Safe Return Doubtful

I had based myself in the town parking in Terque for the weekend, one of the villages of the Alpujarras. On Sunday morning though I walked a trail up to two smaller villages a few kilometres up the mountain, Alicún and Huécija, only separated from each other by a few hundred metres.

At this time of year, they were both quiet and attractive, and so, only return to the van, I moved up to the parking in Alicún, in an orange grove, for the night. After the afternoon rugby matches I took a beer at the local cafe in the plaza and got chatting with a group of six or so, my sort of age, who had been there most of the afternoon. It was a pleasant evening, though the cooler temperatures drove us away at about 7 pm. 

After a couple of hours out wandering the hills nearby, I drove the 45 minutes to Almería on Monday, a religious holiday in Spain, for the ferry, though that didn’t depart until 11:30 pm. I was the only campervan or motorhome on the boat, the majority of the traffic were vans crammed full of what looked like Christmas shopping headed for the Spanish enclave at Melilla or French, Belgians, Dutch heading for relatives in Morocco. As usual on an overnight ferry, once boarded I closed my curtains and went to bed, to be woken just after 6 as people descended from the lounges and cafes back to their vehicles. 

It is a quick and efficient crossing, but the border from Melilla to Nador is a slow one. Melilla looked very pleasant in the early morning. I filled up with fuel just off the ferry, at just over a euro a litre, and was made welcome in the cafe by the guy on the till in the fuel station. He told me the coffee was excellent, and indeed it was. An unexpected chat with him and a couple of locals over a coffee at 6:30 in the morning. 

I was headed for a campsite called Benyakoub that I had read about. Firstly though I got some money from an ATM in Nador; it’s been a while since I’ve taken any cash out, probably two years, but Morocco is still very cash friendly, hardly anywhere accepts cards. From there it was about a three hour, fairly uninspiring drive to the campsite. This eastern part of the country isn’t visited my many tourists, perhaps those who are undertaking a circular trip and have come from the beaches of the Mediterranean and are headed south to the desert, and those like me, coming from the ferries at Nador. 

The site is excellent. The owner, Ahmed, was extremely welcoming. There’s a lot of litter by the roadsides in Morocco but Ahmed’s land, the Auberge, his family house, and the whole complex, part of a farm his family own, is impeccable. It’s quiet of course at this time of year, but all the better for it from my point of view at least. There is a restaurant also, which I used for an excellent spicy kofta in a tangine later in teh evening. Another couple of vans arrived, a Dutch couple escaping Christmas they told me, and a Moroccan motorhome heading to Europe. 

I have stayed two nights, and I have used today as a laundry day. It’s £5 per night to stay, £3 for the washing machine, and £5 for dinner, nice to have friendly prices. Though yesterday was warm and sunny, with 22C in the height of the afternoon, today, typically for me trying to dry washing, has been cloudy and cooler, at about 14C, Ahmed showed me a hiking option around his farm this morning. It’s a school holiday week, so plenty of children around waving and saying hello, as their parents harvest olives. morning, It was 11 kilometres wandering the trails around the groves, a bit flat, but interesting as a one off. Another couple of vans have arrived, again a Dutch couple in a four wheel drive Sprinter heading for the desert, and a Belgian couple in a small motorhome also headed for the desert. The tourism of the desert only has a limited interest for me. I will head down there, but it is the mountains that have. I h more appeal. From here, it’s a four hour drive to the Atlas, and I’ll take that on in the morning.