The long way to TAFRAOUTE (Morocco Motorhome Adventure)

The long way to TAFRAOUTE (Morocco Motorhome Adventure)

Oh my god they’re so big, they’re so big! Wow okay, I take it back. This is pretty damn impressive. Pretty cool, just very loud. I think we need a break, Milli needs a break. That’s intense, hey? Spectacular though, it’s brilliant. Welcome to our channel, we’re Andre and Lisa,

A married South African Italian couple, who have been travelling together for 20 years, exploring more than 50 countries. Since 2018, we’ve been full-time nomads, with our goal being to make travel a sustainable long-term way of life. For the past 3 years, we’ve been winding our way around Europe with our 21-year-old motorhome, Milli.

We’re starting 2024 with an exciting adventure to Morocco, and although our plans for the year might change, we’re hoping to visit Sardinia for the first time, get back to Denmark for summer, then make our way via Eastern Europe to Greece for the winter. So hit that subscribe button and join our adventure.

Asalaamu Alaikum and welcome to Morocco and welcome back to our channel. If you don’t know, for the last almost 5 weeks, we’ve been travelling with our motorhome through Milli! with our motorhome through Morocco. It’s been a really interesting experience so far. In our last video, we left the Sahara desert close to

Merzouga and we had quite a little trip We went our way to the Todra Gorge and to Ait Benhaddou, which were absolutely spectacular. Lisa, come on! Welcome to Morocco! Emergency stop, Lisa is getting… What the ? It’s a crazy person. What the ? This one is pretty.

I’m really not so good at this. Hey! You don’t talk to me like that buddy. Today will be the 5th consecutive day of driving. Since we left the Sahara desert, the driving has been absolutely spectacular and we’re slowly but surely making our way to Tafraoute. We’ve been driving from Ait Benhaddou south.

We first stopped in Foum Zguid . It was incredibly busy there. We were super surprised. From there we sort of headed more west and it’s a beautiful landscape if you ever find yourself there. We couldn’t believe it. We were driving for hours and all you see is motorhomes.

And then we found the Tissint Canyon which is absolutely stunning. We just stumbled upon it. So definitely make a note of that if you’re driving along this route. Yeah, we stayed last night in this camp behind us. It’s just outside the town of Tata. The campsite is called Rimal Tata

And it’s very very peaceful. There’s just space for a few motorhomes out here. As you can see there’s space all around. They’ve actually got chalets too or a little tented accommodation. And of course they can make tagine, play some music in the evenings. But we’re going to drive from

Here to Akka and then on to Icht. And then there’s a really well recommended route north from Icht to Tafraoute. It’s a little bit challenging but apparently it’s spectacular. We’re looking forward to doing that today. But we’ve got another four hours drive today. First things, we found a weigh

Station and we are going to go weigh Milli. Have you placed your bets? I say… I’m saying 3560. I think we’re going to be… I’m really going to be impressed if we get under… …Three six Milli’s on the weigh bridge. How much…? Oh, you win 3620. I was right.

We’re over. We’re a 120 kilos over. So if we empty our water… We can be close. We’ll have to lose 50 kilos somehow. Don’t throw me out the window. That’s you, baby. Head northwest. Thanks, guys, at Akka for the weigh station. Oh, wow they’re so big. They’re so big.

He’s got really beautiful feet. I think we need a break, Milli needs a break. That’s intense, hey? Spectacular though, it’s brilliant if you have a chance. I think it’s well worth driving, but wow. No traffic, it’s really quite amazing. I think we saw one car in the last, like 50 km’s.

We still have another 60 kilometers to Tafraoute. That’s another– That’s more than an hour. Oh my word. listen to them! Oh, this guy’s got white ears. He’s got white ears. Oh, look at this guy. Welcome to Tafraoute. Quick stop. Lisa just popped in to get some drinking water.

Very popular place, very unique geological landscape. And a very tolerant town and municipality. Not so much free camping, there’s two big palm groves where there’s sort of guarded parking. There’s a couple of campsites and they’re actually all well-priced. We’re looking forward to just relaxing a little bit here.

Oh my God, I forgot that you’re gonna have to carry all that stuff. Thanks baby. And, look what I’ve found! Chocolate milkies! These are so good and I’ve got some argan soap. Ooh, nice, maybe I should try thst actually These are gifts for people. What, for me?

Who are you gonna gift this to? My family in Italy. Oh, okay, lucky them. Yep. What? Oh, my word. What? Quite a lot of space. There is, but that is a lot of motorhomes. Oh, my word. It’s not exactly that much further. But I think if you go in like this, like, here.

Now, the problem with having too many choices is that we’re completely indecisive. Too many choices. Lisa picked a spot for tonight. Not bad. I want to show you these cool vents we’ve got actually. We bought these last year in Spain. You put them on the top

And they got a mesh built in. They’re actually rain-proof and it’s out of, I don’t know what, some other metal. The window goes straight in there. So it creates nice ventilation and you can just leave them in. So it’s gonna be good for condensation and good for summer. Nice view.

And I sort of get now why everybody’s talk so highly of Tafraoute. You can stay here for 15 Dirham a night, set up camp, put out everything, make yourself comfortable and just not have to go anywhere. We’re not gonna do anything else tonight. We’re gonna relax.

And today’s drive was supposed to be four hours according to Google Maps and it took us six hours. So that was quite hectic. What’s for supper dear? Oh, we got some.. looks like fudge. Good morning. Welcome to Tafraoute. Beautiful crispy, crispy, very crispy morning. Yeah, we’re gonna take a little hike here amongst

These beautiful little rock hills. And we’re doing it before breakfast and before coffee. Always a genius move. Glad we didn’t pack our bicycles. Now, we were going to cycle this. Luckily we met some subscribers in fact. Thanks Carol and Andy for telling us that we should not cycle here. Imagine.

So you can actually cycle to where we’re going but then you have to go along the main road for quite a section. And we don’t like cycling along main roads. So we opted for the rocky section. And walking it. It will take a while, but it’s going to be fun. Beautiful out here

Left, left. Oh gosh, what would you do without me? Wow That’s pretty cool. Wow, this is what I expected to actually see a lot more of. Almond blossoms. Oh, they’re so pretty. We actually saw a lot more of this sort of closer to the canyons along that area.

And I thought it was just going to get more and more intense coming closer to Tafraoute. But I think it’s been a very dry year. It is the Almond Festival right now. This way. Let’s see if there’s a comfortable spot here. For us to just sit for a few minutes.

And there’s.. tiny in the distance. You can see some blue rocks but we’re going to go there in a bit. Should we sit on this rock here? Yes, please. Okay, but the question is can we make coffee? All right, so what we need is… Thank you.

Behind us is one of four big portions of rocks. Maybe five, I don’t even know. That’s been painted. Lisa, you know the story about this. Yes, in 1984, a Belgium artist, Jean Verame, came here and was the help of the Tafraoute’s fire department. They used 18 tons of paint

And came out here to paint these rocks in various colors, blue, pink, red, yellow, black. And it was all a tribute to his late wife. And like art, obviously some people love it and some people hate it. I think so. I think you might argue, but why paint rocks?

But you know what, there’s a lot of rocks out here. It’s a statement. And like you say. I’m not sure I can say I particularly like it. And I would say it’s slightly disappointing but it brings people here and it highlights this area. And that for sure is incredible.

The surrounds here are magnificent. I think it might have been quite difficult to paint these rocks. Wow. Can you imagine that feat bringing all the paint here, climbing up on top of this somehow and how much paint it must have taken. Well, 15 to 18 tons.

I guess the challenge is to stop people from scribbling their own rubbish on it. Yep, please do not write on the rocks to contribute to the aesthetic preservation of this tourist site. Wow, okay. I take it back. This is pretty damn impressive. Yeah, it’s, look, it’s,

You gotta give the guy props for the amount of effort here. Wow, do you love me enough to do this? Of course, baby. I’ll paint the whole earth for you. Earth color. Earth color. Natural color. Now what? Now what? I don’t know. Who brought snacks? I brought pudding. Oh dear.

Yes, let’s have some pudding. Let’s go. I’m here now. I’m here now. It’s a long way back. Are you staying? Come, this is what happens You give her sugar and laziness it’s in. Come, let’s go. We’ll be filming when we crawl the last kilometer. Let’s do that YouTube thing. One, two, three.

That didn’t work. Where are we? Try again. Marshmellow Land? One, one, two, three. Welcome back to camp. Actually it’s the next day. We not only jumped in space. We jumped in time too. I know. We’re getting super advanced, with this YouTube trickery. I’m gonna show you quickly what the camp looks like today.

You know, a few French vans around. People doing random things in the bushes. Always hard to say what people get up to. Anyway, we’re gonna walk that way. Maybe we get a chance to also go past the campsites and have a quick look at what they look like.

And the other palm grove parking. I think there’s two things that surprise me here. One is the amount of space that’s available. It’s really a spread out area in which you’re free to go and park and stop wherever you want. Camp, do anything you like. And secondly is the number of camper vans.

I mean. There are literally hundreds of motor homes and vans parked between these two areas. Okay, now if you thought on our side there’s a lot of action.. on this side… I don’t know, this must be a hundred and something vans here, easy. This is apparently a more popular side

Because it’s a lot closer to the village. So you can very easily just walk in and go shop a bit. Now the campsites are so full there’s actually overflow to the outside. It’s really quite crazy. But I think the guys on the outside actually get better value

Because they get the service of the campsite with a little bit more view because inside it’s packed. This is one of three campsites here that I know of. Wow, okay. So here we have. Two people with electricity. One place, two people, 60. So on the outside you pay 40 instead of the 60.

Ooh, without electricity. Yes. Right on the road here. No, thank you. All of these campsites are seriously just like a little walled courtyard and everybody’s huddled in. I don’t really understand it unless you’re desperate for services. Why you would be in here? It’s quite full. It’s packed. I know some people like

Campsites because things happen. So they have certain meals of the day. I understand that. So the municipality actually installed a camper service point here years ago. That’s very nice. It’s the official point where you can drain your greywater. So at least there is a place you can actually service your cassette.

This is very good that this is being provided. No drinking water unfortunately, or no water. There is a guy with a big water tank who comes around. In fact, he came past this morning and you can buy fresh water from him. I’m not sure if it’s potable. Yeah, it probably won’t be..

I wouldn’t recommend drinking. No. Unless you have a very good filtraton system. Either way, the water doesn’t taste great here. So you’re probably better off buying five liters of water. They cost 13 Dirhams for five liters. Anyway, there’s a little souk here. An little informal, little market

We can stroll through before we get to town. Lisa loves this kind of stuff anyway. She’s in her element. I’m looking at caps No, no, I think I might have found something though. What do you think about this guy, baby? Oh my word. Hey? What is that even?

I think its a coat rack. Wait, I wanna see how big it is. That’s huge. This is a little bit big. They are supposed to be long, but, and I gotta put the hood on. Nice. It’s super nice. That was close. Lisa had to be reminded that,

We’re 100 kilos over weight on the van. So if I lose some weights, can I get one? No, you have to lose a lot more than you. Now we’re sortof on the back end of, well, back end, side streets. Some of the side streets of this town. Some local restaurants here, very popular.

We got everything except what we want. Need to get some veggies. Look what we did get though. We got a little bedouin sticker for Milli. Ours is upposed to say, ‘offroad edition’ One thing I haven’t been able to find is chebakia. It’s like, I guess maybe

They don’t do it in this part of… There seems to be a stronger, much stronger French influence here. So you get a lot of croissants and pain au chocolate and that kind of patisserie and not so much the traditional, or here the Moroccan, those really nutty biscuits.

Yeah, I haven’t been able to find it at all. Campr slippers. Yeah. Nice. No, I can’t have a slip on. They’re just gonna fall off my feet the whole time. All butchery stuff up here. You always ask, is it for demonstrative purposes? I think that’s quite real.

This guy’s nibbling on a piece of grass. Wow. Okay, it’s not quite my style. But I’m looking, I can’t look so fast. Because you’re not gonna buy bling shoes, let’s be honest. Well you never know. They definitely look a little bit sad. The fennels don’t look very good. This guy. Cool.

So we ended up getting four fennel and they’re nicely trimmed for us and a red pepper for 7 Dirham. Can’t argue about the prices. No, no, look. We actually thought that we were too late for this Almond blossom festival in Tafraoute and it just so happens that the dates vary every year

And it’s exactly the days that we are here. And it’s all about celebrating the almond tree and the blossoms and that’s why it varies in dates every year because it depends when the almond trees are blossoming. Now we’re in the epicenter. But as you can see, there’s a severe lack of local people.

Because we were informed the opening ceremony is gonna be this afternoon or early evening but people are still building their stalls. It’s running for three days. So we’re stopping for some food. So both of these dishes were 50 Dirham and that one smells incredible. This is lemon chicken tagine

And then Lisa’s got kofta with fries and seasonal vegetables. We fully fortified. Definatey fully fortified. That was very good. It’s quite loud. Wow. I wonder if the mic’s gonna pick it up? That’s very loud. Okay, I think I’ve seen enough. I forgot to bring my earplugs. Okay, it’s very cold. They’re singing. Maybe tomorrow is gonna be more activity. I think we’re going to reassess our situation tomorrow.

What do you say, babe? Shall we head back? I’m fortified. Very cold, very cold. Pretty cool, just very loud. Good morning. Waking up broke this morning because what’s wonderful about this place is that all the little vendors come around to the motorhomes and sell you things.

Now it can be a little bit annoying when someones knocking on your door every five minutes, but I’ll be honest, it’s also super convenient. It can be annoying, but yes, the people are very nice actually. We’ve been offered anything from water to gas to, okay, well, Lisa will show you

What we bought just this morning. Yesterday, there was a very shy little girl walking around and I sort of smiled at her and waved and then she came over. So from her. we got these cream custard donuts things. Every morning, the bread lady comes around.

You get your cobs for 2 Dirham a piece and we got some pain au chocolat for 4 Dirham a piece. Then this morning, very excitingly, they are selling all amazing types of honey. This is orange honey, one kilo for a hundred Dirham he had different types of honey, the dark type.

And then we wanted some almond Amlo. Almond Amlo, yes. And for this we paid a hundred Dirham for a kilo. And we got some argan oil face cream beauty products, which is not for me, it’s for Andre actually. Yes, please. And this was 20 Dirham. One stop shop.

There are all produced in the cooperative. Hopefully good quality products. I’ll tell you in a week from now, if you’ve seen the last video, we showed how all our wood is like doing weird things and my face is doing the same. So maybe the argan oil will smooth my cracks.

Caught in the act! Today’s supposed to be a haircutting day. This is way overdue. No! But somebody always complains about the way I cut his hair. So he’s attempting to do it himself this morning. You just got to go for it man. You don’t need to see what you’re doing!

What do you think? (laughing) – I think it looks very good. Well, itìs an improvement. I normally cut the top too short. Lisa cut all this off, and it looks like I cut my own hair with scissors when I was three years old. Yeah, I think you should lesve the top like that.

That looks really good. I like it. I approve. Okay, I’m coming to do inspection. No wait, I’m far from done. I feel like a new man. What do you think? I think it looks pretty good. I’m pretty impressed. Okay, sun’s rising. We have to pack up quickly

And we’re gonna hit the road this morning. So I’m gonna have a quick shower, hey? Yes. Or should I go like this? On your side or my side? You got slippers? I got my slippers on already. This is it. Just before the sun peeks out. And why you got a hat on?

Show your beautiful hair. That’s what she says now. She was very critical. We’re gonna end this video here. It’s been interesting. couple of days, actually quite hectic. Lots of driving, some beautiful scenery along the way. I think– Tafraoute is quite special scenery-wise. The nature here is very different to anything else

That we saw in the south of Morocco. It’s very, very beautiful. And there’s loads of hiking trails that you can just hike here for days. I think it’s well worth the detour to get here. It’s actually a very nice spot to hang out for a week. Everything comes right to your door.

You literally have guys bring your water and food. So you can’t ask for better. And the town’s just on your doorstep. It’s just so motorhome friendly. You feel welcome here. And you even feel like you are actually contributing to the community by supporting them and all their little entrepreneurial endeavors around here.

Okay, but we’re heading towards the coast. We’ll probably pick this up once we know where we are. Spend a couple of days exploring the coast. I think there’s a lot of wind forecast, unfortunately. We’ll see how it goes. But we’re gonna sign off here. And as always, if you liked this video,

Remember to smash that like button. And make sure that you’re subscribed. Leave us a comment below. And thanks for traveling with us. As always, thanks for watching. We’ll see you next time.

ABOUT US:
Welcome! We’re Andre and Lisa. A married South African couple who has been traveling together for almost 20 years, to more than 50 countries. In 2017 we took stock of our life and made the decision to ‘retire early’. We gave up our professional careers and all our personal possessions to explore the world as full-time nomads. Over the past three years, we have been traveling through Europe with our 21-year-old Motorhome. Please subscribe to follow along and join us on our adventure!

You can find our blog at www.wewillnomad.com where we post regularly about the destinations we visit, along with travel tips and what we spend on traveling.
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