We travelled north east to Tiznit and then on to Taroudant, an old Berber city east of Agadir. Our hearts sank when we reached the camp site at the end of a long narrow lane and found the big metal entrance gates to the camp site were firmly locked. Attached was a faded hand written sign saying the site was open, so we telephoned the number displayed and twenty minutes later the guardian appeared on his push bike to open up.
Abdul, the guardian was helpful and brought us bread each morning; he was a shoe maker by trade. We spent the first 24 hours as ”Billy No Mates” occupying a small corner of the deserted site. The next day a French camping car arrived and the day after that a German couple turned up in a camper van. Some weeks back we had met these same Germans in the supermarket car park; in a previous life they had lived on a catamaran in Venezuela and they also spoke excellent English.
The following day we were joined by Gary who was touring Morocco on his motor bike with his rescue puppy, Charlie. We had first met Charlie as a ten week old puppy when Gary and his girlfriend, Chrissie, came to Sidi Ifni for Christmas. Charlie had grown a lot since then, she had survived parvo virus and I think Gary was beginning to realise what a huge responsibility he had taken on as he was making arrangements to bring Charlie to Switzerland where he worked as a chef.
That evening we had just finished eating supper when a young hitch hiker turned up – 24 year old Andrei, from Minnesota. He had blisters on his feet and was very tired and hungry. He downed two mugs of tea followed by a huge bowl of leftovers. Andrei was 6’5” tall and took quite a bit of feeding!
