After much deliberation we all decided that we missed the beach and with us being in Marrakesh region it made it pretty simple as to where we were going to head towards, Essaouira (pronounced Essa – weera). This was an old fishing town made famous by its location on the coast and right in the middle of the trade winds of the Atlantic. Like so many other places through Europe and Africa this meant it was wrestled over for many centuries by foreign powers. It has 2 different nicknames “The Wind City of Africa” and also the “Sea of Seagulls”. It is a bout a 3 hour drive across Morocco, mainly across a single track road it was. It is interesting to see the terrain change the further west we headed. The land is quite scorched whereas the closer to the coast the greener it started to get.
This campsite called Camping Des Oliviers Chez Andre is about 20kms from Essaouira. The camp itself is nice enough, it has a pool and showers, toilets etc. It works out at 100dh per night which is £8 in real money. We set off in a convoy to the big Carrefour in Marrakesh so we could get some supplies, Ness and Gee don’t have internet so we drive and they follow us. Safety in numbers and all that stuff. But because they have not internet that means if we are not together we have no means of contacting each other unless they have wifi. The plan was we go and extend our Insurance and then meet them back at the Carrefour car park. The big one in Marrakesh has a car park underground but they have a motorhome so they have to park on some big car park around the side. Oh yes, i forgot to mention that we have extended our insurance here until June meaning we can stay visa free until the 23rd May. That is more of a precautionary measure as much as anything else. We did the boring stuff, back to the carrefour then we were bang on the car park for 15:10. There was no sign of Ness and Gee, that got us worried….
We played out several scenarios in our head about what could have happened but after a about 15 minutes the only rationale explanation was that they had had to move on. So we added the location into our sat nav and headed to Essaouira. I think the ting with Morocco is that there is always something a bit mad going on and all that happens with time is that you just get used to it. What once was a bit mad because the norm when you see it several times. No more so than driving to Essaouira and then having a child trying to wave you onto the layby so you can take some pictures of…… goats in trees. Yep, that’s a thing on this road goats in trees.
