20 October – Marrakesh to Tafraoute (via the coast)
After a day chilling and resting, Andy, Terri, Oz, the Mog and I trundled towards the coast to see if we could 'catch a wave'! After a night at a campsite outside Essaouria where we met up with Pam and Ken - sadly for the last time as they were heading north and us south - we hit the coast and drove south.
This area of the Moroccan coast is where Bob Marley and Jimi Hendrix used to like to hang out back in the '60s... you can understand why. Allegedly, the ruins of former forts and castles on the beaches and hill in this area were the inspiration for Hendrix’s famous song “Castles in the Sand.” - could well be true as he was particularly fond of Essaouria.
We found some great surf but decided to carry on to Taghazoute where the famous surf beaches are. Unfortunately, as we drove further down the coast the surf decreased. We ended up spending just one night on the coast and the following morning drove down to Tafraoute – the famous Moroccan rock climbing town.
Arriving in torrential rain – apparently the first big storm in 4 years! – it all looked a bit gloomy but the following morning was sunshine and showers which saw Oz and Andy heading off to the crag on the mountain bikes. We spent four nights with Andy and Terri at Tafraoute with the guys going off climbing and Terri and I wandering about the sweet town. Suddenly it was time to wave them off as they clambered aboard the bus back to Marrakech – where does the time go?
We just had time to tidy up when Jim and Mary arrived in their hire car having flown in the day before. The following days saw a repeat pattern with the guys climbing most days and Mary and I wandering about the town looking for bargains and discussing carpets with the local sellers. We drove out towards the painted rocks not far from the town and had a lovely walk to find them. The rocks were painted blue, violet, white and red by Belgian artist, Jean Veran in 1984 and the colours remain quite vivid today despite the strong sunlight. One wonders why he felt the need to paint the rocks in the first place but then people do strange things in the name of art!
We went for supper to Les Amandiers which is where rock climbers write up entries into books stored behind reception logging new routes or commenting on changes to existing routes. Jim and Oz were very excited as they think they have put up a couple of new routes and we spent supper discussing names for the routes! Again the time flew by and it was time for them to leave us. They drove north to Todra gorge for some more climbing and we travelled south west to the coast again.
We spent a few days at the small town of Sidi Ifni south of Tiznit when disaster struck! I broke one of my front teeth! Suddenly we were heading back up the road to Agadir. I decided that I didn’t want to visit a Moroccan dentist to have something so important fixed and wanted to go to my great dentist in Devon. We drove to Agadir and I managed to get back to Devon via Casablanca and Paris!! Oz stayed with the Mog and went back to Tafraoute for some mountain biking and walking while he waited for me to return. I had to spend two weeks back in the UK as it was quite a process getting the tooth fixed up. I did manage to spend my birthday in Exeter with some great friends and caught up with everyone including my dad who was in the country too for a fortnight.
We are now back in Marrakech and going to be heading south again very soon. The whole tooth fiasico has put us back about 3 weeks but we aren’t on any fixed timescale so it really doesn’t matter that much.
More soon from the travelling Mog