14th June - Fez

As we were dozing off to sleep last night in our lay-by, we heard a car pull up, doors banging, voices talking in Arabic, and a torch being shone around.  However, then it all went quiet, and we heard the car pulling away again about 7am.  It seems it was just somebody else looking for a place to bed down for the night like us.

 

Today was one of those fairly unexciting days which I've been looking forward to.  We drove to Kenifra, which is apparently known for its prostitution, and stopped at a web café.  The connection was dismally slow, and after half an hour, neither of us had so much as checked our email.  Then there was a power cut, so rather than start again from square one, we gave up and went to the next place along.  The connection there was fast and the machines new, and it was cheaper too, so all in all, a much better bet.

 

From Kenifra we continued towards Fez, driving through the mountains and plateaus.  Here it's quite fertile, with plenty of corn being grown, so we had to vie for road space with all the combine harvesters and bailers being driven all over the place.  The hills were green with trees, the valleys golden with corn, and the light was particularly good today, with an overcast, sullen sky ahead but sunlight lighting up the areas around us.

 

I took advantage of a comfort break to ring the RAC and upgrade my membership to European cover (all of Western Europe apart from Greece and Portugal, apparently) in case we come a cropper at the last minute.  So all the truck has to do now is last until Spain .  And I have actually recorded the part of the conversation where the guy confirmed that it does cover the vehicle even though it's over 3.5 tonnes!

 

Just as you think you're descending from the mountains, you climb up another one, and in this way we found ourselves in Ifrane, which came as quite a surprise, because instead of the red, brick-built, flat-roofed blocky houses you see everywhere in Morocco, we were surrounded by what appeared to be Swiss chalets with tall peaked tiled roofs.  The roads were lined with trees, and if you took away all the Moroccans you could easily be in a Swiss Alpine town.  It's a ski resort in the winter.  For once we found the campsite with ease, and it was clean, green and friendly.  However, by this time we were debating what to do over the next few days, and one of the options involved pushing on to Fez, not far away.  So after being parked for 15 minutes in the campsite, we decided to leave it after all, much to the disappointment, possibly annoyance, of the guy who said he'd already written down our vehicle details on the check-in forms and everything.  We apologised for leaving, and then, on the way through the gate, I very nearly accidentally ran over his cat, which would have made things much more uncomfortable.

 

Fez was only an hour's drive further.  On our way into the city, we saw a signpost for Camping International, and just at that moment a motorcyclist pulled up alongside us and said "Are you coming to our camping?  Follow me!"  Just for a change it was nice not to have to hunt high and low for the campsite, so we did follow him.  The campsite is a turnout for the books:  it has a swimming pool with actual water in and everything, hot water in (some of) the showers, a bar, and a restaurant.  Because of this it's one of the more expensive we've stayed in, but still only about £6 for the night.

 

Already in the campsite were an English couple who live in Spain, with whom we chatted for a while, and Nicki drank one of their beers whilst I threw a drool-covered tennis ball for their enthusiastic dog Jemma.  We compared notes and exchanged tips, and they kindly lent us their Rough Guide for the evening.  What a coincidence – they too had been intercepted by a motorcyclist and escorted to the camping!

 

We booked to eat at the restaurant, which was expensive (the bill ultimately came to about £13), but very nice.  My "Seven Vegetable Couscous" was excellent, but had a surprise ingredient:  half a chicken hidden in the middle.  The only sour note was when we found we'd been overcharged, and had paid the service charge twice, so we contested the bill, and were told that we had to pay more because we'd eaten in the restaurant instead of round the pool!  This is despite ordering off the "Restaurant" menu, with all the prices clearly laid out, and you could almost argue they could charge more for service except they had also added that on the bottom of the bill!  What did I say about the Moroccans trying to get money out of you at every step?  We put our collective foot down and got a refund of the difference.

 

By another strange coincidence, the chap who had escorted us to the campsite has a "brother" (who, oddly enough, is about twice his age and looks nothing like him) who has generously offered to act as our guide tomorrow.  We negotiated on the itinerary and the method of transport, and he's meeting us in his car tomorrow and taking us around the sights of the city for £15, which seems worth it to save the hassle of all the taxis and to know what we're looking at.

 

Thanks once again for the various texts we get to the satellite phone.  We had one particularly nice one today which was anonymous, so if anybody wants to own up to it, please text again!