite, but perfectly fine. We’d stopped in Merida as there were lots of Roman remains but unfortunately many of them seemed to be closed or not terribly easy to see. The bit of …

Donanas National Park

Campsites and Caterpillars

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Between Salamanca and El Rocio we discovered that staying in campsites in Spain is easier than trying to find aires to park at. In France we’d navigated by finding an aire somewhere in the general direction we were travelling and then heading for it. In Spain, they’re just not as common and seem to only be available at fairly sizeable towns or cities. So we joined a European camping club and downloaded their app. What joy there was to be had reading about the various sites’ provisions of running water, hot showers and electricity; like children in a sweet shop we gleefully pored over our options. So it was that after Salamanca we drove to a campsite on the edge of a natural park. There were horses running about in the field next to us, azure winged magpies hooted and fluttered about the many trees surrounding us; the sunset was golden and the future bright. Overnight we’d become campsite junkies. The next campsite was less romantic but conveniently placed for visiting the Donanas National Park. …