Day 22 Caudate de M’semrir
We knew that today was a long slow drive up the mountains so we were servicing the van at around 10am. With grey and black tanks empty we paid for our 2 nights which was a reasonable 220MAD.
We headed east following the Sat Nav which gave a choice of routes one of which we didn’t use last year. This was the recommended route. However, we didn’t realise until much later in the day that it missed and towns with shops. I needed to fill up with fuel but I wanted to find a station that accepted credit cards. The first part of the route was all cash only.
Later in the trip we got to the town at the foot of the mountains but still saw no petrol station. I decided to press on not realising how low we were on diesel. I had travelled about an hour up the mountain road before the fuel low warning light came on. We still hadn’t seen anywhere we could fill up. Soon we were stopping and asking if there was a petrol station ahead us….. NO came back the answer. You need to go back down to the main town and there is somewhere there.
Talk about worried if we would run out of fuel but we spent the next hour retracing our steps and after some searching we found a shell station. I was prepared to use the cash I had but lo and behold they took a credit card. As we made our way back to the route we stopped in town and Tina went in search of the few essential items of shopping we needed. She was able to find everything except the corn flakes.
We now travelled the remains 90 minutes to find Moha’s home. The journey took us up zig zag roads and through the gorges du Dades. What magnificent scenery we enjoyed. When we arrived we were welcomed enthusiastically. They were working on a spot we could use to park the van and he had worked out how he would supply us with electricity from his home using our 25m cable.
We were surrounded by all the local kids asking for sweets, pencils or money. They took sometime to get used to Tucker as he just wanted to introduce himself. The local ladies kept backing away whenever Tucker came near.
We were treated to a belated lunch of eggs with home made bread and coffee. Later Rkia cooked my favourite parsnip soup and Skewers of meat cooked over charcoal. I so remember the soup from last year and so did she … I had several bowls.
With the added bedding and the van’s electric heating we shouldn’t freeze tonight …