We felt a wonderful sense of freedom travelling around the country – nothing planned, nothing booked – we went where we wanted to go and left just when it suited us.
Our throats and noses were feeling quite sore at the higher altitude in the desert where the air lacked moisture. We needed to find some fresh sea air.
From Guelmim it was a short drive to Sidi Ifni, a seaside town lying between the Anti Atlas Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean. The town sat on a hill overlooking a long, sandy beach, popular with windsurfers.
Beside the beach was Hotel Ait Baamrane, its sunny terrace provided a place where you could enjoy a bottle of beer and watch the windsurfers. There were a couple of other hotels in the town but, as far as we could tell, that was the only establishment serving alcohol. That said, alcohol was very much frowned upon. We never saw Muslim women having a drink in the bar but the local men arrived looking furtive with hoodies covering their faces before disappearing into a dark bar area. On the terrace and in the restaurant it was mostly Europeans.
We had been “following” other overland trucks on the internet. Sometimes on our travels we would chance upon someone we knew of – but had never met. These encounters were great fun, we usually had a lot in common and there was a large amount of technical information to share (is theirs bigger / better than ours?). In the case of a couple from the Netherlands who parked their truck alongside us, we were definitely the little brother.
Our conversations would often turn to mundane matters like how we dealt with toilet waste – it was strange meeting people for the first time and within an hour or so we were discussing bodily functions! Usually we would end up having a cold beer together and it was always sad when it was time to say goodbye. We looked forward to meeting up again further along our journey.
We spent a little time with a lovely Spanish windsurfing couple who were travelling in a converted Mercedes Vario. From them we learned how to cook octopus the Galician way: Frighten the animal three times, then dip the tentacles into boiling water three times before immersing and cooking for 45 minutes. Not sure whether we would be up to that!
