20th February, Sidi Ifni

Everything was ready to roll and after a tense moment when our friend’s motorhome refused to go into gear, we eventually set off but stopped again after only a mile or so. The gearbox was not having any of it, but after a short rest it gave us hope and off we went again into the town where Kenny had a word with the mechanic. Test it out for 30km he said, and see what happens. We did, and it stopped after only a few miles. It was decided that the mechanic would be called and they would get back to the site somehow, and that Chris and I should continue our trip. It was strange being on our own and worrying about Kenny and Maureen, but we headed south, hoping to coordinate meeting up together again later once the problem has been rectified.

We drove through some great countryside, long empty roads with eucalyptus trees, scrub bushes, sheep and goats, hills with lots of bushes making them look green and then on into the hills with bee hives and more goats. Eventually, coming down towards the coast the land flattened out and we saw around 50 camels browsing on the bushes before entering the small town of Sidi Ifni, as far south as we are going on this trip. Sun, sea and sangria, well not quite, but the beer was unexpected and good.

We moved campsites after one night and selected a pitch overlooking the sea, watching the surfers and listening to the waves, bliss. The small town has plenty to offer with a market selling fresh fruit and veg, fish, delicious smelling tagines, spices and clothes, several cafe/restaurants, nice looking buildings and clean litter free streets.

It’s so quiet, hardly any traffic, although there is a hospital, several banks, usual array of shops and some big important looking buildings, gardens, and some nice artwork around the town.

To amuse ourselves we did a bit of Geocaching with the Adventure Labs taking us on a walk around the town showing many different places we wouldn’t have necessarily found on our own. Very pleased with our 5 successful answers, we had bagged our first ever Ad Lab, and treated ourselves to cake from a small shop, followed later by a beer by the sea.

The wonderful long, sandy beach enticed us along to check out the rocks and pools where we found lots of huge rock falls, saw women picking mussels and a few fishermen. I love looking for signs of life and found a big red jelly like sea anemone among the mussels, also what looked like hard calcified lime circles on a rock, and there were patterns and shapes created by water dripping into a pool, snails of some sort leaving tracks in the sand and water flowing in channels on the wet sand. We spend several hours walking on the beach and had an impromptu lunch of pizza and beer at the cafe afterwards.

We followed a recommendation and had our evening meal at Nomad, an orthentic and comfortable restaurant. The food was great, fish and seafood soup followed by pastillas, a filo pastrry pie rather like a huge samosa; we chose one each of a chicken, herbs and almonds and a mince beef, cheese and fruit which we shared. The biggest surprise was being offered wine, did we want a glass or a bottle? It was a good quality, well chilled white wine and they kept it in the fridge for us between courses.

We left Sidi Ifni feeling relaxed and having enjoyed it so much. Stopping briefly 7 miles along the coast at Legzira, we had found out about some rock arches and there was an EarthCache there we could claim once we’d checked out the questions. We learned a lot about the rocks and until September 2016 there were two arches, however one collapsed leaving only the huge red sandstone arch we saw today. Made up of layers of rocks and stones, the iron oxide stains the deposits red and over millennia it is all compressed.

The area is very popular with paragliders who ride the air currents from the hills behind the village. Camels give tourists a ride or you can hire a quad bike to take the effort out of going along the sands. It was a great stop over, just a few hours but well worth the time.