We stayed in the small town of Moulay Bousselham because it had a reasonable camping site and was within striking distance of Tanger Med, where we would catch the ferry back to Europe. It was a pleasant seaside resort, used mainly by Moroccans – the sandy beach was huge and virtually deserted and the cafés and restaurants were closed, due to it being Ramadan (they may well have opened after sunset). We were hoping to buy some fresh fish to cook on the barbecue but had no success.
There were some noisy residents at the camp site in the form of chickens and geese. The cockerels kept up their raucous cries throughout the day – I thought cockerels were suppose to crow three times at dawn and then politely remain silent for the remainder of the day. We decided they must be Muslim birds rather than Christian.
We put the skin of our breakfast melon (the size of a dinner plate) out for the chickens to eat. They were soon enjoying pecking at the melon skin but their happy clucking and cockadoodle-dooing brought three large geese to the feast and the chickens were shooed noisily away. For an hour or more the melon skin was taken hostage by one or other of the groups in a fierce battle punctuated by hisses and clucks until the melon skin was finally totally consumed. A hen and her three chicks were one of the last to be allowed to have a peck.
