Jones

Well, who would have thought we’d have a quote from somewhat niche San Francisco punks The Dead Kennedys in here. Wait.

Flynn got his walk up into the desert towards the mountains. The route wasn’t very inspiring but the camels were plentiful.

From there back towards the coast. We’re about as far south as we’re going now – our original plans of Dakla or even Mauritania are shelved. Given The Old Bakery is made out of wood and medieval cardboard and, last time we were away some post war aluminium wiring shorted out we’re playing safe with insurance. They will only cover the house empty for 60 days. I hate insurance companies.

So, some sightseeing in the southish but not very south of Morocco. Cap Dra is a huge inlet – the same river we’d stayed on earlier but now much bigger and at the other end of the huge white sand beach. We didn’t really stay longer than the time to take a few photos and for Flynn to duff up an innocent German dog.

We’ve been off grid for a few days now and have a few more in sight so we need water. That can only mean the coast road to Tan Tan Plage. When you drive though Morocco it’s always fun to photograph the amusing warnings of things you don’t get in the UK. Beware camels crossing and “Danger of Sanding!”

The beach road to TTP was in on the joke. Still Jones did its duty and soon we were over the sand inundations and cruising towards TTP.

TTP is a fishing port with a beach attached. Not that kind of fishing port though. This is industrial deep sea fishing. As you drive into TTP you pass nautical colleges and a fair amount of military bases. The military bases are much less formally signed than their British equivalents.

We parked up, plugged Jones in and turned the aircon on so we could leave Sgt Flynn to guard the van whilst we had a lunch of squid and octopus tagines at La Scala in town.

Surprisingly the waiter didn’t speak any French and we had to resort to Google translate until Jane overheard him speaking a little English. We tried English but it wasn’t much better. Jane had an idea: this part of Morocco used to be a Spanish Colony, not French. I could try out my Spanish on him: “Mozhno nam yeshche khleba”. For some reason that didn’t work either.

We’d picked up a trick from the French – although the restaurants don’t sell wine, they do (generally) have free corkage. So we returned to Jones with one less bottle of Moroccan rose. We mainly sat around in the afternoon. Some people watching, some tea and some boardgames (Sobek and Cubeo) before an evening snack of Carrefour camembert. The hot weather doesn’t half bring the camembert on.

We took Flynn out for a final trot around town and I realised why I’d spoken Russian to the waiter at La Scala. TTP reminds me of a provincial soviet town. It’s all built to the wrong scale for something that didn’t happen. The streets are too wide, the colleges are too big and the squares are too grand for a holiday town come fishing port miles from anywhere.

Along the beach front there are rows and rows of unfinished buildings. Including this half finished stadium boarded up and walled off. Waiting for a future that never happened.

Obviously Flynn and I broke in and had a look around. Where we found the most incongruous Moroccan Graffiti ever:

I loved the Dead Kennedys. Still do. My mum (hello mum) hated them. Still does probably.