Friday 13 February 2015

Another day another venue – we've moved again. But more of that later.

Bobby

A walk into Tafraoute again on Wednesday to visit the weekly souk and buy fruit and vegetables again – they’re so fresh and it’s better to buy as you need rather than try and store them then spending the afternoon soaking up the sun, until once again the cold wind chased us indoors. This unfortunately is a feature of this place at this time of year but the scenery, the daytime sun and the company all make it worthwhile.

Trapdoor Spider trap

The Lions Face - Rock formation seen from campsite

However we were starting to get itchy feet; so far we've seen nothing different to last year and a sudden influx of Funsters, whilst nice to see again, decided us during a nice lunch at “the caff” that we were ready for a move. With a rough plan of doing a circuit east then north west through the Anti-Atlas Mountains with good reports we decided on Tata, around 150km east.

So today saw us up reasonably early to pack away and say goodbye for now to all our friends – we’ll no doubt meet up again before long. And so we embarked on the most fantastic drive yet through the most dramatic, picturesque, superb - oh you choose a description – countryside we have ever seen anywhere. Whilst we were supposed to follow a new road, not on any maps yet, we somehow missed it and instead followed the satnav. And a better decision in this respect we've never made.

Starting off through desert then into the mountains, over passes and dropping down through gorges on surprisingly good roads, though of course there were occasional patches where the winter rains had devastated river crossings and we found ourselves very slowly negotiating river beds and roughly repaired tracks. River valleys became oasis’s with lush vegetation and we passed carefully through several Berber villages, always watching out for the children who would come running out to the road, laughing and waving. (Actually they were after “stylo” and “bonbon” not to mention “dirhams”!)  Having nothing for them we didn’t stop, but they did try…….

Photographs again do not do any justice although we took dozens. Once again here is a selection.

Berbers - beehives in the valley

Building the road in front of us!

The whole run was simply breath-taking, so our arrival in the somewhat ordinary town of Tata was rather an anti-climax. The municipal campsite was full of French long-termers so we parked on the forecourt of the town swimming pool, along with a few other vans, which actually turned out to be a good decision. Electricity by means of a cable thrown over a wall and plugged into a spare socket (hmmm, electricians look away!) and water/waste disposal was actually all we needed but after a tiring day – we actually only drove 115 miles but it took us 5½ hours – it was not long before bed called!