Friday 7th December
We left Chefchaouen on Friday morning in the rain…it had rained hard during the night and the campsite ground was very muddy. Today we more or less drove the whole way to our destination in loose convoy as we met up for a coffee stop and a lunch stop en route. The roads were pretty grim again, many potholes and the traffic was heavy.
The lunch stop was “interesting”. Nigel stayed in the motorhome and had a bowl of cereals while the rest of us gathered in a leaky marquee and waited for lamb chops and kofta to be served. It was delicious. The normal procedure is to buy meat from the butcher, then take it to the BBQ man who grinds and spices and then cooks it for you. It is served by the waiters from the restaurant who bring you bread and drinks. As there was a large group of us, this was done communally. There are no knives and forks, you eat with your hands.
After lunch we set off again for a supposed wilderness camp in some woodlands but as it was raining so hard the ground was unsuitable so we carried on another 20k to a nice little campsite….the best we’ve stayed in yet by far!
At last it stopped raining and Nigel took the dogs for a longish walk while I had a tidy up and a chat with the others. A very splendid fish curry for tea and a couple of episodes of Lilyhammer took us nicely up to bedtime. Neither of us took any photos today.
Saturday 8th December
Hooray, some blue sky and no rain.
Thismorning we went to Volubilis. On the way there we followed a pick up truck with two young lads in the back, one standing and one sitting. Health and safety????
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| We kept our distance! |
Wow, what a fabulous place, probably the best day so far for us. We had a guide show us around and he had good English and a sense of humour. I was not surprised when Nigel did not keep up with us, he was busy taking loads of photos and prefers them without people in! I kept up with the group and had to wait about an hour an a half for him to return by which time the others had all left.
| When the site was discovered many beautiful mosaics were unearthed and are still in reasonable condition today despite being open to the elements. |
| Very fertile land here which is why the site was chosen |
| Olive press |
We arrived first at the campsite near Fes, having decided to give Meknes a miss when we saw the amount of traffic near the town centre.
We approached Fes via a newly built motorway….ahhhhhh, it was nice to have decent road surface for a bit but amazingly there were many people walking /cycling/ herding animals along the hard shoulder and even digging stuff up on the central reservation. A couple of people tried to flag us down offering us “kif”! I naively thought at first they were waving and blowing kisses!!!!
Strangely the guy at the campsite would not show us to our pitch until I had given him a paracetamol!!! Apparently it’s common to be asked for them here, they must be expensive! Could have been worse I suppose!
| I think Volubilis will stay in our memories for a long time to come! |
Tomorrow we are booked onto a mini bus and walking guided tour of Fes, sorry dogs, you can’t come!
Jan Gale
Love reading your Blogs, Maggie x