A little less Conversation...

Money is a big issue when planning to do something like this, it costs an awful lot to spend your days doing nothing!

The redundancy option would make all the difference. Without it, we would feel less comfortable about not having jobs and, somewhere to live, in our mid fifites! 

Even with the extra money, that feeling of not knowing how things will turn out, is enough to make the strongest will and desire, waver.

Getting everything to fall in to place at the right time, is more by luck than design. Hoping the house would sell when we wanted it to, and also keeping fingers crossed that the voluntary redundancy option, would still be available when we needed it. We also hoped that the terms of the package on offer wouldn't change, as the latest rumour doing the rounds suggested might be the case.

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Frustratingly, it took 12 months to sell the house but, the good thing about that was that we hadn't changed our minds. If anything we were now convinced that it was the right thing to do....for us.

With the house sold, my request for redundancy went in at work. It wasn't as simple as just asking. Certain criteria had to be met before your request was granted. Fortunately, the crossed fingers paid of, and I got my letter stating that I had been accepted. 

It also made it clear that there was to be no, changing of the mind, on my part. There was my finish date, in black and white. There was no going back now!

We had a couple of months to get everything in order. We decided to sell most of the furniture in the house, as it didn't make sense to have goods in storage, which had to be paid for, only to find that it was horribly out of fashion or not working anymore, or just not to our taste anymore, when we didn't know how long this little adventure was going to last.

It got emotional here and there, for both of us. It's natural, you start to realise the magnitude of your decision, which was now taking on a life of it's own. We had no choice now though, than to keep moving in the direction that we had both chosen. We had no jobs, and no where to live. We had to keep looking forwards. It was time to get that motor-home!

Meknes

The drive from Kinetra to Meknes was incredible. Once on the A2, the traffic all but disappeared leaving us to have a very relaxed journey and take in some wonderful sights along the way.

Stunning scenery en route to Meknes

The site at Meknes is described in the book as, 'hard to find' so, why we spent 2 hours in the Marjane, on the outskirts of town, remains a mystery. At the same time, we had to wait for the Maroc Telecom office to open so that we could pick up a local sim card for use in the Mobile wifi unit. 

It was worth the wait, and has been a godsend ever since, when we might otherwise have had no access to the internet. Once installed, which was straight forward enough, 'Top ups' could be bought in even the smallest village. We were paying 100 dirham 

Mifi. magic in a box

for 12 gig of data, which lasted for a month. In reality, we could get through that amount of data in a week, if we didn't ration ourselves.

We bought the unit off Ebay before we left home and, if you do the same, make sure that it's not locked to any one provider. This freedom will allow you to use a local sim card and you will get the best rates for your data.

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We drove around Meknes for over an hour, trying to find, what actually isn't a site, more a parking area, where payments are made to a 'Guardian' for an overnight stop.

Meknes. Lovely old town

The directions included, turning right through an archway, in the old town wall. Well, we turned through that many archways, and still couldn't find anything that resembled a parking area. Nor did we see another motorhome, anywhere, which would normally indicate that you were on the right track.

There was now about an hour of daylight left and, the general consensus is not to drive after dark because, 'Donkeys don't have lights on them!'

Yet again, we had to concede defeat and pulled over to enter the co-ordinates for the nearest site in the book, which turned out to be, Camping Zerhoune.

Kinetra

By the time we arrived at Kinetra, the traffic was ridiculous. Or maybe it was always this busy? The trusty sat-nav directed us right through the crazy busy, old part of town, before declaring 'you have reached your destination'. 
Really? I don't think there is a camping place on this street and, judging by some of the looks we were getting, the locals didn't think so either.

'You have reached your destination'

A couple of adjustments and a lucky guess later, we found the site on the main road and, with no small amount of relief, checked in. The site at Kinetra is pretty basic, just a big car park for the most part with less than desirable facilities, so I was surprised to find several motorhomes that were clearly setting their stall out for a long stay. 

We spoke to two dutch guys who told us they were staying until the end of March. I didn't see the appeal myself although we stayed a couple of nights in an effort to ease our selves in to Morocco.

The following morning we set off for a walk in to town and were soon amongst the hustle and bustle of daily life. Almost every square foot of street frontage had a small shop selling everything from live chickens, to part worn spare tyres.

Unfortunately, I hadn't taken my camera as at this stage of our Moroccan trip, I was still convinced that if I took a picture of someone, I would be robbed, then kidnapped, never to be seen again. The images above are taken from the dash cam, filmed in the safety of a very locked van!

We made it as far as the newer, more modern, part of town and the contrast was startling. It was just like any busy high street, anywhere in the world. What a contrast. Talk about two worlds colliding. I wondered what the future held for the small, old fashioned street dealers in this very progressive city.

The next morning, we paid for our stay and headed for a site at Meknes.

In Morocco

One uneventful ferry crossing later and we were in exotic Morrocco! We changed a few hundred euros at the port, and set off in to an anticipated nightmare of traffic. Morocco annually records 100, 000 injuries and 4,000 deaths, from road traffic accidents. This was going to be fun!

Through the Port gates, our first sight of Tangier

Now proud owners of a Tom-tom sat nav, we entered the co-ordinates for our first stop. See how we're getting better? I'd learned my lesson from Portugal and pre-purchased the Morocco map, which was safely installed. Actually, we haven't got that much better have we? We haven't even got a road map for the place!

The first leg involved a two hour plus drive to a site, listed in the recently purchased, Camping Morocco, again from Vicarious books. I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed when I received it. Obviously, a lot of work has gone in to putting the guide together but, it hasn't been updated since 2009 which

means that a lot of the information, and prices, are woefully out of date. They still charge £9.99 for the book. At the rate that Morocco is moving in to the 21st century, the book will be a work of fiction in another 10 years.

Almost predictably then, when we arrived at our destination at Mehdia Plage, just south of Kinetra, we found that it had closed down. Great start. Two terrified Brits in Morocco with 2 hours before dark, and our first stop no longer exists.

Calm heads make better decisions so, once we had stopped panicking, we referred back to the book. As luck would have it, the next nearest site was only an hour away. Let's get going and hope that it still exists! I wasn't happy but, there was no choice, we had to go to Kinetra.
 

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