Tuesday 25 February - Mirhleft to Sidi Ifni

Mirhleft to Sidi Ifni - 15 miles

A somewhat hazy morning with high cloud but which quickly burned off to another hot sunny day. As usual our best intentions of getting an early start didn't materialise but there wasn't a lot to do and we weren't travelling far anyway. So after the usual domestics paid Abdullah, buying a few souvenirs whilst we were there, and set off for the 15 miles to Sidi Ifni – oh aren't we the great adventurers!

We'd been told about a coastal rock formation that was perhaps worth a visit about halfway so took the turnoff, but the “parking” was tiny – we'd have taken most of it up – and it was still a decent walk down so we didn't stop and returned to the coast road. Shortly the outskirts of Sidi Ifni came into view, together with the ubiquitous police check, this one accompanied by a radar speed “trap”. In the seven years it has been since we came there has been much development with a whole new northern “quarter” established before the bridge, which apparently has been rebuilt twice after floods, to the old town.

Approaching Sidi Ifni

Our plan was to have a look at the Municipal campsite close to the town centre as this was just to be a short visit. We already knew it was just an “okay” place, but it was full with folk being turned away so we returned to the beach road where three other campsites were located. We had already noted that two of them, as reported on the internet forum, seemed to be pretty crowded so instead went to the third, where we stayed in 2013. To our surprise it was only half full and even had spaces available right on the front although after registering we chose a pitch on the second row somewhat closer to the facilities. 

Camping El Barco

We've noted quite a lot of negative remarks about Camping El Barco but we found it perfectly satisfactory for our needs, although it is right on the beach and the surf is a bit noisy if that sort of thing bothers you. We're aware that the cliff we're under shades the site from the early morning sun but as our stay is to be short it's not a problem. The lack of mobile phone signal seems to have been addressed by a new mast on the clifftop overlooking the site. Other than that the facilities are pretty well standard “Morocco” i.e. not the best we've seen but adequate.

Settled in quickly, not bothering with a full setup as we only plan to be here two nights, chairs deployed and a long cool drink to enjoy in the sun followed by a lazy lunch. During the afternoon a small convoy drifted in with a couple of Brits who parked next to us – they were Morocco newbies on a guided tour and we had a brief chat. We think that organised tours are a bit of a waste of money, everything being so straightforward, but we accept that there are folk who want the security of organisers. After all we've brought a few groups across, although haven't really organised them as such.

As it got cooler later on we left Jamie, who wasn't showing much enthusiasm for walking around, and strolled up into the old town for a looksee. As said earlier nothing much has changed, it's just a fairly typical Moroccan town, enhanced somewhat by some Spanish architecture harking back to the relatively recent days when it was a Spanish enclave. The small souk/market was quite busy as were the multitude of small shops lining the two main roads – this is probably a better time to explore as it was not too warm for comfort.

Nothing much of interest for us although we were happy to revisit the town so we returned to the van, encountering John and Julie, one of the group we brought across and whom we've run into a few times in various places. They've been here a week, staying at one of the two other sites which they reported were not as crowded as they looked.

Interestingly we've begun to notice a pattern; most of the sites we've stayed on have previously been reported as very busy but when we've arrived we've found a very different situation in that although they had been busy many people had left very recently – did someone tell them we're coming? We've spoken to a few Germans and they all seemed to be starting their journeys home and there also seems to be fewer French around. We'll be interested to see what transpires at our next planned stop.