Day 97 of our journey - 6300 km driven

Our journey along the Moroccan coast continued. We spent four beautiful days at the small campsite on the Plage de Bhibehbut finally, at some point, it was time to continue to Essaouira to travel. We only had a short distance of just under 80 kilometres ahead of us today. The search for a place close to the city Pitch was once again difficult, because there is no suitable camping site or campsite in the immediate vicinity of the city. It is possible to stand and sleep on one or two sites directly in the city, but that was too much of a hustle and bustle for us. As a starting point for our sightseeing tour, we chose the Camping Soleil Sidi Kaouki in the village of the same name, which lies about 20 kilometres south of Essaouira directly on the beach. Here takes care Ali very kindly around its guests. In the morning, there is even free and fresh bread directly at the site. As in many places in Morocco, however, here at the campsite the spot must be filled with many dear Street dogs be shared. And since the dogs also sometimes guard the place at night, nocturnal dog barking is therefore pre-programmed. So if you're a light sleeper, you should think about earplugs or avoid the area altogether.

How do you get from here to Essaouira? You have two alternatives for a trip to the centre. Either you take the Buswhich travels four to five times a day, or, like us, you take the Grand Taxi. At the large square, at the entrance to Sidi Kaouki taxi and bus depart. With a little waiting time, a taxi is ready and, if you are lucky, you do not travel alone and pay just 15 dirhams per person. Back in the evening, you have to drive alone and pay 100 dirhams for the whole taxi, depending on your negotiating skills. Still an acceptable price for half an hour's drive.

Essaouira

In Essaouira, we only visited the medina for shopping and eating. It is huge with endless alleys and surrounded by an old city wall. There is a hustle and bustle like in all other Moroccan medinas or souks.

After two days of sightseeing in Essaouira, we left Sidi Kaouki and started a new one, memorable day. You'll find out why in a moment. Our destination was Taghazoutwhich is also located directly by the sea again. The landscape became more mountainous, more barren, drier and the Argan trees now dominated the landscape. At the side of the road, the vendors waved to the travellers to perhaps sell one of their precious argan oils, but there were not many tourists on the road. We refrained from doing so for the time being and planned to visit a cooperative later, when the opportunity arose. A few kilometres before Taghazout, the road met the sea again and cliffs formed the end to the dreamlike sea with high waves.

We already decided here to find a place to Free standing to search. Finally, the time had come again and we could do without the comfort of a campsite. The campers, mostly surfers here, were already lined up on the cliffs and a small sign showed us the way to the Desert PointOur new home for the next few days. We looked for a nice place with a great view between argan trees and after a short time we had a pack of street dogs around us. Different colours, different sizes and one more loving and cuddly than the other. So we unpacked our supply of dog food and fed the pack for the time being.

Little Nisha

But then, during a short walk on the cliffs, we discovered a little puppies. Apparently only four or five months old, the dog was completely emaciated. Her ribs pushed through her fur, her tail was curled and she was very shy. A mother and other puppies were nowhere to be seen. We tried to give her something to eat, but it was more difficult than we thought. Firstly, she was so weak that she hardly ate anything and secondly, she had her sleeping place under a thorny hedge and as soon as we went to her with food, the whole pack came after us and the shy puppy crawled back into her little cave. So we usually split up. One would give food to the pack and the other would sneak up to the puppy. Fortunately, she took more and more food as time went by.

Now we were at our new pitch and suddenly had a task. We had to take care of the little puppy and somehow nurse her back to health. We gave her medicine against worms and other parasites. The little one would probably not have survived more than a day or two if we hadn't looked after her. The same fate seems to have befallen the rest of the litter. But what can you do? You can't just leave such a little piece of misery to die. The area around our camper belonged to about five dogs and they were doing fine and well fed. From time to time, more dogs came by, probably on tour from other areas. These dogs were obviously doing quite well. The prerequisite for survival is begging for food and water, and since there were many surfers, tourists and campers in the area, the dogs' survival was no problem. But the puppy was so shy, and could not do just that. He was so extremely weakened that he could not integrate into the pack.

And so the time passed. The planned one night at Desert Point quickly turned into two, three and four. We lived together with the pack of dogs. We sat with our view of the roaring sea and there was always a guest around us. We fed diligently in the morning and in the evening. Some dogs lay with us, the others we saw far down by the sea playing or romping in the water. In the evenings, we took our dogs out for a walk and there were six or seven of them. And at night? A bitch, let's just call her "Blacky", a little black shepherd mongrel, always stayed with us. She greeted us in the morning, got her food, lay under the camper in the shade during the day, got her food again in the evening and slept with us again during the night, optionally on our chairs, which she liked to nibble on.

At some point, our supplies were exhausted. Our human food and also the food of the street dogs. So it was time to go shopping. We left the cliffs and Blacky and others trotted behind us. We feared they would follow us further down the road, but fortunately that did not happen. The next major shopping opportunity was Agadir and we drove a good 80 kilometres that day for our errands. Back at our place, we were joyfully greeted by Blacky and the others in the late afternoon. The little puppy was of course still there and finally got some real puppy food. With time she became more and more trusting and after five days we managed to touch her for the first time and stroke her belly. What a wonderful experience.

In the meantime, we started to think about what to do with the little one. She had gained a few grams in the last few days, but would she make it without us? She would never go begging to other campers and would eventually starve to death. We thought a lot about it and started to research whether there was a possibility to accommodate her somewhere. In Agadir there were various animal welfare organisations that took in animals in need, but they were either unsuitable for certain reasons or hopelessly overloaded and no longer took in animals. After much deliberation, we finally decided to take the little one with us on our journey. Despite doubts whether it would work with three dogs in the camper. And she now got her name... NISHA!

After a week at the Desert Point our last evening was coming up. It was a sad feeling to leave the street dogs behind, as we had grown very fond of them in the short time. We went for a last evening walk and looked for Nisha. She had crawled back into her shelter. We coaxed her out with a little food and bam, Nisha was quickly taken in our arms and carried to the camper. There she was in her new home and she looked around sceptically. Masou and Youma sniffed her and welcomed her. So that was that. We spent the first night together, wondering when we would have to take her out for the first time at night, or what our camper would look like in the morning. But everything was fine. We woke up in the morning, the little one hadn't checked in overnight and there were no nasty surprises. What luck on a sad morning after all. We did our last walk with the pack and said goodbye to the other campers. Blacky sat there looking at us, perhaps realising that we won't be back this time. Unfortunately there was no more room for a fourth dog, but we knew she was well looked after here. We gave her one last hug and finally set off on our journey.

Our driving route in this article

With pictures and locations (zoom in and click points, red dot = pictures, green dot = overnight stays).

Watch our journey on Youtube