Our drive from Sidi Ifni to Fort Bou Jerif should have taken us two hours but for some reason it took us a lot longer. We had driven the route before and we can only assume that we took a wrong turning. We travelled for mile after mile with no landmarks to be seen so we were quite relieved when, after nearly an hour of wandering along dirt tracks, we eventually came over the brow of a hill to see the single storey hotel in the distance. The old French Army fort was built in 1935, now just ruins disintegrating back to the ochre earth that was used to build it.
The hotel and camp site was mainly used by tourists on 4×4 excursions. The vehicles arrived in a cloud of dust at the end of the day, guests either stayed in the hotel or in one of the tents on site and left the next morning.
It was New Years Eve and Maria and Eberhart drove over with their friend, George, to celebrate with us. They said that the journey from Sidi Ifni in their Toyota Land Cruiser took no more than an hour. 
We were harshly ridiculed for the time it took us to get there, they said it was a ten minute drive once you left the tarmac road and hit the piste. We were content to be the butt of their amusement especially as Eberhart paid for dinner.
During the afternoon the owner of the hotel, Zineb, had a fire built in a deep pit. When the embers died down a whole lamb was lowered in and the fire pit covered over. The lamb was cooked for three hours and was delicious.
