Worth Googling or what ? !

 The morning dawned with thick fog, which gave us a laugh before we got out of bed, because those Hippies next door were off to do some bird watching! However it wasn't long before the sun burned it all away, so they took to the water and we took to the motorway.

A short run along the coast has brought us to Assilah, a small resort town , which, over the centuries  has been invaded by several Mediterranean nations, so its architecture  reflects this. There are Portuguese influences as well as those from Andalucía.
There is a network of narrow streets, mostly residential, within high walls and ramparts, which hold back the powerful Atlantic breakers. The town has attracted artists who have left their colourful marks on many of the Medina walls. At the Relationship Tree you are encouraged to leave your mark so Sue is not doing graffiti.It is legal.

We met a group of friendly French youngsters who took a shine to us and Moroccans who called us "Gazelles". As senior citizens, we took that as a compliment!

There are a few tourist shops selling clothing, leather, carpets and jewellery but the sales pressure has been minimal compared with other towns we have visited. In fact the most hassle that we have had today has been around the place where we are parked. There have been visits from coral sellers, raffia mat makers, fancy cake fellas and camel boys. The camels are parked about twenty five feet from the door and with the present wind direction, I shall be really pleased when they go home for the night.
So what's worth Googling? Well, we have watched a camel herder go to each camel, smack its rump, hold a plastic bottle to its rear end to collect the urine, which was then sold to a chap who arrived in a car!!
What was that all about?
The evening has been spent,  once again wandering the souks and we have bought our own jellaba and kaftans, genuine coral necklaces ( which could even be genuine plastic) and basically been tourists rather than travellers for a couple of hours.

Just as this beautiful door was being photographed, a guy with a tray of fish hurried by, so we kept this one in to show you.

 

Tomorrow we head for the port and take an evening crossing to Algeciras. It hardly seems possible that a month in Morocco has disappeared so rapidly and we still have so much more to see.
Methinks a return visit will not be long in the doing.

 

Maroc ... Al maghrib baladun jamee.

Public Apology

It is with much bowing, scraping and tugging of forelocks, that we humbly apologise to Mr. and Mrs. Longmire for suggesting that they are "OLD".
Perhaps mature or young at heart or even retirees would have been more appropriate.
However, there was no intention to associate them with ancient relics, vintage cars or to suggest that they are decrepit in any way.They are just all - round good eggs!

Now a fossil .....that's old !

Nothing much to say.

The camera has only been out once today, so here are our offerings.

Across the lagoon, a ferry, which looks not unlike a small rowing boat, ploughs back and forth carrying the residents of a small village which lies the other side of the sand-dune. Each day we try to count how many can be transported at any given time. Well today we counted twenty one although this pic has a mere sixteen.. Health and safety issues would be a nightmare to resolve over here. Everywhere there have been sights to make your heart miss a beat. Whether it be cooking, building,  painting or driving, there seems  to be little thought for safety. To be fair, crash helmets are worn by those on scooters and seatbelt road signs are in evidence along the highways,  if putting it into practice does not necessarily occur.This rudimentary attempt at providing an  electricity supply is quite shocking. No pun intended. Now look at this chap dangling thirty feet in the air to paint the underside of a balcony without a safety harness, hard hat or a mate to catch him!

A quiet day on the shores of the lagoon.  The gentle breeze rustled the palm leaves and the loudest sound was the cat. Oh is she in trouble. We wandered off for a neighbourly natter and the cat version of a teenage pregnancy took her mate into the van!! After much shooing and arm waving, they were last seen scampering through the eucalyptus leaves with very satisfied smirks around their whiskers!!
This family work on the campsite. They clean the showers and loos, empty the litter baskets, scythe the grass and prune the trees and they live in an old canvas tent. But they always have a warm smile and "Bonjour" for us all. There should have been a horse attached to the cart but my poor photography chopped its head off .... shades of The Godfather!

A couple of Tarts on the their way back from a hot shower were asked if they brightened up the street corners of Stoke in their  garish attire - cheek! And here we have two old hippies, our "stalkers", Tom and Lynne, from Somerset. They built their own motorhome on a Mercedes chassis and are so impressed with Morocco that they might return for the winter.  So there you have today's somewhat limited news. Ma'a salama

We are being Moroccan !

" We are being Moroccan ", comes the cry, when we find ourselves walking in the middle of the road, causing traffic to slow down, swerve, hoot or for the drivers to be creative with their hand gestures.It seems to be occurring more frequently, the longer we absorb ourselves in this marvellous culture.
As arranged, Hassan arrived with his small boat, along with two Americans, two Swiss and double the price, but we did have double the time on the water!!

We chugged up and down the many channels and inlets; saw giant pink flamingoes, different varieties of terns and plovers, curlews, egrets, kestrels, slender billed gulls ( rare and ringed): there were men collecting clams to eat and lug worms for bait.: fish flew alongside the boat as crabs below the surface tried to nibble them.

We were taken right to the breach in the reef and faced the Atlantic breakers. The fishermen lost one of their own and two boats in a storm this past winter.

However there was considerable excitement, as several vessels raced each other through this gap to bring  their catch ashore.
It was off-loaded and gutted there on the beach as the local population and restaurant owners vied for the best price.
Later this afternoon after some time in the sun, unsurprisingly after our morning venture, we went in search of a fish dinner.

A rustic and very Moroccan restaurant was our choice and there we indulged ourselves on a loaf of flat bread, a plate of finely chopped salad, a plate of fries and four fish and that was a meal for one!! So glad we did the pensioner thing of having a meal between us.

BEFOREAFTER        Mmmmm!!

 Evening now, the sheep have visited, "Squeak Box", the pregnant cat, has dropped by for milk, the French are playing a noisy game of boules and Tom and Lynne, who have stalked us since Essaouira, have just arrived in Daffy, their yellow panel van conversion.
So it's goodnight from us and goodnight from them.

What's going on in Moulay Bousselham today?

 We climbed the" incline" as it is described in our campsite book. It was in fact several hundred concrete steps with a drop either side, which did nothing for my dislike of heights yet my pal, the mountain goat, positively pranced her way up. Wait for the next pic!

Not the smiling face of an athletic mountain goat......the girl is gasping !

I digress. We watched the boats returning from their night of crab and lobster fishing. They raced down the deep water channel to bring their nets ashore. They don't use pots. Then everyone assembles on the small beach at the port and a spontaneous fish auction begins.

This is a jolly French guy, who is parked not far from us and he had bought himself a crab for tea. It was a whopper!!

We continued our walk along the main street, past the shops and into the souk, which today was full of fruit, vegetables and second hand shoes.

 Then we went down to the beach ( more concrete" inclines"), where there was more fishing activity.
Apart from using a rod and line from the shore,

 men also go scuba diving, hunting for octopus, with spear guns.
At the end of the day, someone has to repair the nets which is where we met these young men.

Now to get off the beach and search for a café.

We kid you not!!

Somewhere far below you might be able to spot a row of motorhomes along the edge of the lagoon. Tomorrow we are off on a boat trip in search of birdlife. We negotiated a fair price with Hassan, for the trip and possibly a lobster lunch on our return at a small restaurant on the beach.  

There have been sellers of raspberries, sea urchins and squid at the front door this afternoon and French folk playing boules on the road behind Delfin.

We are the wrong side of the headland to see the sun setting over the sea but there is a hint of pink in the sky, as this evening brings to an end, another day of  our Moroccan adventure.

Tosbe ho 

Moulay Bousselham ... been looking forward to coming here.

Another easy drive on the A1 we thought, until we somehow ended up in the middle of Rabat. We are getting better at managing the manic drivers although this silly chap mounted the pavement to turn right ahead of me.

. Prior to that, a policeman allowed a man to do a U turn at a set of traffic lights on a  busy dual carriageway and a small van almost became the filling in a bus sandwich. Several times we almost lost a layer of paint, but we continue to survive these accidental excursions into cities.

Largest mosque we have seen

 The route today took us across an intensively farmed lowland. We saw sugar cane, bananas growing under plastic, sunflowers and eucalyptus being harvested for its oil. Sorry to sound like a retired Geography teacher but we are eager for you to feel a part of our journey, so we are your eyes.

Bananas growing and eucalyptus forests

Soon our destination for today came into view, Moulay Bousselham. It is a huge lagoon, which is part of the Merdja Zerga Nature Reserve where pink flamingos, herons and gannets over- winter.

The sand bar is highly dangerous, as the waves come crashing in over the reefs and onto the beach but it also creates calmer waters in the lagoon . Tomorrow we plan to go on a tourist boat trip from the small harbour and see the full extent of this delightful sanctuary. We are parked two metres from the water's edge and can hear the water lapping against the low, sea wall. It would appear that we have visitors of the mutton kind. This flock have wandered across the site from a rough pasture beneath the olive trees and seem to have taken a fancy to Sue's washing up bowl. Time for dinner and it's lamb! We didn't let on to the woollies that one of their brethren was in the oven!!

An area of tranquility amidst the chaos of development

Today we thought that you might like to see a more detailed view of a typical, small Moroccan campsite by the beach.

 

However you should also be aware that, from what we have learned on our travels, this country has a rapidly growing population, 40% of whom are between the ages of fifteen to twenty four. There are construction projects taking place throughout the country, some roads are being up graded, but basic amenities , apart  from the European tourist environments, are still very poor. Camping Ocean Blue sits between two such developments and we wonder how long it will survive before someone makes the family an offer for the land which they cannot refuse!

 The one topic we keep returning to, is rubbish and its disposal. For the most part, it just isn't happening. Sometimes there might be an attempt to burn it, not in a land fill, but on the street or in a corner by a wall. In some towns, the wind is allowed to clear the litter, which, because much of it is plastic bags and bottles, covers the landscape for miles, clings to thorn bushes and glistens in the sunshine. Sewage is often in the form of a septic tank which does not serve the whole community so there are health and sanitation issues as well. This open drain goes across the beach and into the sea. Fortunately, it's not at our beach.
We are told that Morocco is a wealthy country, also that there has been considerable European banking investment here, but there appears to be an uneven distribution of the money.
The cities are expanding as people migrate from the countryside in search of work but one wonders how they will be able to afford the appartments that we have seen being constructed. There are also all the housing schemes which have been left unfinished, either without roofs or windows or both!!
In other places there are vast tracts of land that have been levelled, streets and lighting installed, then apparently abandoned. What about this wall? Not a skilled craftsman.
It really is a country of contrasts.
Back to our comfort zone. This is often breakfast, once we have collected fresh bread from the 

 

office

There is a small restaurant selling grilled fish ,tagines and soft drinks.

As you can tell from the sky, today has been a cool day. Take a look at us in our big jumpers!

This is one of many fresh water taps on site with rather exotic tiling. Unfortunately the sign indicating that it is drinkable, does not compare in quality.

Nevertheless it is universally recognisable. On the theme of water, Delfin had her first wash since we left home and we are still finding Saharan dust!