Sunday 5 March 2017

Bin El Ouidane to Ouzoud - 39 miles

The first tourist coach arrived at 7.30 a.m., parked quite close to us and was full of boisterous 20-something Moroccans on a day trip! So that ended our Sunday lie-in but it was a beautiful morning so a shame if we'd wasted it.

Our overnight "wild camping" spot

And a view from the road above

After breakfast we left for Les Cascades D'Ouzoud, a well-known (well to them) tourist spot in the mountains, about an hour and a half away along a good road which took us through the very upmarket town of Azilal where we refuelled. We also went through two police checkpoints – these are quite common but more than one is rare, must be very security conscious around here, although it is a popular Moroccan tourist area.

There's snow on them thar mountains!

Gorge d'Ouzoud in the distance

Our intention was to stay one night here and visit the falls this afternoon so after doing a quick recce of the town we returned to Camping Zebra, just on the outskirts where we found a delightful small campsite attached to an auberge and Dutch owned. We parked up next to an immaculate and modern ablutions facility – in fact all the facilities were superb (which may have something to do with the For Sale sign at the entrance.........), had lunch then took Jamie with us into the “town”, about 1 ½ km down the hill.

Camping Zebra

A tourist hot spot it most definitely is, full of restaurants and souvenir stalls which surround the square and line the pathway down to the falls. “Guides” were everywhere but not necessary as we just followed everybody else – as it was Sunday the place was heaving and it isn't even the season yet! And they're still building more stalls, apparently under a government-sponsored scheme to encourage local commerce. Frankly we think they've gone somewhat over the top.

Impressive, errmm, not really

The gorge below

The things I do for tourists!

Local resident

Guidebook says this is the Moroccan image of paradise!

And so to the falls; well we weren't really surprised to find that they've been somewhat hyped up, even in our normally conservative Rough Guide. Yes they are quite nice but really not a patch on others we've encountered, in the UK if not Europe so if this is the best that Morocco can offer......... Never mind, the crowds seemed to be enjoying themselves so we slowly climbed back up to the square, encountering some Barbary apes on the way – another “attraction” - and treated ourselves to an ice-cream.

So return to Bertie for a welcome cuppa and relax in the late afternoon sun and start to plan our next move. Chatted with a German next door who commented that he'd seen more Brits than usual, quite the opposite of our experience although it seems they were all on the coast. He thought the weather had been a bit strange this year too.