She Says - Waterfalls and travellers

4-8 September
We’re currently chilling out in a really nice campsite in the most scenic place we’ve found yet – not that hard, we haven’t gone far in the last week! We’re in Ouzoud, home of Morocco’s largest set of waterfalls, absolutely beautiful, and set near a magnificent gorge between the High and Middle Atlas mountain ranges, northwest of Marrakech (our next destination). We had to travel through 70km of really winding, climbing, small mountain road, but the views through the gorge were spectacular, and we got to see our first real traditional buildings of mud construction on the sides of the valley – extremely picturesque. We had a long drive from Meknes, reaching the campsite at 5pm. The town itself was not so great, small and tatty, and the campsites we passed in the middle were very basic and did not have a good feel about them. Our GPS showed two campsites outside town, and hence we found lovely Camping Zebra. The nicest thing about the campsite is it is run by fellow travellers! The Dutch couple that owns the site spent 4 years travelling around Africa by 4WD ute, before settling in Morocco around 3 years ago. There is one other person staying here, who is setting off with his girlfriend by Land Cruiser to see part of West Africa before heading to the Americas. I have a funny feeling we’ll bump into them again somewhere along the way. So it’s been really nice to swap some stories with others who know what it’s all about, who don’t think we are crazy for wanting to travel long-term overland, and don’t ask all the usual questions but have some new ones for us! They have been very welcoming; we even got to watch a DVD on laptop computer in their Berber tent lounge area. They also have a lovely dog, Rasa, and a crazy kitten, Spooky, who is absolutely mad and has been providing a lot of entertainment and company for us.

Today, after a nice slow morning in camp, we walked down to the town, where the weekly souk was taking place. We bought our very first chunk of market-stall meat, a nice set of goat ribs, alongside a bunch of vegies and some pepper for our dinner – total cost of 21 dirham (about 2 euros), our cheapest meal yet!!! Even cooking in the Volubilis campsite two nights ago had cost almost as much as a restaurant meal, but we had shopped in a supermarket for supplies. After the market, we wandered down to the falls, starting at the top looking down, then following the well-sealed path past little shops and café restaurants, stopping at several viewpoints before reaching the bottom. It was a very impressive sight, somewhere between 100 and 150m tall according to various sources. Little rafts, made from 40-gallon drums strapped together and decorated with fabric flowers, float around the bottom, taking tourists right up to the fall itself. You can walk around the valley from the falls, but we decided not to go further – too hot, too far, and we had no food! We stopped for lunch at a restaurant about halfway up the path with a direct view of the falls, and ate a good value tagine for two at only 60 dirham (normally 50 for one) - one of the better ones we’ve had and very surprising for a tourist place. We’re currently debating whether to jump into the little campground swimming pool or just keep sitting in the shaded table area or going for refreshingly cold bucket showers (yep, just the basics here!). The only problem is there is a storm brewing; I can hear thunder, and it is windy and cooling down. Last night, we had a fantastic thunderstorm and lightning show, even had a solid downpour for about 10 minutes! We had some light rain on the journey here, and several light showers over the two previous days. It seems the rains are coming a bit early this year…

The last few days have been good but tiring – we haven’t done a lot, but it seems to be taking a lot of effort! I think we just need some time out. We left Fes for Azrou, in an area surrounded by cedar forest full of Barbary apes. We got to see a few sitting beside the road (I swear they were selling stuff :-) ), and saw a few more today at the waterfall. We were heading to Azrou to meet Chris and Tina, the New Zealanders that we met on the ferry coming into Morocco, who live nearby. We got a nice cheap hotel with parking in the garage underneath, but it took us a while to work out where the hotels were located (confusing town!) and to get some lunch before that, as everything was closed. I battled through my first foreign-country phonecall, asking Chris for any advice on a hotel and to check it was OK to pop over the next day. Naturally, I had no idea how much calls would cost and got cut off quite quickly on my first attempt, but we managed to get things sorted out in the end! Even though we reached Azrou around 12pm, it was closer to 2.30pm before we got a room. There wasn’t much to see in Azrou, just a small market area in the town centre and another nearby in tents. We had a really lovely evening meal and, expecting our first cold African showers (hot water is a rare and pricey luxury), managed to get warm water somehow!

The next day we went to Ain Leuh, a little mountain town where Chris and Tina are working as volunteers in an orphaned and abandoned children’s home. It was interesting to talk about how they got themselves here, as they are completely self-funded, are not paid for their work or provided with any support from the project, yet they are renting a home and have two little boys under 2. I admire their desire and willingness to help. They are one year into a two year commitment to the project, and it was helpful to gain an insight into what they’ve done to get here and how, as we may look at doing something like this ourselves in future. They treated us to a lovely lunch of ham, cheese and salad, and then we hit the road.

We had planned to head up to Meknes, but decided to cut down our time in cities, especially as we hadn’t yet worked out if we needed to go to Rabat to get our Mauritanian visas or not. We’ve now read our guidebook and apparently we can get visas at the border, so that now means we can head straight to Marrakech and the desert. Also north of Meknes was one of the big highlights for us to visit in Morocco – Volubilis, a large, ruined Roman city. We camped near the site, which was nice and had good food, but the bathrooms were not well maintained. Over the next two days, we made friends with the camp dogs – strange that dogs were semi-welcome here when they are pariahs everywhere else. We also met a Dutch couple that had already been through the country, but he had travelled here a few years ago by bike, so it was good to get some advice and swap stories. They also told us about Morocco’s main supermarket chain, so the next morning we took a trip into Meknes, stocked up on food for home-cooking, then got out to Volubilis for lunch. We spent about 5 hours on the site, making sure we covered it thoroughly, because when we visited Tunisia’s massive Roman city Dougga, we made the mistake of not allowing enough time and going the wrong way around it. Volubilis is brilliant, there are many intact and impressive mosaics still in place on the ground of the houses, and some really cool indoor pools are also decorated with mosaics – I want one these for my home! The two main roads across the site are still intact, and you could really get a feel for how the city was laid out in its glory days, and see how people had lived by passing in and out of the various-sized houses, some quite massive. The site still has impressive large ruins, although these have been reconstructed to some extent – forum, basilica, arc de triumph-like gate (there’s one in every big city, I tell you!). There were also a lot of olive oil press plates (for want of a better term) all across the site, as Volubilis was a key olive oil production site for the Romans. Each press was typically a large stone square with grooves cut into it to drain all the oil from the olives being pressed in the centre of the square. A large stone bath was attached to one side of the square, and on the other side were postholes in the stone for the wooden press mechanism. They had a reconstructed press on show, so it was cool to see how the whole thing worked, especially as we were having trouble working it out from just seeing the relics left behind! It was a fascinating visit, where you really could really feel the living, active city as it once was. However, I found myself wondering why I was not completely ‘wow’ about the site. All I can think is that it didn’t come first - I had already seen Dougga, which was incredibly impressive, plus I’ve seen Rome, and both places had very impressive large buildings and what you think of as typical stunning Roman architecture. I think it may have been a matter of knowing what to expect, but Volubilis was also subtler in its architecture. The site was very different to Rome and Dougga, and absolutely worth visiting – for me, the mosaics alone made it worthwhile, but then I am a bit of a mosaic nut!

Things learned
- hard conditioner made of oils does not stay hard in hot weather! In Portugal, my hard conditioner supply for the next 2 years had been slowly leaking into the jerrycan pannier where it was stored and making an awful mess. I took it out for repacking into better zip-lock bags, while trying to decide whether to give up on it, then stupidly left it out in camp in the scorching sun and it all melted! My recommendation is the stuff is good, but not in heat – stick to bottled conditioner.
- zip-lock bags are great but don’t put your trust in them – they’ll break when you least expect, drain out anything fluid, get caught and ripped on everything. Hard plastic is better if you can manage it, and use zip-locks to protect contain anything inside, rather than as the first line of protection.
- get your sunscreen in Europe, don’t expect good supplies in Morocco!
- Ramadan is a fine time to travel in Morocco, but make sure you take advantage of all the food supplies that appear at night (i.e. breads, sweets) to stock up for the next day’s breakfast and lunch
- if you hear someone call out in the tight streets of a market in Fes or you hear a scooter coming in Morocco, get out the way! The oncoming bike or donkey or overloaded man won’t get out of your way or stop for you!!!
- evening showers work the best. You clean off the day’s muck, which your skin thanks you for, and it makes sleeping a lot more comfortable. In the morning, you get to get out of the campsite or hotel quickly, as showers can really slow you down, plus your towel is fairly dry for packing!
- cold showers in hot climates are actually very refreshing! It might be awfully brisk, but the cold really helps you feel clean, so long as you time it before it gets too late and is cold when you get out…