103km Plaine de Gareb – Guercif

A local wellShopping in SakaChicken tonight, anyone? ItThis journey took us two days, through a rural area of Morocco where we enjoyed being away from the usual tourist route. Here there is no hassle from local shop owners or kids asking you for pens, candy and dirhams. Just long stretches of road from which we took in the scenery of local villages. Having passed several kids on donkeys but equally having been overtaken by a few tractors, we also noted on this stretch of road that our speed falls somewhere between the two. Quite the idea to think we are trying to go around the world at a pace slightly less than your average farm vehicle. Shopping for food was another new experience as so few people speak French. It took four helpers to get across to one aging and hard-of-hearing stall owner in the town of Saka that we wanted some couscous, but we got there in the end! On our way into Saka, the only town of any real size on the N15 highway, a local cyclist joined us for a few kilometers. After the usual questions like where we were from and where we were headed he said goodbye, but not before warning us that there were many robbers in Morocco and we should be careful. It is advice we have been given many times before on this trip, most often from people warning us about the country ahead. The Canadians warned us about all the crime in Europe, the English told us to be wary of the French and the French reminded us how the Spaniards only want to rip you off. Undoubtedly there are some bad people out there, but so far our experiences have all been good. Not long after Saka we found a local well a little way off the main road and stopped there to camp for the night, much to the amusement of the dozen or so locals who came by just before dusk to get water. The next morning we finished the journey into the reasonably large town of Guercif by midday and got a hotel there for the night. We could have carried on but after two nights of wild camping the idea of a shower is greatly appealing!

Comments

  1. andrew
    21st January 2007 at 7:08 pm #

    N15 – Not a bad road overall but the surface is variable. Sometimes it’s as good as most European roads and other times it is quite torn up and you have to navigate cracks and dips. There is no shoulder but the traffic seems used to going around everything from donkeys to slow scooters. Plenty of supplies available in Saka and in a couple villages before Saka, but really not much from Saka to Guercif. We also saw lots of wells as far as Saka, and a couple afterwards.

  2. abd.lakbir
    9th February 2010 at 9:57 pm #

    you’ve done a great trip.But instead of exploring one should explore ways of life, human beings.furthermore to be able to know a country and its poeple one should speak their lge not only his………

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