Jones

A bit of a travel day today. We were woken at the Blue Tagines early – not by the call to prayer but by real working people going to real jobs on real busses. Flynn and I met some on our early walk. They were a little confused by my head torch. When we finally left, the nice man at Blue Tagines gave us a couple of free loaves of bread. It’s really good bread.

Then off down to the beach to walk Flynn. We’d stopped on the Atlantic coast a couple of times in 2023. The stop at Tamri beach always felt like one that got away. We’d stopped to walk Flynn but not stayed overnight. It was a lovely beach and the local dogs took a shine to Flynn. Today, it’s got a cafe bar and a paved car park. No dogs, camping or fun allowed.

​We stopped down the coast anyway to give Flynn a walk. There’s a lovely beach around every corner along this stretch of the atlantic coast. Some have parking, some have rules but there are a lot so it doesn’t matter. We chose this one:

Sadly to get to the beach we had to walk though this

​Morocco certainly has a rubbish problem. It’s difficult to know what to do when confronted with one like this. Filling a rubbish bag with plastic bottles wouldn’t make a visible difference. The really weird thing was the people stopping overnight right next to this

They were lovely people. We chatted about where we’d been and were going. They told us the storms had washed all the plastic bottles and other rubbish down from the village in the hills but I was glad to get away. Seeing that pollution made me feel sad, powerless and ashamed.

So to our next stop: Carrefour to stock up on plastic bottles. This is the last alcohol before South Africa so it’s always full of french hippies buying as much beer as they can fit under their tattooed arms. We settled for a case of Wife Beater and four briouat: honey soaked filo cakes very similar to baklava.

We were planning to drive up to Taroudant to stay on the Aire just outside the walls but decided we’d prefer a campsite and a cook out. Gite Sousa is placed just right. It’s a big open gravel lot with a great view of the Atlas’ snow covered peaks (did not photograph well). We settled down, played a game of Spirits of the Forrest (not a euphemism) and then dinner of chickpea stew with grilled lamb. Here’s an instagramy shot of the lamb.