That was a very peaceful night in the end. Didn’t get far up the road this morning before we stopped to watch some surfers – very entertaining. We even put the kettle on and got the chairs out, it’s such a good spectator sport.
Moving on, we braved a visit into the little town of Tamri to get fruit and vegetables and fresh bread. Same routine as the market with the washing up bowl to fill – they might have been about 15p more than the market as the man had overheads to pay. We’ve worked out that the bread in the little wooden cabinets is generally still warm and has 97% less flies on it – also, if you buy two, you eat two at the same meal! 😋🤣
A little further up, we pulled in at the beautiful Timlalin dunes on a mission to see the rare Northern Bald Ibis.
We actually saw some from the road before we parked but I had no idea how weird looking they were until I saw the photos!
Not sure how these birds co-exist with all the quad bikes, dune buggies, sand boarders and camel riders but somehow they do. There was a section of the dune that was kind of patrolled and we were told not to enter as it is the nesting site ..didn’t seem to stop the quad bikes though.
In the end we found another group of birds high up on the other side of the road by which time, I felt like we’d crossed the Sahara!
This incredible bird is a migratory old world Ibis and it disappeared from Europe 300 years ago. There are now only three colonies left in Morocco. Sadly the use of pesticides has reduced the breeding pairs to around 113 – feels like a real privilege to see them, even if they do look like gothic turkeys.
From about 4pm, we drove north in the direction of Essouara but there were very few places to park for the night. Poor reviews everywhere.
The highlight late afternoon was seeing some goats up in an Argan tree. We had previously thought this was a gimmick, as we’d been told that the goatherds tie them in there so they can charge you for photos, but these were just climbing in and up of their own accord.
In the blink of an eye the goatherd appeared and wanted to hold our hands and guide us to the best viewing spot! Gave him a tip so that we could get away.
Now up on a hill near some wind turbines – I’ve told my brain that it’s the sound of the sea.
