We left Marrakech and took the motorway west towards Agadir and the coast. We paid a £9 toll charge for the hundred mile trip. On Moroccan motorways it was quite normal to see flocks of sheep and goats grazing beside the road and pedestrians sauntering across the carriageways. Hay lorries loaded to capacity were a regular sight.
We stopped for a few days at Le Palmeraie, Tifnit, south of Agadir, a camp site with space for 100 vans, run by a French outfit and probably the best site in Morocco. It was spotlessly clean with beautifully laid out gardens, swimming pool and restaurant. It also had a shop that opened three mornings a week selling groceries and the freshest of fruit and vegetables.
There were two other British couples on the site and a few Germans and Dutch but Le Palmeraie mainly catered for a particular type of French traveller who drove to Morocco in huge motor homes, similar to American-style RVs, usually towing a trailer containing a small car or quad bike – the entire rigs could reach 50 feet in length. We watched in amazement as five of these behemoths rolled up one day at Le Palmeraie. It was as if the circus had come to town.
Most European travellers in Morocco tended to stay only a few days one place before moving on. But these French folk had a more static lifestyle and created Gallic enclaves at popular camp sites on the coast or near a town centre. More than once we had turned up at a normally quiet site only to find it full to capacity with French people. They were very territorial around their pitches and it would be a brave Englishman who would invade their space or to interrupt their evening game of pétanque. Fortunately the travellers’ network of jungle drums let us know which sites to avoid because they had been “taken over” by the French.
The term “the French” should not be confused with folk we met on our travels who happened to come from France – most travellers were friendly, polite, considerate and were a real pleasure to spend time with.
