Safe Return Doubtful

Having spent almost three weeks in the Souss-Massa region around the Atlantic Coast I left this morning to head back north, by way of the mountains. I had stayed at the Gite Forest Kasbah in the small village of Timsal for a week. It has excellent hiking opportunities from the door, but none of them are marked. I discovered them myself, though they are marked with blue, yellow and red lines that no one knows much about. Many have disappeared, so they are not a good way to find a route alone, some inventiveness, and being prepared to get lost, helps. These hills are dumplings though, small, and with the 25C temperatures of last week, with mosquitoes. With a clearer forecast for the next week or so, I am headed back into the higher mountains.

Over the last weekend we had rain again, which makes the roads treacherous, and the hillsides extremely muddy. The best opportunities I got to get out for a few hours was last week, and yesterday. 

There were a few other people staying, a German couple in the Gite, who I got in well with, and a couple of other motorhomes that arrived just for the night. A red VW California arrived, which I thought I recognised. It was a Dutch couple who I had last met 4 weeks ago in Benyakoub. They recognised my van also, and we sat and took tea, and chatted over our respective routes since then. 

I had taken my fridge in for repair a week ago, knowing that it would be slow over new year. Eventually I heard from them, that the leak was concealed behind the plastic structure of the fridge ins unchanged a way that it was impossible to repair without breaking the structure; in other words, irreparable. 

I will get a second opinion in Spain, but at this stage of the lifespan of the fridge, 5 years, it may be more logical to replace it. 

I drove into the Atlas Mountains today, across them on the Agadir Casablanca motorway, then followed the foothills of the south side of the mountains along to near the town of Ouirgane. The rain had been heavier here though, and having left the motorway, the roads were difficult, almost impassable in places. The last section of 15 kilometres involved crossing Tizi Oula pass at 1300 metres. I just about got through, but was the only vehicle on that section, and unsure for a while whether the road was even open. I had memories of the roads of the Pindus mountains in northern Greece two years ago, where I had to turn back. 

Not surprisingly, the campsite, Eco Camp Morocco, is empty except for me. It is magnificently situated in the shadow of the High Atlas, at 1050 metres, unsurprisingly cooler than the coast, 8C at present in the late afternoon. I am hoping to get a view Morocco’s highest mountain, Toubkal, at 4167 metres, which is just about twelve kilometres away; the rain has now passed. 

I have just less than 3 weeks left in the country. My plan is to head along the south of the Atlas, before heading north to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in the last few days. I’ll then have almost 6 weeks in France and Spain, adhering to the Schengen quota of days by spending a couple in Andorra. I intend to take the ferry from Cherbourg to Poole on 5 March for the penultimate weekend of the Six Nations and watch it with some friends in Poole, then meander through England, but mainly Wales, to be back for the New Ing season around Easter. The New Ing commitment will allow me six weeks off in the school summer holidays, and my thoughts are heading towards Orkney and Shetland, where I was, and enjoyed so much, two years ago. 

In other news, I’ve gone so far as to ask a fox red dog loving friend in Cumbria to keep an eye out for puppies that might arrive late March..