Last night after a failed attempt at wild camping, we woke up in front of a small town’s police station and got a early-ish start on our day.
Our next stop would be Tafraoute, Morocco. We talked to a Dutch couple here who told us about their trip here 30 years ago when only a small 4×4 dirt road existed. Now there are 300 vans here during the peak of winter. Most of them French retirees. The government allows the villagers to operate here and charge campers 1.5 euros per night with no services but a 10 meter well with water only good enough for washing. But because of all the campers here, vendors that come by each day to sell bread, argan oil, honey, laundry services and even home cooked meals don’t need to be pushy like we’ve experience in other places. Everyone wins.
We parked next to a little cluster of palm trees that would provide some extra shade and the perfect place to hang our hammocks.
It’s quiet warm during the middle of day, some refreshing fruit salad was in order.
And supposedly a magic show as well. Haha. Thanks, Luka.
Having access to water, even if it’s not potable, is a treat when you are wild camping (boondocking). We used it for washing dishes, doing laundry and showering.
This is our set-up when it’s not too windy outside.
Our Roadshower is full of drinking water and we don’t want to waste that for washing while camping in spots like this, so a collapsible bucket full of non-potable well water it is. One of the ways we shower on the road.
This camp spot was good for our kids. Plenty of room between campers and rocks to scramble onto. At times, it reminded us of Joshua Tree National Park.
Can you spot the kids here?
Hope you found them 🙂
Our nightly receipt for our stay here. 15 dirhams. About 1.5 euros while we were there in March of 2020.
49680937972
The bread lady stops by every day with her goods. We can’t say no.
This is one of the local cats.
He can’t say no either.
Mila relaxing with the cat in the palm trees. Hehe.
And then in our camping chair.
And then he eventually decided that taking naps inside away from other people and animals was a better idea. We don’t mind.
Mila has allergies to cats but that doesn’t stop her. Snuggles are worth itchy eyes and a runny nose.
Luka has been under the weather here in Tafaroute with a stomach bug and fever. Actually he’s been fighting something off and on while we’ve been in Morocco. It started back at the Cedar Forest when we stopped to see the monkeys and came back again. Ava felt under the weather for bit too. Dan and I felt strangely tired during our stay at this spot as well. We attributed it to the heat but thinking back, could it have been the coronavirus? We have no idea. It was here that news of the virus was getting more real and we started to social distance ourselves from others.
Lots of movies in the bunk for out little guy as he recovered.
All three kids sleep on the upstairs bunk, north to south. Thinking long term, when they outgrow the space, , we’ve thought about creating an extra bed over the factory bench seat for one of the kids.
Who will volunteer to sleep on their very own bed in the future? Not sure. They all think it’s a horrible idea because sleeping without someone on your side sounds unimaginable at the moment.
Thought there was a stray puppy visiting us. Ends up being a loose dog from one of our French neighbors but a previous stray from another Moroccan village.
What do you do when it starts raining down in Africa? Blast some Toto, of course!
And embarrass your teenage daughter. Haha. “Too loud, daddy!!!”
Don’t worry. Dan made it up to her by baking some brownies.
Baking in a van with no oven?!?! Yes. Dan made it work by turning them in brownie pancakes. Genius!
I got distracted by the puppy and forgot to take a proper photo of the final result.
Look at this face!
The youngest one is is still in bed with a stomach bug while our chef is rolling out pizza dough with a multi-use rolling pin.
Girls always creating art.
Watercolors today.
Look who felt well enough to go outside today?!?!
Watch out for sneaky puppies, Luka.
Because we don’t have enough dust in our van from this camp spot, the puppies thought they could create more dust clouds for us. Lol.
And while I’m washing clothes too. Muddy paws. Yeah.
Bug screen has been deployed. But instead of it just keeping bugs out, we are hoping it will also keeps out the dust, stray cats, the neighbor’s loose puppy and that one kid who keeps insisting on climbing inside and freaking us all out.
All the friends needed a wash today as well.
Plenty of sunshine here to dry them on the line.
I’m going to stop this blog post here but our time here is not done. In the next post, I will share a story of an abandoned box of day old puppies and how we ended up them in our van.
Until then, please enjoy Dan’s video from our stay here:
Thanks for reading,
Marlene
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