Day 29: Camping Au bout du champ – Camping Laguna

After the first stay of three nights in a row, we leave Dar Bouazza and take a break in El Jadida as we drive along the coast.

The Portuguese left a fortress here, a church and a few other monuments. There is a small shipyard for fishing boats in the harbor area and a lively town all around.

We buy avocado, bananas, walnuts and almonds at the market. We are guided by the appearance of the goods but also by where older women shop. Good trick! And we are approached by exactly such a person asking if we were German, she lived in Munich for a long time and worked in an inn. Their German is good, their English is better than ours – we feel a bit brash compared to these multi-talented people, who of course also speak Arabic and French.

We're starting to get used to lunch, today we're having fried fish. The table manners are a bit unusual, because all the leftovers are simply placed on the table next to the plate, which is then literally completely cleared away. Totally delicious and quite a feast.

We continue along the coast. Lots of agriculture, vegetables, salads, corn. And then there is an incredibly ugly, incredibly large refinery that we drive past for probably a quarter of an hour. Replaced by mountains of coal. Everything is in complete haze. Phew. By the way, we read that Morocco gets oil from Russia, which then ends up in Spain in a roundabout way. Have we already recorded that? We fill up with Russian diesel :-(

Then a complete change of scenery. At Sidi-Moussa we drive along (and later also part of) a natural park with small lakes and lagoons, lots of greenery and lots of birds. How good that feels! We stop for a coffee on the road and let nature work its magic on us.

By the way: There are a lot of cars on the roads that simply have a coffee machine in the back and then make it fresh when you stop. Marc told us that this business developed with Corona.

The scenery remains beautiful the rest of the way to Oualidia. When we walk to the beach we notice that the place is quite touristy, actually for the first time we are chatted up: lobster? Fresh Fish? German? If not today, then maybe tomorrow? Never give up during the sales pitch... We don't feel like eating a big fish dinner again, but the system is great: the fish is sold from the boat, someone prepares it and then you sit on the beach at a small plastic table under a parasol and eat.

We, on the other hand, buy a little bread after walking in town (tourist surcharge 3 dirhams instead of 1.50) and are happy with avocado, beetroot, walnuts and cheese.

Funnily enough, we're meeting a very nice New Zealander again this evening (Matt), who was also in Dar Bouazza, and Hannah from New Zealand has joined him in the meantime. The tourist paths always meet each other.