{"id":26770,"date":"2017-03-18T17:07:31","date_gmt":"2017-03-18T17:07:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ourtour.co.uk\/home\/?p=26770"},"modified":"2019-04-11T17:00:54","modified_gmt":"2019-04-11T16:00:54","slug":"camel-racing-sahara-nomads-festival-mhamid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourtour.co.uk\/home\/camel-racing-sahara-nomads-festival-mhamid\/","title":{"rendered":"Camel Racing in the Sahara, Nomads Festival, Mhamid"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zagan the motorhome’s innards are caked in a fine layer of dust after the wind’s picked up the Sahara and chucked it about these past couple of days. We’re at a small family campsite beside a kasbah and beneath the palms, Camping Oued Draa, which is about 1km north of Ternata on the N9, a few miles north of Zagora (N30.407456, W5.869533<\/a>). We’re not sure, but we think it costs 50Dh a night to stay here with electricity, we’ll find out when we come to leave!<\/p>\n

Edit:although the price inc. electricity in Campings du Maroc is 40Dh. When we came to leave the owner charged us double. I checked he knew we only stayed one night, and told him we had the latest 2016\/2017 book with his prices. This is the first time a site owner has chosen to rip us off. Beware if you come to Camping Oued Draa!
\nThe choice to stay here was largely driven by the fact we didn’t want to spend another night in Zagora, but equally didn’t want to head much further north as, to be blunt, I’m crawling about with a hangover. Meeting five year full timers Martin and Deana (not sure how to spell that I’m afraid) in Mhamid led to me drinking vast quantities of their cold beers, recently sourced on a visa extending trip back to Spain. A cracking night swapping tales, and a cracking headache in the morning. Ju was restrained, as ever, and pulled today’s driving stint, drawing a few stares from folks alongside the road in a country where most drivers are male (and none are hungover).<\/p>\n

\"Camping

Camping Oued Draa, Middle of Nowhere, Morocco. We’ve made paper aeroplanes with the owner’s young boy, the owner’s brought round a pot of mint tea, and the family pooch has been sniffed by Charlie and deemed acceptable. As you can see, we’ve a small flock of sheep sharing the parking area with us. In front of us is an active well and various mud buildings. All of this starts to feel normal after a while in Morocco.<\/p><\/div>\n

One of the levers which pulled us down to Mhamid was the nomads festival<\/a> taking place this weekend. And more specifically, the promise of camel racing. Before we started this motorhoming malarky Ju and I had a winter holiday in Finland where we were treated to the hilarious sight of lycra-clad fellas on skis racing reindeer around a frozen lake. Once our eyeballs had alighted on the words ‘course de dromadaires’, we were sold.<\/p>\n

\"Racing

Racing camels! Mhamid Nomad Festival 2017<\/p><\/div>\n

The festival included a large stage with various local and international bands and dancers (including Polish Flamenco!), a demonstration of Berber tents, debates about nomadic life and sales of a range of stuff made in the area, but if I’m honest we barely paid lip service to that lot, the camels were our bag.<\/p>\n

\"We<\/p>\n

We did go and watch some local guys singing for a while. It was hard to describe what they got up, so Ju recorded a short video.<\/p>\n