2025 Morocco

Late start this morning as we only plan to drive one hour to a campsite we have used many times. After servicing the van we left just before 11am driving south.

Filled with fuel in Ouarzazate and arrived just after noon. Paid for one night and the use of the washing machine together with two Chicken Tagines in the restaurant this evening.

Once the washing machine had finished we hung out the items on the line I set up. It soon dried in the sun after a couple of hours. The rest of the afternoon was just relaxing in the warmth of the day and drifting in our thoughts.

The meal we purchased was very tasty and made quite a change for us. One of the staff shared a 12s video of Tucker when we were here just under 2 years ago.

We parted company with our travelling friends Lee & Michelle so we could continue onwards to visit Moha and family. Lee was planning to drive into the city and park around the mosque so they could then choose when to walk into the square and for how long.

So around 10:40am we went and paid our site fees and got on the road. It was slow driving up and down the Mountain passes which had been improved but continued to be steep.

We drove the 3+ hour journey with no stops but Tucker really doesn’t enjoy the travelling. He does put up with it if he can share the seat with Tina.

Today’s site was a new one for us and could be a favourite. We got talking to another English couple who had travelled here in their tag axle 8m caravan. Not sure I would want to bring a caravan to Morocco!!

Staying for one night so moving on tomorrow moving east.

We spent the morning doing very little until a touring truck came onto the site. The truck sleeps 20 people and does a tour of southern Morocco over 14 days. It has seating for everyone and a place to sleep. The truck has a kitchen at the rear.

This was a business operated by a German company.

Later in the afternoon we visited the on site coffee shop and had a final coffee with our friends before we seperate and go our different ways in the morning. Around 4pm yet another touring truck arrived full of brits and Aussies. The company operate tours of Africa with some doing a 47 week holiday visiting 34 countries ending in September 2026. After researching it seems that it costs £10,495 per person and they are expected to share a tent.

We got ourselves ready to travel around mid morning….. first stop was the Hypermarket, Marjane, we used just before we arrived here. More supplies including, bottled water, UHT milk, Bottles of coke and some meals which included some steaks.

Left the shop at noon and got caught in some heavy traffic jams. It must have taken 30-40 minutes to clear away from these. Now it was the boring and straight 160 mile toll road to our campsite. We arrived soon after 3pm. Sited, hooked up and kettle on the go.

Our friends have plans to catch the on site bus at 10am to take them into the city. We will be giving this a pass as we have done it before and not now able to do the walking required. We will instead stay back and chill. It has been around 25°C and been lovely and warm. Exactly why we have escaped the British winter.

Another relaxing day but it included watching some sport.

We needed to empty the grey tank as it was full so I drove the van round to the service bay very slowly and took the opportunity to fill the fresh water tank.

In the afternoon I watched the early football match followed by Man City v AFCB. We lost the match 3-1 but it wasn’t surprising. Since then I have been catching up with Youtube videos I haven’t seen.

Moving on tomorrow to Marrakesh.

Another relaxing day. Late breakfast followed by sitting and talking with our friends. I also did a few bits and pieces to the website. Around noon all four of us wandered up to the cafe just outside the campsite and ordered coffee. The waves were almost surfing quality.

The afternoon brought more chatting. I would normally stream a 3pm football match but not today. Intend to watch the remaining 2 matches today. We will stay tomorrow so that I can catch the Man City v AFC Bournemoth match late in the afternoon.

Relaxing in the warmth of the moroccan air….that was our day today. Nothing special happened. We sat and chatted to our travelling companions, Lee & Michelle, and drank copious amounts of tea. Wonderful !!

I did turn the van around so that the StarLink had a better view of the sky and no obstructions. It is now working so much better.

We have decided to stay a little longer because it is one of Tina’s favourite sites where she feels comfortable with the surroundings. We aim to drive to Marrakesh on Monday.

We decided to move on today and drive the 150 miles to an old favourite site of ours….Camping l’Océan Bleu. It is particularly well liked by Tina and we must have been here around 10 times over the years.

We first set the navigation for a Marjane Hypermarket in Mohammedia where we needed further supplies. Tina now tries to buy ready meals so we purchased a Chicken Tagine and a small whole chicken with rice and chips.

We are now set up in our allocated bay under the trees that provide shade especially in the summer however it’s not so good as it blocks the signal for the Starlink. The speed is well done and really not supporting streaming very well. Tina want to stay until Monday but unless I can get better internet speed in readiness for the match on Sunday afternoon I will be looking to move on Saturday.
 

I woke early this morning because at 6:10am there was the wailing to summon the locals to pray. Luckily got back to sleep.

This morning we were having problems with our water pump and then I realised we were almost out of water so a few trips later with the 10 litre container and our problem wained but it needed a few more trips before we could be confident that the problem was sorted. I will fill completely when we arrive at our next destination.

Later in the morning we took a stroll up to the cafe we had visited 2 years ago. We introduced Lee and Michelle, our new traveling companions, to Mohamed the guardian. Like before we sat and ordered coffee and included Mohamed. It was lovely to catch up with him. Nothing had changed.

On the walk back it started to shower and continued off and on throughout the afternoon. For the first time I went through the back gate onto the promenade. High winds were causing some large waves crashing onto the shore. It was still warm.

Woke this morning knowing we had all morning before we had to make our way down to the port to catch our ferry. However, we were on tender hooks waiting for the document allowing Tucker to travel which we expected before 10am. At that point I chased the Vet to then hear that the government dept had rejected our application. What are we going to do now. The Vet said he was in conversation about issuing us the document so we decided to go and do some shopping at Mercadona for the last few things.

We got back to the van around noon and found the Vet had been successful. What a relief. We now packed the Van ready for travel to the port. Our sailing was 2:30pm. Shortly before we were called forward and got our boarding passes. We had been issued with tickets for the Transmediterranea ferry which was quite an old ship. We were asked to drive up a very steep incline to get loaded on the upper parking deck.

After getting our CID number sorted (ID number) in our passports we sat and chatted to some other brits. One guy from Northern Ireland was on a tour on his own on his 1200cc motorbike. The other couple, Lee & Michelle, decided to follow us to Assilah as this was their first time visiting Morocco.

Next came the ordeal of getting through the Police and customs checks however this time it went really smoothly and we were through in about 30mins. It had taken us up to 3 hours on previous visits.

We arrived at the campsite in Assilah just as it were getting dark. Now to relax and see if Starlink will work in Morocco. No trouble !!!