Safe Return Doubtful

During my week at Ouled Chmicha, Laurent’s permaculture guest farm, there were only the two other visitors I mentioned in my last post, the young Dutch couple at the beginning of their six month sabbatical from work, and the young woman having a weekend break from the pace of city life in Casablanca. Clearly the isolated nature of the residence is not popular with many. The coast will be packed with tourists from Europe, as will the cities. The rough access roads in, 9 kilometres to the east, and 5 to the west, but the west route, the one I came in one is in a much worse state, puts quite a few potential van visitors off. Laurent is left to maintain the road himself. His staff worked on it one of the days I was there. 

Several afternoons we took tea and chatted. Though French, Laurent has lived all of his life in Morocco, growing up in Casablanca. He studied agriculture and his travels and research for his permaculture project were just around the country, not outside. He lives alone and is in his early fifties, and not a traveller, he told me, the last time he left the country was more than 12 years ago. This is the start of his eighth year at the farm, though it took the three previous years to build it. For anyone wanting some adventurous hiking or mounting biking, and a peaceful and relaxing atmosphere, I would highly recommend it. 

One night he invited me for dinner. His cook, somewhat redundant this quite week, prepared a beef tangine for us. It was an enjoyable evening, and despite on the surface seeming like we were very different people, we managed to find a common interest in music. Laurent plays guitar and sings, and shared an admiration for Bob Dylan and Neil Young (who Laurent resembles). As popular as tangines seem to be for Moroccans and visitors, I find them quite plain and lacking in taste. They are cooked for such a length of time that though the meat falls off the bone very easily, the vegetables are just a mush. 

I left on Friday morning as heavy rain was forecast, not just for the weekend, but into next week also. It is likely that access in and out would be impossible by the afternoon, as the rivers which it is necessary to cross, would be high. 

I headed for a place where the rain was predicted to be less for the weekend, the Mediterranean coast south of Tetouan. It was about a 5 hour drive, slow and on heavily potholed roads to Rabat, then a quick 250 kilometres on the main motorway, the A5, almost as far as Tanger, then across the wide northern peninsula of the country to the coast, and a winding road along the cliffs to the seaside town of Oued Laou. 

Oued Laou is out of season. It’s a popular destination for residents of Morocco’s big cities, seeking a cool wind off the Mediterranean, and the beach and its many cafes and restaurants. It has a strange charm at this time of year, though I’d hate it if it was any busier. There a seafront carpark that takes campervans, overseen by a local guy who ‘manages’ it and takes a few dirhams off visitors each afternoon, but I favoured a quieter place a few hundred metres before that. There was already a Polish and a British motorhome parked up. The Poles I’ve waved and nodded to, but the English guy, Adrian, also a solo traveller, I have talked to a few times. Not long after my arrival, he showed me the market and the local shops, and we took tea in a cafe together. Adrian spends nine months a year in his motorhome with his two dogs, a Golden Retriever and a huge, rescue, Catalan sheep dog. To meet Schengen requirements, he is in and out of Spain and Morocco, staying in the same places each year. He is from Nottingley, near Leeds, three years older than me, and a retired University lecturer, who worked in the brewing industry for sometime also, but doesn’t drink alcohol. 

I’ve been here for the weekend, walking on the long beach and its promenade, and enjoying the last weekend of the group stage of the European Rugby Championships. I doubt he will roam much further this coming week. I had planned to go into the Rif mountains, which overlook the town here, but the weather up there is about ten degrees less than here, and there is rain, and even snow, forecast for the weekend. Here, it’s mid teens in centigrade as a high, and drops only about ten degrees at night. The quiet cafes, the fresh seafood arriving into the market in mid-afternoon, the wide promenade, are all very appealing.