N’kob
It didn’t take long for the bugs to germinate in our bodies. This morning, I’m not feeling too well, so we stop off by the side of the road for me to have a rest and for Frank to have breakfast.
Down the valley from us is a row of unusual looking trees, almost willow-like in their shape. Surely, willows can’t survive in this arid climate? After breakfast, Frank takes his camera and goes out for a recce, while I lounge in Emma with the sun streaming through the open door onto our bed.
However, even an hour’s rest is not helping much, so we decide to turn into a campsite for the day. The next little town is called N’kob and park4night tells us there is a camp site called Ouadjou, so by 10am we turn into their compound. There is an area for campervans, a garden with some berber tents, a swimming pool, some rooms to rent and a restaurant. Right next to where we are parked, a rickety ladder is leaning against the wall, on the other side of which a plume of smoke mingles with delicious smells of fresh bread. Frank, being Frank, climbs up and starts chatting with the women gathered around their clay oven, the other side of the wall and gets invited round by the family and even manages to buy a loaf of bread from them – the best one we have tasted since coming to Morocco.
The camp site manager is a bit non-plussed when Frank walks past him with a loaf of fresh bread within 10 minutes of our arrival! I, however, am struck down and Frank follows me 24 hours later. We spend the next five days coughing, snotting and sweating it all out in a good, hot fever. It’s quite something when your body is not at all familiar with a particular strand of cold virus! Luckily, we are able order delicious Tajines from the camp site’s restaurant which they deliver to our van, so we don’t starve. We also have enough wood in our store not to feel cold at night, when temperatures outside drop to zero. One day a mighty wind picks up and blows dust everywhere. It is so hard that it wheezes through the closed windows and doors of our Emma and we find desert dust settled on our clothes and furniture for days after. I lie in our comfortable bed, with the lovely wood-burner to keep me warm and my thoughts turn to Youssef’s family in their house without windows or doors and no heating of any kind, just a shell of a house where the wind can blow straight through! Wow, people here are hardy!
Camping Ouadjou has been a great stop, it’s lovely and quiet here and provided us with everything we needed to rest and recover from our illness.
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