Thursday 9 March 2017

Fez to Meknes - 58 miles

Up earlyish for us, mainly to say bye-bye to the Brit group that were going into Fez for a guided tour whilst we were moving on. Breakfast, van serviced and bill paid we set off for Meknes under the trusty guidance of TomTom. It was a red hot day so the air-conditioning was brought into use again as we followed quite a busy road – there is a motorway but it's a long way round from where we started.

Rather than entering the city, it sort of gradually got busier until it was towny proper. Spotting a sign for Marjane we diverted but it was one of the smaller ones and we couldn't get into the car park anyway so we continued towards the coordinates given to us by the tour leader yesterday. There was nothing wrong with them, it's just that we found ourselves in very narrow streets which then spilled out onto a parking area which was little short of a bomb site! Agreed there were motorhomes parked and we did actually go onto it, but quickly decided this was NOT the guardian parking in our site book so quickly moved off again, heading for Marjane and further thoughts.

A little confusion when we arrived at the coordinates on TomTom – no Marjane to be seen but a little wandering around found we had actually been taken to the delivery entrance and had missed the main entry point, that was marked by a huge advertising hoarding. Our excuse is that it was all in Arabic. Parked and went in to again top up the supplies then lunch in their car park, considering our next move.

We finally admitted to ourselves that we were now getting a little “Morocco'd out” and didn't have any enthusiasm for Meknes, not helped by the constant badgering and begging every time we stopped in traffic. Fez had been nothing like this so we reset the satnav to take us to the only campsite in the area, about 12 km north, enduring another crawl across the city. We also came across the first accident we've seen, bit of a mess but apparently no-one hurt.

Oops

Easily found, Camping Belle Vue was up, and we mean up, a dirt track following several French vans who were part of a group. We struggled a little as the surface was quite loose but made it in the end. Once we pointed out to the receptionist we were not part of the French group he directed us to the upper level where there was plenty of room. Unfortunately the entry was a little further up the track and this time Bertie flatly refused to make the turn – no bother, we'll reverse in, much to the amusement of some Germans watching and confusion to the receptionist who found us backing all the way along the road. Pitches were not all that big but we found a nice one although it meant the back end was hanging over the drop to a lower level, so we couldn't access the back box, which wasn't a problem for one nights stay.

But it was in full sun and the temperature inside the van was in the upper thirties so for the first time in ages as we had electricity we turned on the habitation air-conditioning, which brought it down eventually to a bearable 30 degrees. Think we need to get it serviced though when we get home.

So what now? Over a couple of cold drinks we've more or less decided, after a visit to Volubilis tomorrow, to head over to the coast for a few final days at Moulay Bousselham before crossing back to Spain, where the weather forecast is finally picking up.

From our door tonight