The final part of our Morocco trip in 2024 was along the valleys southeast of the Middle Atlas and the Mediterranean coast of Morocco, more or less the same route we took in 1987 with our four-year-old daughter. As on our first trip, there are still almost no tourists in this part of Morocco. But the locals here are incredibly friendly and lovely.
Thanks to several sandstorms (see article about the Anti-Atlas), we had already enjoyed far too much sand and, unlike in 1987, we skipped the beautiful oasis of Tafilalet, where the Sahara looks like a picture book. In 1987 we climbed an almost 200 meter high sand dune there and rolled rapidly down the steep slope - an unforgettable experience, but we had sand everywhere, even in our ears.
Once again we were caught in a terrible sandstorm near the small town of Outat El Haj. The visibility became so poor that we could no longer see the line of the road and almost drove into the windblown sand. Luckily, after half an hour we found a gas station where we could park and spend the night. It was difficult for us to leave the car in the sandstorm, but in the evening it subsided and the locals invited us to a delicious dinner in the gas station restaurant - free, but of course after sunset, because it was still Ramadan.
We have many beautiful, but also somewhat strange memories of the district town of Outat El Haj from our first visit there in 1987 - a side story about great and interesting people:
We planned to climb Jbel Bou Naceur mountain, which is the highest peak in the Middle Atlas at 3356 meters above sea level. So we drove on a bumpy road from Outat El Haj to the tiny village of Tirnest, which lies at the southeastern foot of Jbel Bou Naceur. Visibility was excellent that day, so people in Tirnest saw us very early due to the dust our car created. When we arrived in Tirnest, almost all the residents were waiting at the village entrance and greeted us enthusiastically.
A middle-aged man, who spoke English very well, welcomed and introduced us to the people of Tirnest. He was a salesman from Fes and was currently vacationing in his home village of Tirnest, where his family lived. He invited us to dinner, to sleep in front of his house, to breakfast, etc. and showed us how people lived in Tirnest. Of course we had a lot of questions and got a deep insight into how people survive in rural Morocco near the Sahara. It turned out that no foreigners had visited Tirnest for many years.
The next day Alfred hiked alone to the summit of Jbel Bou Naceur, a very strenuous tour in an extremely lonely and untouched environment. Marion was looking after our four-year-old daughter Eva and she wanted to climb the Jbel Bou Naceur mountain the following day, but the people of Tirnest forbade it, saying it was a shame for a woman to go into the mountains alone. Instead, they offered her to go to the fields with the other women in the village, which Marion refused.
As we drove back to Outat El Haj, the salesman from Fez insisted that a man from his family accompany us. He took us to the district headquarters in Outat El Haj, which was an experience straight out of a fairy tale. The district chief executive was a huge man, tall and broad, sitting on a huge desk in a very large office. He pointed to a small visitor's table and we sat down there. There were many telephones on his large desk that were ringing more or less constantly. Sometimes the chief would take one and shout a few words very loudly into the phone, but most of them he would rap violently to silence them - a fascinating but frightening spectacle for us.
After about half an hour the chief called his assistant and came to our table. Immediately, all the phones on his desk stopped ringing. His assistant brought us real coffee and chocolate for Eva - both of which were very rare in Morocco in 1987. The chief's English was excellent and he even spoke some German. He had completed military training in Bad Tölz, a few kilometers south of Munich, which he had enjoyed a lot. We had a nice and fruitful conversation with him and learned a lot about Morocco. He was very kind, interested and open-minded. He asked us many questions about our itinerary in Morocco, Germany and Europe. However, we were somehow relieved when we were able to leave after an hour.
On April 1, 2024, we stayed at the decent Benyakoub campsite near the small town of Lamrija, probably the only campsite on the eastern side of the Middle Atlas and Rif Mountains - a distance of more than 400 kilometers. Of course we didn't meet any other foreign tourists there.
Two days later we arrived on the beautiful Mediterranean coast of Morocco. Due to the refugee crisis, there was a lot of military deployment almost everywhere. We couldn't stay in pristine and lonely places on the beaches like on the Moroccan Atlantic coast because the soldiers don't let campers stay there over night for security reasons. But we were allowed to camp in larger places like the great city of Al Hoceima where Spanish history is still alive.
We continued slowly along the beautiful but winding Rocade Méditerranéenne road to the larger town of Tétouan, which is close to the Strait of Gibraltar. We stopped in Torres de-Alcala, Amtar and Oued Laou where we were able to stay overnight near the beaches. In Torres de-Alcala we met the first foreign tourists in more than a week.
Stunning Tètouan is a fascinating city. It is located just 10 kilometers from the coast and is very mountainous thanks to the Rif Mountains. The lively Medina has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997. We were there on a Saturday afternoon and it was very busy with locals - almost no tourists.
On April 9, 2024, we took the ferry from Tangier to Tarifa, Spain and said a sad goodbye to Morocco and Africa.
Most of our overnight staying places are in included in our GPS coordinates file of Morocco.
For more pictures, please click here
For a map of our itineraries, click here
To download our GPS file of Morocco, click here