Well yesterdays chicken
tagine went down very well after another very warm day which turned
to fog late afternoon – Ali the tagine man said that it means it is
going to be very hot tomorrow. Cleared up by bedtime though.
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| Oualidia to Essaouira - 128 miles |
But today we're heading
further south with thoughts of Kaouki Beach campsite, just past
Essaouira, for a longer stop. With domestics done we took to the
scenic coastal road, a good surface and quiet so a fast run as far as
Safi, a very modern town which has developed into the main centre for
exporting phosphates, Morocco's number one foreign currency earner.
We called in at the Marjane hypermarket for a few things we were
short of and also had lunch before heading a little inland to pick up
the main N1 road south. The coastal road goes past the chemical works
and, apart from being busy with lots of trucks, is not particularly
pretty, or indeed in very good condition.
Another fast but quiet
road, managing to avoid having our mirror smashed by incoming lorries
and buses as happened around here to our friends last year, slowing
for the occasional town, sometimes quiet sometimes busy. We noticed
how green the countryside still was and in places still showed signs
of wet; a local fisherman commented to us this morning that this was
the first warm spell of weather they had seen. Lucky for us, although
the lack of air conditioning made it a very warm trip which is
probably why Jamie has been a bit fractious all day. However by
mid-afternoon it was becoming clear that Kaouki Beach might just be a
little too far so we weighed our options.
A few years ago we
stayed at a campsite, called Le Calme, just outside Essaouira and a
sign for it appeared. Knowing we'd have little difficulty in getting
a pitch, and with thoughts of needing some laundry plus maybe
visiting Essaouira again, we decided to drop in there for two nights,
get the laundry done then have an early start on Friday for a couple
of hours in perhaps our favourite town. It was then maybe only half
an hour to Kaouki Beach.
As expected, plenty of
room on this, now brought right up-to-date, lovely quiet campsite
(well apart from the deaf guy “listening” to his music at full
volume a little along from us) so we settled down with a cuppa then
later a light meal to end a somewhat tiring day.
The hot weather is
causing a couple of minor niggles with the van – the tyre pressure
monitoring system keeps warning us of over-pressure due to heat build
up and the auxiliary battery charging system is refusing to shut down
properly, no doubt due to the heat sensor. Nothing serious and there
is little that can be done except wait for it to cool down. It's now
10.00pm and still over 25 deg. But Terry's cold is getting better
although we're not there yet. However a nice cold beer straight from
the fridge goes down rather well!
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