Off Grid Van Life in North Africa // S04E05

We are currently driving around the world and we are southbound on the coast of Morocco, living off-grid and on the move in our 1973 Volkswagen Kombi. Leah's sister Jordan is flying in to join us for an adventure. They are hijacking the Kombi for a few days and you guys are invited too, so subscribe and buckle up. It's one heck of a ride. We spent the past few weeks in one of the coolest cities we know, Essaouira, Morocco. But as much as we did love living alongside the locals in the Medina, we also love being away from it all. This looks like a good spot for the night doesn't it? So, we took a random turn off the highway and headed deep into the Moroccan wilderness for a few days. Don't tell me we got out of gas in the middle of a flipping African desert. Is this on? It sure seems like it's on. Right, there's no gas and the solar noise is off. There is gas when the solar noise is on. Don't know what's happened there, but it's working. Thankfully, yep, drama over. We can go back to having tea. Flipping heck, it's almost an emergency. Ben's feeling a bit ill, so I'm just making him a lemon tea with a bit of ginger and honey to help his sore throat and his cold that he's getting. So, usually when one of us starts to feel sick, we try to get on top of it straight away because it's not nice being sick in the van. So, usually when one of us starts to get a sore throat or feeling a bit run down, we usually have lots of garlic on us, so we will just eat garlic cloves like the tablets. We have as much as we can handle and usually that helps. When it doesn't, we also stick to having tea with ginger, lemon and honey. Ben's got a sore throat at the moment, so that's what I'm making for him now. And Alaska is also sick, so I'm going to make her, she's been vomiting and feeling really ill, so I'm going to make her some rice and we've got cottage cheese, so she's just going to be having that for a few days until her stomach gets a bit better. Usually I make this concoction with cayenne pepper, so I put lots of cayenne pepper in it, lots and lots of ginger, so it's really spicy. It's quite hard to drink, but it's really good for you, kind of just gives you a boost and kind of cleans out everything that is wrong with you. Thanks babe. I don't have cayenne pepper at the moment, but at least you'll do. It smells great. It's got lots of honey in it, so it should be nice. It's not too bad. No, it's good. No cayenne pepper this time, so it's drinkable. It's really actually quite tasty. Your turn, Alaska. What have we got? Just plain rice and cottage cheese, so a really bland diet, and I put a little bit of your favourite carrots. I hope that's okay for your stomach. Come on. She doesn't seem to mind at all. Yeah, hopefully this will make her feel much better. I feel much better from that tea, so thanks very much. I want to point out that in Morocco they are really trying really hard to eliminate plastic bags, and I think they've been doing it for a couple of years now, so every time we get our veggies and shopping, they use paper bags, and also these bags as well. I'm not too sure what they're made out of. You'll see a lot of these whenever you buy anything in the shops, and yeah, I don't think I've ever been anywhere else where I've seen them do that. Yeah, well done, Morocco. You're leading the way. That's why the camera keeps getting wet. Shaking your lettuce means something else. What? Shaking your lettuce. What does it mean? What does it mean? Don't play all innocent with me. I don't know what shaking the lettuce means. I'm not dirty-minded like you. I didn't say it was dirty, so you know exactly what it means. I really don't. What else would it be coming from you? It's not family-friendly anyway. What is it? Where's your bowl? Where's your bowl? Masca's full of beans this morning. She's getting better. Ben woke up worse this morning. Not worse. Why are you laughing? No, not worse. Why are you laughing about misery? You'll get better. She definitely looks better. She hasn't been like that for a while. I know we need to get you better. I want to go surfing. Today's supposed to be my day to go surfing. I think we should stay here. It's nice and quiet. There's no dogs around, so Laska can roam free and don't have to worry about her. It's nice just to pick a spot in the desert and just head out. Sunshine. Yeah, this is all the good things about van life. So many goats in the trees. I can't believe they climb the tree that well. They're so nimble. It's incredible. They've got these stiff little legs and little hooves, yet they manage to balance on these tiny, tiny branches and just get up there. I mean, it's quite incredible, really. They're super cute. Honestly, the thorns in these trees as well are from another planet. They're absolutely brutal. Super, super stiff wood, and it's got to hurt them when they climb. Obviously, they're used to it. That's how they get their food out here in the desert. The shepherd's probably like, why are you guys so entertained by these goats? I mean, he sees it every day, but for me, this is a little odd. It's really nice to see goats or the animals having all this space and freedom to graze and be wild instead of being cooped up in a tiny space. It's nice to see shepherds just looking after their flock and letting them run wild and live free. It's nice. With Alaska feeling back to her chirpy self, we were ready to explore and continue our drive southbound. This road to Imswan Bay is typical for this region. There is an asphalt strip in the center of the road, which is one vehicle wide. When you encounter a car coming from the opposite direction, each vehicle plays chicken to see who gets forced off the road. For the most part, this system works great and all drivers do share the road well, but these are not perfect roads. You must be vigilant and respect the conditions at all times. This is what happens when you don't. These two lads have probably driven this road many times, but this time they took the corner too fast and lost control. We always carry a couple of first aid kits whilst we're overlanding and we offer to help with the supplies we had on hand. The cuts and grazes were for the most part superficial and these guys were lucky that it was mostly their pride that was hurt. Interestingly, the elders that descended upon this scene didn't hold back in telling the driver just how stupid he'd been. I wish that I was on my land, so that maybe I wouldn't fall for you. Lines in the ocean, that can only mean that there is a swell. I hope so because we are pulling in to the longest wave, the longest right-hand wave on the African continent, I believe. Certainly in Morocco, I think it is the African continent. This is Ipswan Bay. It's a very mellow, nice, soft, easy wave. Hopefully, Leah can get a bit of her surfing as well and we should have some fun here. Very excited to be here, finally. See the wave there, nobody on it. Oh my days, nobody on it, Leah. You get that one yourself and the water looks clean. They're quite remote here, so we're a little ways away from any major towns, which is nice because the war so far in Morocco has been questionable. Sewage pollution. This looks pretty nice, so hopefully it is. I can't wait to get in, that looks great. Ipswan Bay is a small fishing village on a very remote part of the Moroccan coast. We were hoping that its remote location would mean that not too many people would be here, but I guess the secret is out and it has been out for a while. Standing on the sidelines, watching life go by. On some sessions, there were literally hundreds of people in the water, with surfers of all experience levels vying to score a dream Moroccan set. Still, there is a van plastic vibe here with the transient travelling community and Ipswan Bay is a must visit for anyone touring the Moroccan coast. This part of Morocco is blessed with search due to its northwest facing coastline and I could personally spend a lifetime exploring here. We drove down as far as Tamrat, where we rented another apartment as we had another special guest flying in, this time from Australia. But before she gets here, we need to stock up on supplies in the nearest city. Mike got a little carried away doing a shopping for basically living in a small town in Morocco. There is no major supermarket or any big supplies of any kind. This is the biggest shop we've done in what do you reckon Leah, three years? Three years since we were last living in a house. Two pretty much full shopping baskets. This should be the supplies. It's much cheaper to come into the big city which is Agadir for us than it is to get stuff in the local town. But this hopefully will see us through the very important visitor we have coming. Fridge is full, I'm gonna have to turn that up maximum. How do we get it to go to freezer mode? There we go, freezer mode. The whole thing's a freezer now. Sweet, that's pretty handy. This is probably a normal size receipt for a normal family or probably even your receipt might be bigger than this. But for a vanlifer, this is not normal. Nobody would buy this many groceries because you just wouldn't fit it in a tiny home. This cost us 2487 Moroccan Dirham which was a big spend. But as I'm saying, things like coffee for example is literally three times the price as it is here. So it's worth us coming to town. The other benefit of us coming into Agadir is there's alcohol here. Because Tamra is a dry town and there's no alcohol anywhere in town. So here there is alcohol. It's very very subtle. You have to look out for it. You almost don't notice that it's there. It's in the back of the shop. Maybe a little pitcher of a bottle of wine or something and then some stairs. And then that basically leads down to the black market. So I think we should get some wine, don't you? Yeah, we deserve it after such a long time in Morocco without really drinking. It is a three and a half hour journey from Tamrat to Marrakesh airport. But that is nothing compared to the 36 hours that my younger sister Jordan had to make to get here from Australia. Whilst we were here in Marrakesh, we decided to stay in Ariat so we could experience the markets here. The only downside was that it meant that we had to drive into the old medina to find it. Believe us, driving in Marrakesh is not for the faint-hearted. Every mile is an adventure and you have to be laser focused to dodge all the hazards that appear from every direction. But in the middle of all the chaos, serenity can be found in Marrakesh's world famous riads. We are here in Marrakesh and let me tell you, it is quite hectic in Marrakesh, isn't it? Yeah, there's lots to see. We just picked up my sister Jordan from the airport and this is like one of the first things that she's experiencing, the hecticness of the markets in Marrakesh. It's kind of like Morocco at the deep end when you come to Marrakesh, isn't it? There should be something to experience the souks. It's very touristic but hopefully we get to see some of the people demonstrating their kind of traditional ways of their crafts. So yeah, it should be really interesting to have a look around. It's going to be a pretty full-on day. Plenty of things I want to buy, plenty. Jordan bought a suitcase that was like this big and half of it was empty so she can fill half of it when she gets back. Very smart thinking. I'm prepared. Even though I was complaining about it being hectic, it's actually one of the quietest days on the week to come to the market because it's Friday which is like the holy day. So a lot of markets are actually closed so it's probably the quietest it ever gets in this market. So Friday's a good day to come if you don't want it to be too hectic. Honestly, never thought that we would get to experience the medina and the souk being this quiet and a lot of the stores are still open so this is much more relaxing. He's gonna sell me for a camel by the end of it. Just sold Jordan for two camels. She's worth more than two camels. At least two camels and a donkey. At least. Back on the coast, we took advantage of the smaller swell and took Jordan for a surf. Believe it or not, even though Jordan and I are Australian, neither of us are big on surfing. Have fun Jordan. So it was fun to watch Ben helping my sister get her first waves and in style I might add. Girl adventures in the Kombi were great but I really wanted to see if we could go a little further afield with Jordan. Morocco is such a fantastically diverse country with so much to see and a big road trip was on our bucket list. But to venture further afield, we'd need the whole crew together and that means we'd have to figure out how we could manage to fit three people in the Kombi. If there is anyone who could work that out, it was Ben. Do not want to smell Ben's fart so I'd prefer to have a breathe. But that is a story for next time. Thanks for watching guys. I hope you enjoyed the episode. Behind the screens, it's just Leah and I making these videos and we don't have a production budget. We just have you guys. So if you want to keep the videos rolling, click the join button below. We would really appreciate your support.