Archive for ‘Roaming’

Posts about our travels…

MS5, MS6 and MS7

We have spent the last few days offroading.  We did a route called MS6 from Merzouga to Tagounite, and then did MS7 from Mhamid to Foum Zguid.  Then we did MS5 to Zagora.

It was a very bumpy road and we are all dusty!

On the first day there was a big scary dip.  When there is rain, it would be a river but now it is dry.  Me, Mummy and Genevieve walked it and Daddy drove.

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Then we did more driving.  There was another little climb and when we came down the air spring on the car popped.  Luckily Daddy had the part to fix it.  He fixed it in under two hours.  A guy from the local village came to “help”.

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Not long after that we drove in some sand dunes and the car got stuck.  Mummy and Daddy had to get out and dig and clear the tyres.  But that didn’t work.  So we put sand mats under the back tyres.  That didn’t work either.  Then they put the sand mats under the front tyres and they did more digging under the car.  Finally we were free!

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After this it was just bumpy.  We camped in the desert and we played football in the world’s biggest football stadium!  It was fun.

We went through some military checkpoints, they wanted to see all our papers.

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I have learnt all about sand. We went through sand called fesh fesh.  This is very powdery dirt, like talcum powder.  It is all through our car.  I also learnt that desert sand is easier to get stuck in than beach sand.  This is because desert sand has round particles and you sink in.  Beach sand has jagged particles that stick together and you don’t sink.

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We also went past a mesa which is a table top mountain.

There were lots of different landscapes.

On the last night two wild donkeys came up to our tent.  Daddy gave them some water.

Now we are in Zagora at a campsite to all have showers. There were some scary bits but it was fun. The best bit is camping in the desert under the stars and seeing the sunrise/sunset.

 

 

 

 

 

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Wild Camp and Fossils

We had our first wild camp in Morocco. We drove along a gravel road and saw some camels! There was a Berber camp where we wanted to camp so we drove back a bit. We were also followed by a man on crutches.  Daddy gave him some water.  At night there were lots of stars! It was beautiful.

The next day we went to a fossil museum.  It had lots of fossils that looked like snails and some dinosaur bones. There were some sparkly crystals too.  We bought a fossilised ammonite shell.

Then we stayed the night at a campsite at Merzouga. It was right on the sand dunes of Erg Chebbi.  We played in the dunes, it was very tiring running up the dune and rolling back down.  It was fun!

For dinner we went to the campsite restaurant and had a tagine. It was a lamb tagine with vegetables like carrot, potato, courgette and aubergine. There was a salad and olives and a flatbread. Then there were fresh oranges for pudding.  They had lots of pips, but were delicious.

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Monkeys in Cedar Forest

Today we did some offroad driving and got stuck in some mud!  But Daddy locked the diffs and got us out.  It was a bit scary. There is now mud all over the Taniwha.

Then we drove to Cedar Forest to see if we could find some Barbary macaques, (monkeys). There were lots of men in the carpark who were offering peanuts to feed the monkeys and horse rides and photos with their horses.  We said no thank you.  It is bad to feed the monkeys because then they don’t know how to feed themselves and they get fat.

We found some monkeys and watched them. The other tourists were very noisy, so we went for a walk in the forest. It was a bit cold but beautiful.  We turned round when we were followed by a wild dog.

Then we did some more driving and found more monkeys on their own.  I liked watching the monkeys jump from tree to tree.

We also saw lots of stork nests.  In Lithuania we saw empty nests, but here the nests have storks in them!!  The storks are very noisy banging their beaks together.

Our campground has lots of good trees to climb!

 

 

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Volubilis

Today was Daddy’s birthday! I sewed him a ninja cushion.

We drove to a place called Volubilis. It is a Roman ruin from 2000 years ago. Only some of it has been excavated. We had a guide to show us round.  I would like to be an archeologist and dig up ruins. It was very interesting.

There were lots of mosaics of Roman gods.

The rich people had two entrances to their houses, a big door for themselves and a small door for the slaves. You could even see the grooves in the stone where they had sliding doors.  They also had their own swimming pools.  All you can see is the stone, because the wooden doors and roofs have disintegrated.

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We also saw the Roman Forum which they used as a market, and meeting place. And there was a temple and we saw the altar where they sacrificed animals. There were lots of different type of carved columns.

There were lots of olive trees and we could see green, red and black olives. There was also an olive press, so people a long time ago made olive oil. They collected the olives and put it in a mill to get rid of the stones. Then they put the olives in bags and put it in a press.  All the olive oil was squeezed out and ran into channels in the floor into jars.

In the distance you could see the holy town of Moulay Idriss.  The guide told us that it looks like a camel, but I think it looks like a seahorse on its side.

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Going to Morocco!

We spent the night near Algericas and had a play on the beach.  There were some kite surfers that went far out to sea.

We saw bats hunting for insects and we saw Venus bright in the sky. The next morning some cows walked past with cow bells.

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Then we drove to the port. It was a bit confusing, there were lots of of people yelling to sell us tickets.  We got a ticket then lined up for the boat.  Our boat was called the FRS Kattegat. I had a pizza on the boat, but it was disgusting because it had blue cheese on it! As the boat went out of port we could see the Rock of Gibralter, but the top was in cloud.

The boat trip took about an hour. There was some big arabic writing on the hill. We had to drive through customs, but they stamped our passport on the boat.

We drove to a campsite in Assilah. We saw camels and donkeys on the way. We walked down on the beach which was ok, but there was lots of rubbish, like plastic bags and plastic bottle lids.

 

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