Back round again and out

Sunday 18 February

We’re back where we started our tour of Morocco in Assilah staying again at Camping Echrigui. This small town this was our first introduction to Morocco and we were a little apprehensive about exploring for fear of the unknown and in so stuck to the main streets and with the tourists in the Medina. After nearly nine weeks exploring Morocco it has shown us absolutely nothing to fear or to be apprehensive about, it’s a beautiful country and it’s people are friendly and welcoming. We’re exploring Assilah with a brand new set of eyes, we’ve left the main streets and ventured up the alleyways and we’ve steered away from the usual tourist places.

There are more motorhomes and tourists here than 9 weeks ago and we’ve noticed the cafes and restaurants are much busier, the season has started.

We’ve been here 3 days, we’ve walked, cycled or just hung around in the sun. We’ve nearly got our shorts back on, but the wind picks up during the afternoons and it’s back to jeans, but there’s no rain or snow!

We’re staying at the same campsite where 9 weeks ago I couldn’t muster enough courage to use the campsite showers, now I’m actually wondering why the hell not, their clean, have lights and the waters hot and in fact I’ve used worse campsite showers over the past 9 weeks. We also didn’t notice how often the train passes and hoots and toots must be 10 times during the night, but we can’t hear the dogs, so it’s a compromise.

The weather is good, it’s dry and sunny so we can use our gas cooker outside, I love sardines so it’s time to go and buy some to cook myself. We popped into the commercial market so I could buy some sardines, the guys were trying to sell me Sole, but I wanted sardines, “how many kilos” “actually I only want 4 fish” the guy looked at me like I was mad and for a minute I thought we was going to tell me to bugger off because it wasn’t worth the effort to weigh and bag them. Another guy came over who spoke English to confirm that I only wanted 4 fish, yes that’s right I only want 4 fish, discussion with the guy behind the counter, 4 fish thrown in the bag which the vendor almost threw them at me, I offered my money, he pointed to my helper who explained they were free of charge, bargain, obviously it was too much trouble lol. They were bloney good as well.

One of our fellow French campers came over for a chat, well a hand waving, gesturing and a lot of nodding and laughing type of chat. The only words of English he spoke were “English” and “english bulldog”. From his gestures we think he wanted to know why we had pictures of a donkey on the back of Eugene, so we tried to explain that Guernsey people were referred to as donkeys, english as English bull dogs and French as ….., which he found absolutely hilarious. It was a very strange conversation we think he must have over indulged in his younger hippy days because he then started singing to us.

Wednesday 21 February

We headed further south to Kenitra which we missed the first time around. The campsite is nothing to shout about but the town is in walking distance. Camping Chenaie, it’s only 42dhm (£3.50) a night without electricity or showers. There’s a few campers here already and whilst here we’ve bumped into John and Shirley Winton who we started talking to on Facebook back in August.

Thursday 22 February

On Thursday morning we were awake at 8am when Keith says, “shall we catch the train to Casablanca”, “what today, I don’t know can we” I was remembering the time we tried to get a train from Manchester airport to the city we nearly got back on the plane through sheer frustration at not underst how to buy a ticket from the vending machine. Anyway putting that aside we quickly got ourselves ready and headed off to the train station which is only along the road, 40 minutes later we arrive having gone around Sark to get there. We manage to buy the ticket, which we later find out is only one way for 102dhm (£8.50) for the two of us, then we looked at the train departures, another 40 minutes before we actually leave, it’s gone 12 now. We get on the train and were presently surprised, it was a double decker, never been on a double decker train, actually we’ve not been on many trains come to that lol, and it was clean and tidy, not sheep or goats.

2 hours later, yes 2 hours later we arrive in Casablanca and don’t we know it. We set foot outside the train station straight into the roadworks with the traffic trying to navigate around this and the people crossing the road, it was absolute bedlam. As usual no safety rails around the roadworks so we trampled our way through the building works trying not to slip into the 10 foot holes waiting to be covered up.

We could see the Grande Mosque as we left the train station so headed in its direction which happened to be along the main road, we walked most of the way in the busy road because the pavement was taken over by roadworks, parked cars, or was being used as the road. We found ourselves in a street which must have been where the dole office was because there were lots of people sitting around on the road or pavement, just hanging about, it’s safe to say we felt a tad uncomfortable walking down here it didn’t have the right vibe about it. At the end of the street was a duel carriageway which we had to cross to get to the Mosque. We waited and there was no clearing safe enough for us so Keith took my hand and with his other hand he held it up and stepped out into the road “I’m a tourist you can’t kill me” as he pulled me into the road and carried on walking amazingly the cars stopped and we crossed! Keith says the king of Morocco has ordered that tourists must be kept happy and made to feel welcome so they can’t kill us!!

Mosque Hassan II was finished in 1993 and is the largest mosque in Africa its a UNESCO listed building and its one of the few mosques that non-Muslims can enter. We get our tickets from across the square at 240dhm (£20) for the two of us, a tad expensive but we’re only doing this once I suppose.

We have to take our shoes off and put them in a green bag we’d been given and join the English speaking tour which lasts 45 minutes. We’re only with a group of Americans who want to know the insides of the cats ass and then don’t listen to the answer from the guide for the next one to ask the same question, I’ve had enough of listening to the guide constantly repeating himself and end up not listening to anything else and just snapping away with the camera.

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The size and elaborate decoration of the prayer hall is simply spectacular decked out with marble and stone flooring and columns, huge glass chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, the most beautiful mosaics and sculptured plaster mouldings all around the room and the delicately carved cedar screens and ceiling panels are beautiful. Its hard to imagine 25,000 worshippers can be accommodated inside this area and a further 80,000 people can fit into the surrounding courtyard.

We put our shoes back on but we’re told we are not to stand on the carpet, no shoes on the carpet, for a minute it sounds like we’re at my house lol.

We head down stairs to the ablution area where Muslims wash before prayer, the room again is huge with loads of marble Lotus flowers which are hand carved in local marble and trickle water for washing there’s also a row of taps in the rear wall, it’s all very impressive.

Into one of the entrance halls where the ceilings are high and the gates are made from brass and titanium they are intricately carved and massive. Apparently the bronze coloured light shades in the entrance hall weighs over 10 tons, you don’t want to be under that if it decides to come crashing down.

We leave the Mosque and head off back towards the train station via the back streets when we see a load of police motorbikes with a load of people running behind them all running towards us, something happening. They turn off up the street just before they get to us and we carry on. There’s a load of shouting and commotion behind us, we turn to see a young black lad running straight for us looking as scared as a rabbit in headlights, my police instinct nearly kicked in but I resisted the urge to grab hold of him and tackle him to the ground and let him run past us just as a police motorbike turned the corner and wedged him up against a car then it was a bit of a free for all with the crowd of people running towards them, we hurried off quickly no idea what that was about.

We find a cafe overlooking our favourite pass time, the roundabout as usual it’s manic, no order, no patience, cars, carts, motorbikes and people everywhere.

We try and find somewhere to have something to eat but the restaurants back towards the train station are fish or don’t look that inviting so we end up at McDonald’s in the train station. We join a huge queue to get our return ticket apparently the machines don’t work and the computer system is down eventually the clerk proves us with a very long hand written train ticket.

We make it back to Kenitra and it’s dark, luckily Keith had the foresight to put the touch in the rucksack so we wouldn’t fall down one of the many holes in the pavement or the road on the way back to camp. In all we had a really good day.

Thursday 22 February

We decide today that we’ll walk to the local Kitea shop a bit like Ikea to see if we can find a rubber mat to put outside the door seeing as Keith left ours behind in Chefchaouen a couple of weeks back. We have to walk up to the newer end of town, we get there to find the mats weren’t in our budget so we had to walk all the way back in all it was about a 7 mile round trip.

Friday 23 February – 2nd March

We’re moving further south along the coast to El Jadid we stopped here for one night first time around. The campsite Camping International El Jadida isn’t much but it’s in a good location.

On the first day we popped up to the supermarket and stocked up on cheap beer and wine, £3.50 for a litre of rose and it’s not that bad.

The dogs which were on the wasteland next door were absolutely horrendous non stop barking all night I honestly don’t understand why nothing is done about them.

Over next few days we took a couple of walks into town and along the beach. It’s a huge beach and on the Sunday it was really busy with about 40 games of football taking place and lots of people enjoying the sunshine. We walked to the old town where there is an old fort which is full of small shops and houses. We also watched in amusement as a group of lads about 20 years old were catching pigeons. They were louring them with a bottle of water trickling into a bowl which didn’t take long for the pigeons to come for a drink when they were quickly snatched up. We say them do this 3 times and they were really excited about each catch, the pigeons had rings on their legs, whether they belonged to them or they were catching them for the pot we couldn’t work out.

The only sunny day was Sunday it was warm and sunny with just a gentle breeze and little did we know that would be the last time we would see of the sun in Morocco.

Over the last week the weather has deteriorated heavy rain for past 6 days and force 8 gales for 2 days. Being cooped up in our one bed flat on a raining day was bad enough to turn us stir crazy, but sitting in Eugene whilst he’s being rocked from side to side we thought we were on a boat with the amount of rocking, luckily Eugene is heavy enough so we didn’t tip over but at times it felt like we might which made for very long and sleepless nights. Listening to the raining hammering down was not the way we wanted to spend our time traveling and we’ve had our fair share of unseasonable weather over the past 3 months. We did brave the weather everyday putting on our full wet weather gear to walk into town to get a coffee or cake, but it’s not fun that’s for sure.

We paid a visit to Portuguese Water Cistern which is pretty impressive.

2nd March

We had talked about going further south but the weather was forecast to be windy and heavy rain for another week, and frankly we’ve had enough and the weather is no better further south, so we made the decision to leave Morocco. We headed up back to Assilah a 3 hour drive in the pouring rain. We arrived in Assilah to find that most of the campsites and guardian parking were almost full, no boats hadn’t left Tanger Med for the past 2 days and there were over 250 campers waiting at the port to leave. It looks like we might be here for the duration then. We have a look at Windfinder on the internet it’s showing that the wind reduces dramatically tomorrow before it increases to force 8 again for the next few days.

3rd March

As soon as we’re awake we can hear the other campers moving out. We have a chat with an English couple who tells us there is camping at the port or there is guardian parking just outside the port, they’ve decided to head off to the port and take their chances they could get on a boat.

We have our breakfast, empty the toilet and waste and fill up with water. At 10am we make the decision to head to the port ourselves and wait it out if necessary.

We get to Tanger Med and it’s not as busy as we thought, there are 4 boat carriers and 4 boats have left this morning so many have managed to get away. It’s a bit chaotic but we find the checking for our boat, I get in my head what I need to ask. I show our tickets and get ready to speak, to our surprise the guy gives us boarding passes and calls to the next person, I think we’re checked in. It’s 12.30 and the time for the boat to leave on the ticket is 1pm, crickey where do we go, what do we do?

We leave the carpark and join a queue, no idea if this is the right one, but 2 hours later we’re on the boat heading back to Spain.

Overall Thoughts

The weather in Morocco was not what we were expecting, wind, rain and of course the snow, we had visions of sitting on the beach, swimming and enjoying the sunshine, but no that didn’t happen. Apparently it’s the coldest and wettest winter for years but we’re told that Morocco needed the rain after a few years of very dry and hot summers.

Would we come back to Morocco, we’re not sure.

We drove 3,604 miles

Total Spent £2,831 in 77 days which amounts to £36.76 per day which is well within our budget of £50 per day.

A la perchoine

Shirena & Keith

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