Sunday 18 January 2015

This is the end of our third week away and it has all gone so fast!

Another rainy night and it was again cool and breezy as we got ready to depart. Serviced Bertie then “negotiated” with the site owner about the fees, having brought 8 vans in. He gave us our stay for free! I’d call that successful! We will however pass on a bit of discount to the others when we catch up.

So back onto the motorway; it’s not our usual practice but our aim is to get south as reasonably quickly as possible and the normal roads would take us at least twice as long. With the weather as forecast the decision was really a no-brainer.

Driving steadily south, we saw extensive agriculture making the countryside very green. This is very obviously the “bread basket” of Morocco. However, the further we travelled, the more arid it became and much more as you would expect. Dotted here and there were small herds of sheep, goats and cattle, all attended by a solitary keeper and often grazing on the roadside embankments. Small groups of, to us, very run-down dwellings littered the landscape but then occasionally the illusion was shattered by a very modern construction. We did see quite a number of half-finished blocks of what looked like apartment buildings, obviously abandoned. A country of contrasts.

At one of the toll stations we were passed by an escorted convoy of brand new black SUVs, all with the royal number plate insignia, apparently heading for the airport. There were lots of inter-city coaches also using the motorway, but on the other roads running across and alongside, the donkey cart seemed the usual mode of transport. A country of contrasts indeed.

After a short lunch break we started to see the High Atlas Mountains in the distance. This range sweeps south from Tangier, round Marrakech then to the coast around Agadir. Snow-capped, very high and craggy they are an impressive sight, but the photos don’t do them justice.

Atlas Mountains in the distance - look like clouds

 The motorway ended at the approaches to Marrakech and we joined the main road toward the centre. Passing the site we stayed at last year, we followed the satnav and ended up at someone’s front gate! Backtracking, and this time using the directions in the book, we soon picked up signs for the campsite and checked in, joining six others of our original group.

Then it started raining again, so retreat to the vans, cuppa and relax for the rest of the day.