Bou Jerif was a hotel and camp site adjacent to the ruins of a fort built in 1935 by the French Foreign Legion. The hotel catered for groups exploring the desert in 4x4s, motorbikes, horses and the occasional camper vans.
A series of tracks led from the tarmac road to the fort, a distance of 4 km. The journey was slow along the bumpy roads and always took us a good 40 minutes. We never seemed to use the same route twice nor were we sure we had taken the most direct route.
On the perimeter of the camp site was a shack, the home of a man who made a living catching cobras. The snakes lived amongst the dry shrubs that grew all over the area. We had often walked amongst these bushes totally unaware we were walking amongst cobras. The cobra catcher demonstrated how he calmed the snake down by turning the animal onto its back – the cobra lay perfectly still, as if in a trance. The cobra catcher sold the creatures to the snake charmers in the markets of Marrakesh.
