Time to Go Home

 

We left Fes on Thursday with no regrets, but beginning to feel the effects of disturbed sleep and insect bites.

The remainder of our time in Morocco isn’t worth recording in detail, being mostly a long boring drive to Tangiers and the ferry to Spain. We spotted a couple of useful looking wild camping areas but otherwise it was a bit of a drone although Mike was now hyper-sensitive to the antics of the Moroccan road users.

This wasn’t the best time, then, to make a minor navigational error that had massive implications. Trapped on a motorway going east, not north, we couldn’t get off it until we’d gone a long way in the wrong direction. Then turning north on the only available road, the route west back to our destination would take us along 3 sides of a square, the last one being straight through the centre of the city on the equivalent of Friday afternoon. Had this been the plan, it would’ve been a very bad one. That it wasn’t the plan made it worse, since we had now to rely on technology to get us through, and this, predictably, stopped working at a critical junction.

Now, if you’ve ever driven the Peripherique around the Place de L’Etoile at rush hour, you’ve probably promised yourself that you’ll never do it again. Before you do, though, come and have a go at the equivalent in Tangier city centre (the Makhazine roundabout) during the afternoon, and put the Parisian version of the Wacky Races into perspective! And we took the wrong exit and finished up in the backstreets, trying to work out a compass-derived exit strategy through a one-way system. Fine fun. Not.

Added to all that, the campsite that was our priority wasn’t there. Never had been, from the look of it, with nothing but the beachfront promenade, a strip of grass and an impressive cliff. Whoever dreamed up that set of co-ordinates to plug into our now dysfunctional GPS was having a good joke, given the effort it takes to reach the place. Reduced to map-and-compass, we headed for our Reserve Destination, a site we’d used before. Like Fes, the interval hadn’t improved it. In fact having awarded Zagora our rosette for the Best Campsite In Morocco, Camping Achakkar is The Worst; and given the state of many of them, that’s saying quite a lot.

The site is now little more than an overspill car park for the restaurant next door. The charge is the highest – 130 dirham – of anywhere we’d stayed. The only ablutions boast 2 showers, only one of which has plumbing, no shower rose and a stream of cold soapy (and we were that brave) water that runs out of the door onto the path. 2 smelly lavatories, weeds, litter and builder’s rubble everywhere and a parking surface made up of shards of broken bathroom tiles. Rubbish bins broken and insecure – the one we used was raided by a pack of feral dogs in the middle of the night, who fought over the scraps for 2 hours. Three teenage kids with quad bikes who drove around for an hour creating a massive racket and clouds of dust, completely ignored by Le Guardien. Two blokes who’d parked their cars to visit the restaurant returned near midnight to start their engines – big bore exhausts -  and then proceeded to sit there for 30 minutes having a chat. Prior to eventually leaving they took a leak into the bushes next to where we were parked.

We’d only stayed there in desperation; and never will again. We left at 6am after another night of canine serenades. At least the trip across to Spain was trouble free once we’d found out which queue to join and the weather improved – but not the navigation – and we finally surrendered the day near Cadiz. Camping Playa Las Dunas, The Best Campsite In The World…. Possibly.

I’m not in the habit of hanging around the Gent’s showers with a camera, honest! But…these were worth a photo for those weirdos like me who appreciate a good loo. These are really worth a design award.

 

…and right next to the emptiest beach south of Sandwood Bay, and for different reasons, I think. All the sunbathers are 60 miles sowf on the Costa Lot where the Fish ‘n Chips and Watneys’ is. No lager-swilling Brits here, nor chair-grabbing Huns. No chairs, for that matter. A pity we couldn’t camp on the beach…..

Want ice cream...want donkey ride.