12th June - Cascades d'Ouzard

Nicki again. It was meant to be David, but we just had another eventful moment and he is too annoyed to write the blog! All will become clear…

We turned today into our relaxing Sunday as yesterday was such a busy day. So we had a long lie in, then slowly rose to several cups of tea and (eventually when the man decided to open the shop at nigh-on midday) some croissants.

The original plan was to go to a hotel for the day and sit by the pool and eat in their restaurant, but after a count up of our money we decided we had better not, and David was not too keen on the idea anyway. So instead I bought some bread and made lunch, wrapped up the rolls in cling film and put them in the fridge. We decided to head on a day earlier than scheduled, as we may want to stay longer in a place further on. So we packed up the truck, drove to reception, I jumped out and paid and….. then we realised then banks would be shut till at least 2pm. As it was now 12:30 we reversed and decided to wait for 1 ½ hours.

We read and ate our lunch and then set off for real just before 2pm. We found a bank just off the main road into Marrakech and changed some money, then headed off north-east towards Fes. The scenery was very lush, we passed some olive groves, rolling green hills and farms, plus several small villages. We took a detour to the town of Demnate which our guide book described as ‘a small village, painted all in white cut out of the hillside, with an unusual Kasbah surrounded by olive groves’. We discovered quite a large town with not a white building in sight! I suppose that what happens when you read a ten year old guide book…

We headed on to a cavern 6km further on, that reportedly had huge stalactites hanging from the ceiling. It did, and we took a wander down a small path to take some better photos. We could have clambered over rocks and boulders and gone all the way underneath it, but we didn’t really have time. We pushed on another 60km or so instead to our stopping place for the evening, Cascades d’Ouzard. Our only halt was for an ice cream. When we tried to restart the truck, it wouldn’t start. David quickly thought through it and thought the starter motor might be jammed, so rolled backwards a bit and it started fine, thank goodness.

On arrival in the town we were on the look out for camping spots so were rather pleased when we saw a ‘Camping France’ sign on the edge of the town. We entered the square to see another sign so we continued on. We saw a third sign that said 600m to go, so we continued. After travelling further than what we thought was 600m we spotted another sign with a telephone number on it, and a track leading off to the left. It was quite a narrow track with a drop on one side, but David assured me the truck would fit, which it did. But as we turned a sharp left into a sort of driveway by a house we realised this was definitely not the campsite. As I jumped out to ask two very bemused looking old ladies, David attempted to turn the truck around, on a gravely slope, with a sharp drop behind. I soon realised the ladies did not speak English so went back to jump in the truck, David said ‘quick, the clutch is playing up again’. Oh god. I leapt in, for him to inform me the truck was not going into low ratio gear (which would have allowed us to drive easily up the slope), as well as the clutch acting up, and the fact that with the handbrake fully on the truck was still rolling backwards unless David had his foot on the brake (he says all Land Rovers are like this). So began several attempts to accelerate up the small hill to get back on the road out (that had the huge drop on the side). We made slow progress as David revved the truck as hard as possible with the hope the clutch didn’t burn out, with intermittent slides backwards towards the drop behind. Another ‘tense’ moment in the truck. Eventually we did it, but needless to say we were both a bit worried and David was just slightly angry! We nearly ripped the misleading camping signs down on the way out but resisted, and returned to the small village we had originally passed through to another campsite we had seen. It is more just a car park really, but there. On the way we passed the camping 600m sign and noted a small arrow left in the corner, well they should make their arrows bigger!!

Conclusion: the truck and David are not on speaking terms. He has a spare clutch slave cylinder which he will fit tomorrow, and he’ll take the other gearbox apart to see why low ratio isn’t engaging. We are heading north through Morocco anyway so hopefully we can convince the truck to play ball for the rest of the journey.

Postscript by David: for dinner, we decided to order a couple of tagines from the campsite, as we were running a bit low on inspiration. Nicki’s conversation went something like: “Je veux une tagine avec legumes, et une tagine avec poulet. C’est deux tagines.” You’d have thought this was fairly unequivocal, but when her tagine turned up, I was left glowering at the truck without any dinner. Shortly afterwards, Nicki went back, and you’ve guessed it, they’d not made me any dinner. “But he doesn’t speak English!” the campsite owner said of the chef. “That’s why I ordered in French!” Nicki replied. So I settled down to pick some of the vegetables out of Nicki’s huge chicken tagine, which was actually really nice, and she whipped up a manky cup-a-soup as well. In the middle of dinner, the waiter materialised with a very nice bowl of salad as a consolation prize, so all was not lost after all.