Heading Down South…
We’re just leaving Essaouira and heading south towards Western Sahara and and Mauritania for the next 4 days. The journey is around 1600km and we will bushcamp along the way. The intent is no drive no later than 6pm and then find a stopping place to cook and set up camp. It’ll be toughish going.
We stopped at a Carrefore supermarket just outside town to stock up on food for the next 4 days. 24 people eat a lot of food in 4 days and I was amazed at trolley after trolley of stuff bring wheeled out to the truck. This will never fit, I thought. But fit it did. I think the truck was manufactured in Gallifray, as it seems bigger on the inside.
Had a mixed night last night. There was a fierce wind and I was worried that one, or more, of the tent pegs would detach. But they didn’t. However, my pegging was a bit loose and I didn’t put enough tension on the guy points. This would be unnoticed on an ordinary night but the strong wind whipped the loose tent materials around and made an awful racket. But, I stuck my earplugs in and I was grand.
We’re motoring now through a succession of small towns or large villages. The landscape is dry and stony with no grass to be seen. The ground is covered in rocks, a bit like Connemara but brown, not grey. And no lashings of rain, of course.
There are lots of small trees growing everywhere. I don’t know what they’re called but they have a fantastic knotted, gnarled and elegant shape. Sometimes it seems as if they’re cultivated, other times they seem wild. They look like they might have thorns or spiky leaves.
Suddenly, a shout ‘goats in trees’ and we saw dozens of goats climbing trees and eating something from them. We were keeping on eye open for the fabled goats in trees and surely enough, they presented themselves for a photo opportunity. Clever little goats
The first few hours, the mountains occluded our view of the coast but now we are viewing the coast again. The views are spectacular; green sea, glistening rocks, huge white breakers – capailliní bána or white horses as we call them in Ireland. The road hugs the coast, sometimes near and sometimes afar. The rocks sometimes give way to sand dunes.
We stop at Agafir for a pee break and to get drinks from the shop. A sit down loo. Luxury.
We’re a few hours from our campsite.
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