Time flies by and we’re getting closer to being 2 months on the same campsite. I expected to celebrate my birthday somewhere in West Africa, but here we are… This post will be another challenge in not becoming trivial and not repeating ourselves, but such is the sedentary life: dominated by routine.
IT’S GETTING HOT
Temperatures kept rising in the previous days and in week 11 we experienced the summer vibes. Throughout the week we had cool nights and daily highs around 33° C. We spent the day lounging around the pool doing our usual things (see the week 6 post), played some volleyball games in the pool and felt like on a resort vacation.
But not all was blissful. Everybody, incl. us was worried about the impending heat over the weekend. The “bush-radio” of the campground did not know any limitations and there were rumours of it even getting to 45° C.
Preparations were made all around us: full house-ACs were bought, rooms with AC booked and we also joined the preparation bustle by positioning our second tarp to give us another 10 minutes of cool sleep in the morning.
Starting on Friday the temperatures rose and indeed in the afternoon, the heat shifted from pleasantly warm to lethargic sweaty. People flocked to the pool like animals to a water hole in dry season. Most of them familiar faces but also a couple of people we haven’t seen so far as they live a solitary camp life around their van.
In the end, the highest we got was to 40°C which is bearable with a pool and little humidity. But the uncertainty ahead of the weekend, the bad sleep caused by the warm nights combined with the feeling of being locked down had its effect. Throughout the campground, the rising tension led to the surfacing of small little fights. Some examples: People reported others because they were suspecting them to have slept outside of the campground (they didn’t) and according to a text calling for everybody to stay reasonable people got close to a fistfight over reserving lounge chairs at the pool. With the heat relaxing its grip on us, people started to relax as well and aside from the few usual squabblers peace returned in Le Relais.
A NEW ATTRACTION IS IN TOWN
The amenities here are great. The restaurant is open, twice a week you can order meat from a french butcher and every day the veggie-cart comes around selling fresh produce. The list of things which require us to leave the campground got even shorter in the past weeks. Starting week 12 a fishmonger sets up shop every Monday. The first time it felt like the whole camping came to look at this new attraction. After some first confusions and someone claiming that the prices were too high they hung up a list of available fish and their prices and it became clear that all is well and the prices really fair. The way they set it up it was also clear that this was a professional operation ensuring that the fish stays fresh and not some random bloke who sells fish which fell off a truck. We bought two large Sole for 90Dh and had a feast the same evening. Quite a welcome change to our culinary routines.
TO PARTY OR NOT TO PARTY
And then my birthday arrived. I didn’t have anything planned but the day turned out very lovely nonetheless. First Carole surprised me by booking the suite in the campsites hotel. The greatest feature? The AC 🙂
Initially, we just had a small BBQ in mind but I changed my mind and invited a couple of other campers for a small apéro. We bought a few bottles of wine at the restaurant and had a lovely time in the shades of the olive trees.
Overall the verdict is clear: no party, but still a good day.
CONCLUSION
Another two weeks have passed in no time. Our trip is still on hold and it’s unclear when and where we’ll be able to continue. We will see in due time. In the meantime, we’re enjoying the small village this campsite has become.
