As expected, Morocco extended the border closures and our ferry was cancelled again. They will review on the 31st Dec, we have a new ferry booked on the 1st Jan but I am expecting the same to happen then too. So for the foreseeable future I live in Morocco.
Rachel and Harry rang to say they were travelling towards Fes to meet me, along with a French couple they met surfing.
Whilst I waited for them I visited the nearby Moulay Idriss Zerhoun, a little town on a hill
It’s a maze of steep, stepped streets
The only way to move around is by foot or by donkey
It’s the resting place of the first Muslim ruler of Morocco and a famous pilgrimage site
It is also home to the only cylindrical minaret outside Mecca
That night everyone arrived
Paul and Lauren live in an old French fire truck
They gave us all a lift from the campsite to see some ruins
A partly excavated Berber-Roman city called Volubilis
You had to pay to go in so we decided to just view from a distance and then head to Meknes
We explored, got lost, shopped, ate lunch
And then began our drive to the coast for Christmas
We spent the next few days wild camping in the mountains
Paul grew up in Morocco so he taught us how to make traditional tagines
As we headed higher it got colder
We spent our days walking and collecting wood
And our evenings by the fire, cooking delicious food
We saw monkeys
They stole our water
It was too heavy for them to lift and drink so Paul helped
We kept diving west, down the mountains and all the way to Marrakech
We stayed in a fancy campsite, had much needed hot showers and enjoyed the 27°c temperatures of the low land
We visited palaces
Explored the eerily empty streets of the souk – it seems like we really are the last tourists left
It’s so sad for the shop owners and artists who are really struggling to make a living
We did our Christmas shopping in a big French supermarket (mostly just for alcohol which is very hard to find anywhere else)
Had a party in my van
And drove the rest of the way to Imsouane, where we are meeting some other vanlifers for Christmas