13 July

EXCURSION TO THE OASIS & THE OFF-ROAD EXPERIENCE

After breakfast we took off 50km inland nearby Guelmim to visit an oasis there. We were accompanied by Abdellah, the brother of the owners of the hotel, and his daughter Laura. 

Once arrived there, we visited the little settlement there, houses, vegetable gardens and even a little shop. A few locals ware still living there but most of them have left for more comfort to the nearby towns.

Abdellah arranged for us to have lunch at one of the typical Khasbas. We were warmly greeted and happy to find some shade with temperatures soaring up to 40 degrees! The place was actually a local bed & breakfast. We sat inside and had our lunch there before heading off to the nomad museum a bit further on in the oasis.

Nomadic kitchen utensils

Our guide Abdou & I

The same man gave us a guided tour and decided to transform me into a typical Bedouin. He did the same with Laura and then Olivier. He asked Kimo and Keone if they agreed to trade me for 2 Camels. Kimo agreed but not Keone! 

Laura & I

We had to cut the visit short as we were running out of time. It was already 15h30 and we had planned to drive to the coast and back up to Sidi Ifni via offroad tracks. 

Ollie & I

It was scorching hot in the Defender and the wind was like a blowdryer! We drove for km’s through barren landscapes before reaching the endless stretching beach “Plage Blanche”. In the meantime temperature had dropped to 22 degrees! We were even cold now..

There were local people camping there with self-made tents. The beach was unreachable by river  mounding there and so we decided to look for the track to take us back up North. At that point we didn’t know that we miscalculated our point of reference, thinking the track to be 25km in distance. It was around 17h and we set off over the cliffs following the track indicated to us by one of the locals there. He told us to keep left whenever reaching a fork.

The route was quite impressive with the high cliffs and the lower beaches stretching for kilometers without a person on it. Once in a while we had to cross a riverbed taking us down to the water-level only to climb up again over rocky terrain to the cliffs.

We were lucky to have Abdellah with us as we had several incidences where weren’t quite sure what direction to take! On the map only one track is indicated but driving out there you find out there are many more!!  The trip started to seem endless and some of us were starting to wonder if we would find the asphalt road before sunset. 

Well, it turned out to be 80km of track when we finally saw the road in the distance just at dusk.  Some sighs of relief could be heard over  the walkie talkie and we arrived at Sidi Ifni at 21h30…

It was quite a day with lots of new impressions to take in. I would like to give my special Thanks on behalf of all of us to Abdellah and Laura, for without them we would not have experienced the local lunch at the inn and we could have ended up taking some wrong turns here and there!

Shukran Abdellah and Laura!