We happened upon a small town today which houses an exquisite Chateau. No wine there, just a truly magnificent building.It was built in mediaeval days and then recently rebuilt. By recent I mean 1575AD so by my standards its still pretty damn old. Unfortunately we were not able to go in because during the winter its closed. In fact France seems pretty much closed in the winter.

All the camp sites are certainly closed. All the major attractions are closed. They close everything between 12.30pm and 2pm and this of course includes shops, so by default my favourite – patisseries. They close almost everything all day on Mondays and Sundays and then limp along, pretending that some places are open on Saturdays.

So you need to get there early on the four good days a week or forget it. We managed to find an open restaurant today at 1.30 so we felt pretty special. The board outside claimed a menu of the day for 11.50 euros so we peeked inside and saw a whole bunch of locals so we decided to take the plunge. I’m still not sure if it was a brilliant move or a major mistake.

We started by attempting to understand the offering and were unsure whether we had a choice of 5 things or if we were going to get 5 courses! After the soup arrived we realized it was the latter. The soup was followed by a visit to a rather delightful salad bar, after which I was already full. Two large rolls of pork on a bed of split peas arrived next and this was followed by a cheese board and a fruit pudding and then coffee. All washed down with some local red wine of course. This was actually an extraordinary amount of food and we just haven’t been eating big meals at all, which is why I have been losing weight on this trip.

But somehow I just can’t turn down good food. And for the price it was absolutely extraordinary. So much so that we decided to completely skip dinner.

Afterwards I poked my nose into a wine shop and we both ended up helping the proprietor to move a couple of pallets of wine into his shop. I bought a couple of bottles for which I received a discount and a free bottle for our troubles.

So while the rest of France was closed we ate and drank merrily.

We were both over the cold and snow. We left London on December 6th and headed up to Cambridgeshire to collect our van from storage and immediately encountered snow. After a few days we went down to Bath and encountered more snow and cold. We went back to London for a few days and encountered even more snow. After staying a few days we headed excitedly for Dover and some hopefully warmer weather (even slightly would have been good).

The plan was to go to Paris and meet up with Toby and Diane (from Melbourne) who were staying in Europe for a few weeks. Of course Paris was in the midst of some snow. We had a few lovely days in Paris. It was cold but quite ‘Christmassy’ and after a few days we left to head to Switzerland. More snow of course.

I think by now you get the picture. Heading to France and generally south towards Spain has finally yielded some milder weather. So blue skies and warm sunshine are really bliss to us ‘snow weary’ travelers. When you travel this way i.e. by Motorhome, it is actually the smallest things that somehow begin to mean so much. A little sunshine, a level place to park the vehicle so that you are not sleeping on an angle and wake up with your nose pressed against the inside window. Perhaps a place to fill up the water tank, or empty the cassette toilet.

The other night we managed to find an ‘aire du service’ (allotted parking in most French towns) which had a free power point. This may not seem like very much to most people but to us it was like winning lotto. Firstly most ‘aires’ have good parking, and a place to empty the grey water, toilet etc and some have fresh water and power which you generally have to pay for by means of inserting a token into a machine. But the machines are almost all turned off in the winter so even if there is power and water, they don’t work. Ever industrious, I discovered an electrical point that wasn’t really part of the aire and after adding a UK adapter to my French power adapter we had full 240v power.

This simple luxury must be lost before its return can truly be appreciated. Free heat, a hot shower in the van because we have a fresh water supply, recharge anything that has a battery (camera, phone, shaver, AA and AAA’s etc) A nice town suddenly turns into a great town. We went to a patisserie where I had spied some meringues that looked pretty good and took them back to the motorhome and scoffed them with whipped cream for dessert – heaven. We also went to a bar with the computer and watched Spurs (streamed live on the internet) and between us drank a coffee, 2 cups of tea, a large Baileys and 3 glasses of red wine which cost a total of 13 euros. God I love France! And I think they had some mediaeval buildings there somewhere too.

Our travels so far seem to have been punctuated by our lust for French food, markets and supermarkets. Add to that some long but immensely satisfying walks to check out some gorgeous towns and you’ll pretty soon get the idea. Then of course there have been the running repairs to the vehicle. ‘Junior’ had been frozen in Switzerland and this had caused a little damage. We needed to replace one of the lifestyle batteries as soon as we got to France and pretty soon we realized that our bathroom tap needed replacing. A few days after doing this we found a leak in the bathroom and required a second repair. Two days later our main battery failed and required replacing.
So as I said earlier, it’s the small things that suddenly seem to matter. Power, a fuctioning battery, heat, water all become so important and make your life less enjoyable when you don’t have them. Their repair can not only dominate but consume your day.

A but somehow, we don’t mind a bit.

We arrived in the town of Buñol two weeks before La Tomatina. For the uninitiated, La Tomatina is a food fight of gargantuan proportions. The local council brings in truckloads of tomatoes and everyone throws them at everyone else. It a crazy event that attracts around 30,000 people each year.

We had arrived early for two reasons. Firslty we needed to find a camp for a two week stay that had WIFI internet access so I could do a project for a client. Secondly we wanted to speak to the local council to see if we could get a press pass to shoot the event from the best possible position.

After visiting the local police station we were directed to the town hall and ultimately to the correct person. She showed me the windows where the photographers would be located and told us to be there early for the event. The town hall office site right in the middle of the ‘action’ and its windows offer the ideal position to shoot from.
“Get here at 8.00am. La Tomatina starts at 11.00am. There will be television crews from all over the world so it’s pretty busy.”

We also scouted the town for somewhere to park our camper van and decided to get back to town the day before La Tomatina in order to get a parking space. All of this ground work was later to pay dividends. Many people who attend the event for the first time have no idea where the event actually takes place and the town, on first inspection, does not appear to lend itself to this type of event.

We then disappeared to the town of Navajas for a couple of weeks until my project was completed. During this period we also visited Valencia which was actually rather underwhelming. We spent a day at the new aquarium which was interesting but rather overpriced and due to a total lack of assistance from the info desk at the Valencia train station we missed a connecting train back to Navajas and found ourselves in the middle of nowhere wondering how to get back to our camp. Eventually we managed to get another train back two stops but the last train to Navajas had gone and we ended up getting a 50 euro taxi back to camp.

So when my project was finished and it was time to head to La Tomatina we were both ready for some fun. We left for La Tomatina on a Monday morning, two days before the tomato throwing was to commence and we figured ac ouple of days parked on the side of the road would not be a problem. We had also heard that there is a lot of pick pocketing during the fiesta and vehicles are commonly broken into. We placed ourselves on the far side of town so that the stream of tourists who come from Valencia in the morning to the fiesta and back to the train station, would not pass our camp on the sire of the road. We also managed to get some shade under a tree.

Before long we were joined by van of English girls, another camper van with a young vigneron and his wife from Marlborough, another van of kiwis and two more vans of Aussies. A car soon pulled up and a Scottish couple got out. It was party time. We had heard that the Aussies really love this event so we were no too surprised. The council had been kind enough to place 4 port-a-loos at the end of the street on some vacant land, so it seemed that everything was in place. For two days we owned the street and formed into a couple of large groups drinking and eating together.

As advised, we went to the council offices early and were the first photographers there. From the window on the second floor we watched the event build up. A group of young thugs positioned itself in front of the town hall and proceeded to drink and be loud and boisterous. As the crowd began to swell, they began to swarm around young men and rip their T shirts from their bodies. This is a ritualistic tradition at La Tomatina. Groups of young people entered the street with litre plastic cups of beer, or worse, Kalimotxo (pronounced Kali-moto), which is a 50-50 blend of coke and red wine (tastes terrible).

The crowd keeps coming and entertains itself with drinking, spraying water and ripping and throwing T shirts. A large greasy pole is erected with a ham at the top and drunk individuals attempt to climb the pole and pull down the ham. The crush can get quite scary. Gary, the Scotsman (from Glasgow) we had met at our street camp told us that it was just like a football crowd of bygone days and being a Celtic supporter, he would surely know.

At 11.00am the first truck made its way slowly through the crowd. Inside the truck were local people wearing green T shirts and were attached to the truck via climbing ropes. They were clutching arms full of soft, ripe tomatoes ready to hurl over the sides onto the crowd in the street. The truck eventually stopped and tipped the tomatoes into the street. Via the climbing ropes, the people inside were able to avoid being dumped along with the tomatoes. As the street dwellers gained ammunition the battle was on for young and old. It actually gets quite violent and the smarter participants wear swimming goggles to keep the tomato juice out of their eyes. A total of five trucks laden with tomatoes appear and unload their cargo into the street. As the battle progresses, everyone gets redder and redder, tomatoes over every part of their bodies. The street becomes a swill, a river of crushed tomatoes with everyone totally drenched and loving it. Young men are stripped to the waist, their outsides drenched in juice, their insides in beer.

The odd fight even breaks out but no one seems to care. Afterwards we spoke to the young Aussies in our street and they all told us that La Tomatina was far better than they expected it would be. All were delighted that they had come and experienced it. So were we. But it was actually a lot more violent than we had realised. It’s surprising that there are no serious injuries given the nature of the events. But every year the people come in their droves and go home happily covered in tomatoes.

We drove into Tudela to witness their ‘Running of the Bulls’, with absolutely no idea on how would be able to catch up with Mercedes, our friend whom we’d met the previous year.

When we arrived in Tudela in 2006 we didn’t know very much about the event at all and had gone into a local bar to ask if anyone could help us. We eventually encountered a local woman who reportedly spoke English. Her English was pretty basic but she had been able to communicate the necessary information and that evening invited us to visit some local bars with her in Tudela. It was the beginning of a friendship and we spent most days with her and her partner, Juan Andreas. He spoke no English at all so communication with his was simply down to hands and feet. We spent several days in Tudela and had a wonderful, truly memorable time there and vowed to return there in 2007.

So we drove into Tudela wondering quite how we might find Mercedes. We had no telephone number and only a rough idea of where she lived. We need not have worried though. As we drove into town she was quite literally the first person we saw, when she was crossing the road in front of us. Naturally there were big hugs and smiles all around. So it was to the nearest bar for a quick beer and a phone call home to Juan Andreas to come and say hi. The tone for the rest of the week had been set – bars, beers, tapas and of course the ‘enciero’ every morning at 8.00am.

The enciero is the actual ‘running of the bulls’ through the streets and on to the bull ring. The streets have temporary wooden fences erected so that the bulls cannot escape out into the community and instead are confined to a ‘one way’ street directly into the bull ring. In the bull ring, cows and even the occasional bull run around and chase young men who try to place a ring on their horns. Occasionally the cow wins and catches one of its tormentors. I have never seen anyone hurt yet but there would have to be a few bruises. It is seen as showing significant courage that these young men get straight back into the ring after having been caught by the cow or bull and appear to be unhurt.

The last day of the fiesta has two enciero’s – one in the morning and one at 5.00pm in the afternoon. The latter is the most formal of all. The young men actually compete in two teams of three to place the rings onto the horns and the winning team receives a trophy. The bull ring was packed on the day we were there with hardly a spare seat anywhere with the crowd loving the action. No bulls are harmed during the enciero but most days there are bull fights in the afternoons with the matadors and all the attendant tradition. I had no desire to see the bull fights as I am not keen to witness the demise of the bull. I had seen bull fights on television many years before and this had been more than enough for me.

While in Tudela we also witnessed a local wedding. The daughter of a friend of Mercedes was getting married in a civil ceremony at the town hall and we were invited to attend. As the bride and groom were Basque they were greeted at the door of the town hall after the service by a traditional Basque greeting, which has to be the strangest dance I have ever seen. A young man did sort of ‘John Cleese’ silly walk in front of them, raising his leg above his head and then lowering it and twisting it around his other knee. Very strange. The wedding party then toured around the village in a wooden horse drawn cart, receiving congratulations from the local people.

This year we parked our camper van in the street for nearly two weeks (as did a few other tourists) and walked to the main part of the town, which is only a few hundred metres. Tudela is small enough that you can easily walk around it. The town dates back centuries and once had a Jewish quarter and even a Muslim quarter. Several centuries ago the Muslims were all kicked out of Spain (unless they agreed to convert to Catholicism) but there is still plenty of history and many buildings left in Spain to attest to their presence.

We were able to take showers at Merecdes house which was a real bonus so we did not need to pay camp site fees. In any event here is no camp site in Tudela and to stay at a camp site we would have needed to drive at least 40 kilometres, which did not appeal. But after two weeks of drinking beer and eating tapas it was time to head south to Valencia and the tomato festival, La Tomatina. For the uninitiated, that is a crazy day when the town council brings in truckloads of over ripe tomatoes and everyone gets to throw tomatoes at everyone else. We have discovered that we both enjoy festivals and special events and it seemed that this one was a ‘must see’.

It was time to head towards Tudela, in Navarra, (northern Spain) to witness the running of the bulls. We didn’t get more than 30 km though and encountered ourt first real mechanical breakdown. At a roundabout our vehicle coughed and then stopped completely. It is for situations like this that we have ADAC cover (the same as AA or RACV in Australia). When I telephoned them, they informed me that my membership had lapsed and that I was not covered. The truck to tow us to the garage would cost 186 euros.

I was angry since the ADAC membership had not lapsed at all and I had made a payment to them only two weeks prior. They had failed to record the payment properly and now it had fallen on me to pay for their incompetence. They told me that I could pay for the breakdown myself and then re-claim the money from RACV if, as I claimed, I was a paid up member. It was difficult to hide my overwhelming delight – indeed I failed miserably in this endeavour. The tow truck arrived after about 2 hours and duly loaded our campervan up and departed. Since the truck did not have enough room for us as well as the driver and his companion we were obliged to take a taxi and follow the truck to the fiat dealer for which we we were now bound.

The taxi cost us another 30 euros and when we arrived at the Fiat garage we were greeted by closed doors. It was the mid-day siesta tine and they were closed until 2pm. So we waited patiently outside until the doors opened again.
“I have broken down and need an urgent repair?” I said slowly so the repairs manager could understand me.
“Do you have a booking?” was the reply.
I have always found over my many years of motoring that it is always much better to make a booking with a repairer when you intend to have an unscheduled breakdown so that there is no problem getting the vehicle fixed. It’s a truly wonderful system which I would thoroughly recommend.
“No” came my inevitable response. I was now at his mercy.
“We can fix your car on Monday”.
That would have been OK by me had it been a Monday. But it was Thursday afternoon, so it meant we would need to wait for four days outside the garage. We were naturally delighted. To be more precise we were ecstatic at the efforts of AA Spain on our behalf. What planning and execution! They make us wait more than 2 hours on the roadside, then take us to a closed garage that can’t help us for four days. Pure genius. These people could be skilled enough to run a whole country!
“Maybe we can fix your car tomorrow if there is a cancellation” came the offer of support from the repairs manager. He was actually quite a nice guy and it wasn’t his fault the garage was fully booked. We elected to sleep outside the garage overnight and take our chances the following day.

The next morning cars seemed to come into the garage in their droves and by mid-day it was clear they were very busy. No cancellations now meant that we would still be there on Monday morning so I telephoned AA Spain again and informed the girl I has spoken to the previous day of our increasing frustration. She agreed to try and call another garage and then to call me back and let me know if she had any luck. Ten minutes later she called to give me the address of another garage that would be able to repair our vehicle. Amazingly it was just 150 metres away!
“How should I get the vehicle there?” I asked her.
“You will need to use the tow truck again and pay them another 180 euros”. The bill for all of this was mounting and I was not happy at the prospect of forking out more money.
“We’ll push it!” I told her and thanked her for the help.

Actually we were able somehow to start the vehicle and it coughed and spluttered the 150 metres to the new garage.
They spoke less English.
“Repair no possible today” said the owner. I guess by now my frustration was clearly showing. Pam helped.
“But it’s running a little bit now. It wasn’t running yesterday, so maybe you can take a quick look at it for us?” She was wonderfully diplomatic.
He tinkered and played for a while and spent most of the time talking to other clients about their cars, then after about three hours announced that the car was fine. He wasted no time in presenting us with a bill for 116 euros.
“I am driving to Tudela in Navarra, will it get me there? Its 700 kilometres.” I had to know if the camper van was going to break down again.
“It is running perfectly” he said.
So I paid him and we hit the road. It felt good to be driving again after such an enforced and uncomfortable stop. Three hundred and thirty two euros later though I was wondering if I would be able to extract the money from ADAC or whether we would need to put it all down to experience.

In any event we were headed north at last and it felt great. In two days we would reach Tudela, a town we loved during its fiesta last year and we would be able to meet up with the people that we had first met in 2006.

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At Rabat we stayed in a campsite near the beach. We hadn’t realised just how much the Moroccans love the beach. It was crowded, with most leaving at the end of the day, causing a traffic jam of monumental proportions. The camp was basic to say the least and the attendant , though friendly, was little interested. We were keen to use Rabat as a one night stop only and continue on our way north the next morning. Nothing at the camp or the beach beckoned us to stay longer and the next morning we were again on the road heading for Meknes.

The highways along the west coast of Morocco are a welcome relief from the inland roads. They are tollways so you need to dig deep a couple of times but compared to France they are pretty cheap and they make travelling long distances much easier.

Meknes appeared after a few hours and we spent what seemed an eternity trying to find our way around. Initially we went close to the centre and then after asking a policeman for directions we found ourselves leaving town again. Somehow it seemed to be a frustrating place to find your way around. After a few attempts we saw a sign for a supermarket so we decided to do some shopping. The supermarket was barely easier to find but after about 25 minutes we did manage to find it. After doing some shopping we asked some staff to direct us to the campsite. We received a hand drawn map and directions which we followed but finding the campsite proved elusive. With another three sets of directions we eventually found the camp and exhausted after driving through Meknes for what seemed to be hours we parked, ate and rested.

The following morning we asked the camp manager for directions to the old town. We spent more frustrating time looking for it without success and eventually out of chronic frustration decided to leave town. Finding the road to Ceuta was equally difficult and we managed to check out every exit road until we finally found the right one.

In short our visit to Meknes was a navigational disaster and was made all the more difficult by our inability to communicate with the locals. Our Tom Tom satellite navigation device did not work as it has no maps for Morocco and the road maps only show main roads and not city streets. So it’s down to wits and luck. I think we were a little down on both that day. But by now we were ready to return to Spain and head north to the town of Tudela for the ‘running of the bulls’.

At Ceuta a few hours later we looked for our ‘friends’ at the border with their little pieces of worthless paper trying to con more tourists. They found us quick enough but were not keen for me to photograph them. No surprise there. I did however manage to sneak a couple of the boss. My own sweet revenge.

The ferry trip back was uneventful until we went to disembark. We went down to get into the camper van so that when the ferry docked, we could drive straight off. I had left the handbrake off and also left the car out of gear. Who knows what I had been thinking or even if I had been thinking at all but the van had moved some metres forward and crashed into a wooden cupboard on the ferry. It had left a large dent it the front fender and completely destroyed the cupboard. Try though I might was completely unable to reassemble the pieces back into a cupboard. I put the vehicle in reverse, parked it in its original position and turned off the engine. I also put the handbrake on and left it in gear. They call this ‘closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.’ When the crew came down to open the door to let the vehicles disembark they noticed the cupboard lying in pieces. It caused a great deal of discussion and confusion. Heads were scratched, discussions held, theories put forward. I sat there stone faced offering nothing. Pam hid her face, as she could hardly stop laughing.

The doors duly opened and we were first off the ferry. Our shambles still causing consternation.

After leaving Marrakesh we headed back North again. While we were thrilled with our trip so far, Marrakesh had been very hot – 49 and 50 degrees respectively on the days we were there. Some respite was in order and we hoped the coast may provide some cooler weather.

We planned to head to Rabat and then through Cassablanca (well actually past it, as we’d heard its not a great town to see) and work our way North via Meknes and back to Ceuta to get the ferry back to Spain. We are always happy to go through small towns and the town of Setat was no exception. As we were about to leave the town we saw some tents and horses. Out of pure curiosity we turned off the main road and went to see what was happening.

There were somewhere between 50 and a hundred tents and horses everywhere. It doesn’t take too much for Pam’s enthusiasm levels to reach fever pitch when horses are involved. She rode for many years during her teens and loves to stop and talk to horses in paddocks (or donkeys). But there seemed to be something happening and we decided to try to find out what it was. I stopped the camper van on side the large open ground that seemed to be at the centre of proceedings. Before I had finished pulling on the hand brake Pam had departed, heading for the horses. When I caught up to her she had already found a beast to befriend. There were men on horses on the main arena galloping and then firing muskets. Others tended their horses.

The men (and horses) were superbly dressed, mostly in white or cream traditional Berber outfits, with many of the horses adorned in gold braid and beautifully decorated saddles. Pam managed to make friends with some of the riders and they posed for photos for us before making their way on to the field. I went back to the car to get the long zoom lens for the camera because the photo opportunity seemed to be a good one. I set up at the end of the field so the horses were running towards me and filled up nearly 4 data cards in little more than an hour. Later on I found out that the name for the event is ‘Razzia’ and that people had come from all over Morocco attend. It’s some sort of competition but we were at a loss to see how it could be judged. The strange thing was that as time went by, more horses made their way onto the field. Also as time went by, I began to get a worse and worse headache. It soon got to the point where I felt I had to leave and was no longer interested in anything to do with photography or horses.

We departed the town, thrilled at what we had seen, but with me feeling worse and worse. A few kilometres up the road and Pam’s enquiries as to how I was feeling were met with silence or the odd grunt. I was close to throwing up. The headache was much worse and I was not interested in communication. After about 20 minutes I had to stop the car and rush out onto the side of the road. I’m not one of those people who can throw up quietly. I am a noisy hurler. It comes from my feet somehow and gets more and more noisy as it reaches the crescendo upon exit. I left the contents of my stomach on the side of the road and then continued driving. Within 20 minutes I felt absolutely fine. Whether I’d eaten something that my body didn’t like, I don’t know. But it appeared to have gone and it did not return.

The memories of those magnificent horses though, will remain forever.

The trip to Marrakech was an arduous one. But it did have its upside and that was the scenery, which was simply stunning.

We hadn’t realised quite how magnificent Morocco is as a country. It quite mountainous in many areas and we were about to drive through some of its finest. The roads were not in as good a condition as we had hoped. In many cases they are falling away at the sides so that your right wheels are lower than the left ones. They drive over parts of the road that have sunk causing a constant bumpy ride. We didn’t realise at the time that this was shaking the vehicle pretty badly and was gradually loosening all the screws holding the rear bench seats in place. At one point the seats nearly totally collapsed and I had to spend quite some time tightening and replacing screws.

This part of Morocco is rather different than the areas we had encountered up north. The people here are quite poor. Houses are often built from mud and are simply abandoned when they become uninhabitable and left to slowly return to the earth. We stopped at one small village to take a couple of photos and were quickly besieged by local kids who saw the camper van and came running, hands outstretched hoping for a few coins. We quickly found ourselves nearly overwhelmed and in the confusion Pam managed to slip a lip-gloss to a young girl who was possibly seven or eight years old.

As we drove further south the land became more desolate and less arable. We were nearing the edge of the Sahara. There were still farmers, but less of them. The common mode of transport is still the donkey and it’s quite common to see people riding donkeys at the side of the road or along tracks through the countryside. Many people use a two wheeled trolley that is pulled by the donkey and head off to the local water supply to fill up large plastic bottles to take home.

We needed to stop and camp along the way as Marrakech turned out to be too far for one day’s drive. We found a campsite in a small town for 4.80 euros which included the use of a swimming pool. We thought this was a pretty good deal and the swimming pool a welcome relief from the heat of the day. The following morning we hit the road once more bound for Marrakesh.

At lunchtime we stopped at a roadside café and ordered some lamb chops. A large plate of freshly cooked chops duly arrived, as did a basket of bread. The chops vanished quickly (as they were wonderful) and also quite cheap – 7 euros for both of us. You never really know if you are paying a higher price than the locals, but you always suspect it. Othe rtravellers have told us that they have been with locals at cafes and restaurants and witnessed a decent meal for four peoplke which cost only 5 euros. In any event, we felt the meal was pretty cheap and delicious so the 7 euros we paid didn’t seem expensive.

We arrived in Marrakesh late in the afternoon and spent considerable time trying to find a campsite. The town is much more modern than you might expect with new wide roads and roundabouts common. We stopped to ask some policemen and received assistance in the form of verbal directions in French and some pointing, but it was enough to get us in the general direction and we managed to find a camp. The afternoon was very hot and we were hoping to find a campsite with a pool. Actually we were successful. Unfortunately though, the pool was still under construction and it looked a though it had been semi-complete for a number of years. We took shelter under some trees and positioned ourselves near the toilet block so as to avoid long treks when nature calls.

We decided to go into the old town the next afternoon and arranged transport at the campsite. We also met a girl from Germany whose boyfriend was sick and unable to do much at all so we agreed to let her travel to the old town with us and split the fare.
Marrakesh old town has been preserved pretty much as it has been for centuries. There is never ending shopping for the tourists and you can buy pretty much anything you want. Endless stalls have eager sellers waiting to do a deal and street hawkers badger you constantly. It busy, noisy and absolutely wonderful.

A woman approached me trying to sell a silver bangle for 800 Dirhams (around 80 euros). She was dressed in the full Sharia long black dress (a Jelaaba) with only a slit for her eyes.
“I don’t want to buy anything” I insisted.
The price quickly tumbled to 500 dirhams. I showed little interest. The price soon reached 200 dirhams.
I stopped to look at the piece. I am no expert in jewellery and have absolutely no idea on quality of silver so its not a good idea to try to buy from people who are. They will get the better of you every time.
I received some information on the pattern of the bangle and heard the word Sahara somewhere as a reference to the design. The price was now only 50 Dirhams. I walked away. A couple of minutes later she reappeared with renewed enthusiasm and determination. It’s actually like being pursued by a letterbox. You look around and just see the slit, but its talking to you. Now 40 dirhams the bangle was becoming more interesting.
“Would you like to come back to Melbourne with me, you could sell real estate?” I knew she wouldn’t understand but I was so impressed with the dermination that I couldn’t hold it in.
“Have you considered selling used cars?” Naturally there was no response. The price was now 30 dirhams. I decided to offer 25 dirhams. I didn’t really want the thing and I sensed we were pretty close to the walk away price but I was having fun. We haggled and haggled and even got to 28 dirhams before she finally gave up and vanished as quickly as she had arrived.

We actually managed to get ourselves lost in the maze of street stalls and found a couple of local boys who were quite willing to assist us with guidance. We wanted to go the the main square where the night stalls sell all manner of food. The boys duly guided us there and we rewarded them with a generous hand full of change. They were delighted.

The food stalls are a real experience. The chefs beckon you to sit down and in seconds you have food in front of you. But you have to be careful. Plates of things you never ordered appear in front of you. All sorts of dips and breads, chips, vegetables. So you need to be quite firm and request their removal if you don’t want them. But that said, the experience is a good one and this market has to be one of the best spectacles you could see anywhere. There is a real energy to the place. Its simply alive and its great to be there and be a part of it. There’s street entertainment of all kinds. There are countless stalls to buy fresh fruit juice which is both cheap and delicious and the service is rapid and quite impressive.

Marrakesh was a real experience and we both loved the old town and especially the food stalls. It’s a ‘must see’ for any serious traveller.

Martil is a seaside resort. The Moroccans flock there in great numbers. It’s like blackpool in England to them. They see it as paradise. Forget traditional Moroccan food, its all hamburgers and Pizza.

This was something of a disappointment to us since we are both keen on trying the local food wherever we go. We did manage to try some of the local breads which were actually quite disappointing, but very very cheap. The town is quiet in the mornings, in fact it doesn’t really get going until well into the afternoon and seems to get busy the later it gets. The waterfront is littered with bars but upon close inspection these are all coffee cafes, pizza shops and ice cream parlours. You can get a pretty good coffe for 7 Dirhams which is about 0.70 euros, quite cheap by European standards.

Internet cafes are everywhere and these are also pretty cheap at around 0.50 euros for one hour. They had WIFI (wireless internet connection) as well, which was a surprise so it made it easy to connect our Mac laptop. The Moroccans all have a business of some sort. They will sell anything and as soon as they have anything of value, a stall is set up to sell it. There are of course the markets at which you can but clothes, pirate dvd’s, small electronic goods, food etc and everything is open to negotiation.

Our intention was to stay in Martil for 1 or possibly 2 nights only and then head south to Fes. Pam spoke to one of the attendants at the campsite about getting someone to repair our electric cool box that had ceased to work and this took longer than expected. The repair fell on a weekend so there was no movement on Sunday, which meant having to wait another day to be able to get it back.

We decided to try the restaurant tat the campsite to sample some traditional Moroccan food. We indicated clearly that we did not want pizzas or hamburgers. The food was wonderful. Eggplant dip followed by Tajeem which is a lamb and vegetable dish along with chicken and vegetables on couscous –spicy and very tasty.

The next day we received the bad news on the cool box. It was unfixable and we had spent a total of three nights at the campsite largely waiting for its repair, all to no avail. In the meantime we had met a young Austrian couple, Mathew and Claudia, who were camped next to us. They were from Graz in southern Austria and had just driven all the way from home in about 3 days. They were on a mission to go down to the edge of the Sahara desert. We got on well with them both and swapped email addresses before we left.

We met a young local lad in the street who suggested that we have a look at Tetuan a town 10km south of Martil and he offered to show us the market there, which is where he worked. So we took him up on the offer and headed to Tetuan. The market is situated at the top of the town, up a small hill and next to a very large cemetary. The market is located within the old town walls. It was here that I began to realise that the local people are pretty camera shy. Many don’t like to be photographed at all, while others might consent for a fee. Youseff, our guide said that it was mostly fine to photograph people so I took him at his word and shot a few people. One old guy immediately took exception and came over and started to complain to Pam. He produced a card that showed he was an official guide and voiced his displeasure. Youseff dismissed him as a local drunk and told us to take no notice.

We continued through the market past crafts people making furniture, shoes, clothes, hats etc. The streets were largely laneways, often covered by tarpaulins to provide shade from the hot sun. We were eventually guided into a carpet shop. Omar, the attendant at the campsite had already warned us about the carpet places.
“Be careful, you will quickly find yourself in a shop to buy carpets. They buy for 50 euros and sell for 250-300 euros. These are not good carpets. Remember I warned you. Do not buy anything”.

The owner of the carpet shop was sickeningly nice. He of course had a friend in Australia. They always seem to. He wanted to get us a drink. We didn’t want any carpet, but Pam wanted to but a Jelabba (long dress worn by local women). He said he’d return soon with some to show us. We waited for a few minutes and Pam quickly became restless, insisting that she felt trapped. We walked out of the shop to the protests of the assistant.

Continuing through the narrow streets we eventually found a place to purchase a Jelabba and since the price was right, Pam bought three. Again we were guided into a spice store where we were offered saffron for 2 euros for a gram which mysteriously went up to 20 euros in one breath. Naturally we exited without a purchase. After about and hour and a half we left the town bound for Chefchouen, a small mountain village. The day had gotten away from us and it was now too far to Fes for today. Youseff decided he wanted to come to Fes with us. We didn’t really care either way so he tagged along.

Chefchouen was a few kilometres up a steep hill. The mountains of this area are rather stunning and we knew it would be cooler there at night. We drove into the campsite and were immediately greeted by the sight of the camper van owned by Mathew and Claudia. After eating at the camp restaurant (3 of us cost 6 euros) we sat with our Austrian friends for a while and had a couple of beers. They said that they were tired of driving and would stay put in Chefchouen for a couple of days rest.

The next morning we were back on the road bound for Fes. The trip took several hours and were were rather surprised by the scenery. Morocco has more mountains than either of us realised. Our camper van had a good workout. We were warned that Fes would be hot and we were not disappointed. It was 43 degrees in Fes and the campsite had a swimming pool, so we were able to cool off a little. We were guided into the campsite by a man on a bike who had been waiting at the roadside on the lookout for someone who might want to come to his campsite. He was not disappointed.

We arranged for a guide. Naturally the campsite owner had a brother who could guide us around Fes for around 15 Euros for the day. Fes is a network of small alleyways and narrow streets so getting lost can be pretty easy. We had heard that you have to be wary of the guides because they take you to places who pressure you to buy and then get a kickback from the dealer so when he arrived the next morning we told him that we wanted to look but not buy. This was clearly explained and understood. He wasted little time in taking us to a ceramic dealer, a carpet seller, a tannery, a silverware store, a pharmacy and a restaurant for lunch. We resisted everything but he got us on the lunch. We had a stunning but insanely expensive (for Morocco anyway) lunch in a very swish restaurant.

The next day we hit the road again bound for Marrakech. The staff at the campsite suggested a route and showed us a map. Who knows why, but they had consigned us to a long and difficult journey and had added something like an extra 250 km as well.

We arrived in Algeciras unsure of details about Morocco such as where the ferry goes from, how much it costs, availability of maps etc. None of this lack of preparation helped us later that day.

The first thing we noticed about Algeciras was actually the view we had as we approached the town of Gibraltar. Its just the other side of the bay and forms an impressive backdrop to the town. We headed for the port area, figuring the ferries must depart from there somewhere and began to look for somewhere to park our camper van. Eventually Pam spied a parking area near where the ferries depart and we drove in and spoke to a policeman who spoke English. He told us where to go and that we could park for free for an hour. We had not gone 50metres when we were accosted by our first tout. He directed us into a temporary parking space and then ushered me across the road to a ticket office. Pam just sat in the car laughing. I figured that there was no danger of me buying a ticket since I had no money on me at the time. The ticket was going to cost 420 euros return, which was a lot more than I had expected. I departed and headed back to the car to try and find the larger car park we had been looking for.

We reached the car park in a couple of minutes and were immediately met by another tout who again ushered us into yet another office for a quote. This time it was 390 euros. We decided to see if we could get it cheaper and walked back across the road and visited more ticket offices next to the first one we had been to. The first one was 376 euros but then the price suddenly went up to 412 euros. We figured the guy had forgotten to add the touts fee so we left. The next office offered us 380 euros so accepted it and bought the ticket.

The ferries leave every half hour and before we knew it we were on the water headed for Morocco. It had all happened so fast. I had intended for us to get a campsite, do a bit of research, but a map etc but instead we found ourselves on the boat sailing past the rock of Gibraltar.

We arrived in Ceuta (pronounced say-oota), which is a tiny bit of Spain on the African continent. We drove around the small town a couple of times and saw a French campervan ahead of us so we just followed them, reasoning that they must know where they were going. Actually they soon appeared as lost as us but eventually we all ended up on the right road to Morocco.

The border comes up pretty quickly and there were a lot of vehicles and people and confusion. We were waved to the side of the road by men with white forms and asked to fill out an emigration form and told they would help us.
“You need green card insurance for the vehicle. Do you have this?” I had no idea.
“I don’t know. The insurance papers are all in the back” I responded.
“No matter, we fill out the paper and put a little something in for the chief, inside the passport to make it all OK. You must give something for my work. Tem for me and ten for him.” There were now two of them helping us.
Pam handed over some change and 10 euros.
“Thirty for the chief to make insurance OK”
Pam handed a fifty and requested the change.
“Change coming. Put paper in passport and go to window four. He know you come and make everything OK”
No change came. We drove on and found ourselves at passport control. A middle-aged man in traditional Muslim garb with an official badge spoke to us in excellent English.
“Welcome to Morocco. You will like it here.” We didn’t like it so far.
Pam had now realised that we’d been done like a dinner. “They took my money. I want it back. I’m going back to find them and get it back”.
“Madam, listen to me. Some tourists come and lose 1,000 euros and their passports. Do you still have your passports”. We did.
“I will help you fill out the forms correctly and show you where to go.” Pam had already left the car and was storming back through the border to Spain to find her thieves.
“You should go and bring her back. It is dangerous there. I will look after the car for you”.
I took the camera bag and our passports and money, locked the car and left in pursuit of Pam. She’d moved pretty swiftly through the traffic and police. She is a very determined person and when on a mission is pretty much unstoppable. She was angry and out for revenge.
I was stopped by the border guards for passport inspection and they wanted to check my camera bag contents. Pam’s passport was in my bag so I was unsure how she would get through. Back on the other side where the thieves had nabbed us I could see Pams head between two passing cars. She was on the other side of the road directing the traffic. There was of course no sign of the guys who had conned us, but Pam was there anyway directing all their future business away from them.

The locals were slightly dazed at such a blatant act of defiance from the tourists. I’d suspect no such thing had ever happened to them before. We stayed at the edge of the main thoroughfare for at least and hour and a half and directed ALL their potential traffic away from them. One car stopped 50 metres ahead of me. It had a Belgian plate so I headed up there to stop the transaction.

“Don’t pay them anything” I yelled after tapping on the window. “They are thieves and will steal your money. Passport control is ahead. This is not official. They are all thieves”.
I was delighted with my work. The driver wound up the window and sped away.
Some of the local money changers gave us some money to try and get rid of us. We got back a third of what was taken. We probably cost them much much more in lost trade. The sense of revenge was surprisingly satisfying. We were really enjoying ourselves. One of the younger guys totally gave up. He just stood at the roadside looking at me. I gave him my ‘I’m very unhappy with you’ glare. I am rather good at those.

One older man approached Pam.
“I see what you do Deutsch (our car has German number plates). You do good thing.” He’d obviously been watching the events unfolding before him.
Pam went to tell one of moneychangers on the street that we were leaving to go through the border to Morocco.
“See you again tomorrow” she announced. His look of utter amazement will live on in us for ever.

We headed back to the car only to see the official standing by the door, guarding it. We continued the paper trail with his help.
“I thought you would only be 10 minutes”. I sensed he was regretting the decision to look after the car. After an inordinately long process of stamping passports, filling in forms, finding insurance certificates and witnessing some fairly incompetent computer data entry we were ready to enter Morocco. Naturally we showed our appreciation to the official (who had even given us details of where to locate a campsite) and we were on our way – at last. Unfortunately we had no road map and no sat nav device since ours covers Europe only.

We followed his directions but were unable to find the campsite. We stopped to ask directions probably three times and also stopped at a petrol station. The attendant found some kids to help and they ran in front of our card and directed us to what looked like a small plot on the side of the road. We didn’t fancy sleeping rough in such a strange country so we drove on and stopped at a shop further along the road to ask more directions. They directed us back to the same place the boys had shown us but when we eventually gave up and decided to camp on the side of the road. What we discovered though was that the place the boys were trying to show us was really a poorly lit dirt road. We followed it up a couple of hundred yards and found the campsite, which was closed. I got out of the card and rattled the heavy metal doors. I heard some laughing behind me and saw a group of men sitting chatting. I approached them and asked about the campsite. Not that they spoke English but one motioned us to follow. We went another hundred yards and to our utter amazement found the cam was open and happy to accept us as guests.

We had started our day in dusty cramped campsite in Tarifa, Spain and ended it safely, probably more by good luck than good management, at a casmpsite in Morocco.