...islands that belong to spain

After Saidia I wanted to drive south towards Figuig and maybe do some pistes along the way seeing as I would be driving across the huge Plateau du Rekkam. First though I headed for another look along the lovely coast and tried to check out the Grotte du Chameau (caves).

Not far from Saidia are three islands that belong to Spain, but as they are swimming distance from Morocco they tend to offer an excuse for diplomatic point scoring between the two countries. A few months before Moroccan soldiers had landed on one of the islands and then were promptly chased off by some Spanish ones. Nothing silly was happening when I visited.

The Grotte du Chameau (cave) was sadly fenced off just inside the entrance, I guessed for lunch, but maybe it was because of Ramadan or because I was coming. Either way it was a nice drive up through the hills and resulting gorges. It wasn't quite so nice when two of the local bees combined to attack my arm in a brutal pre-emptive strike to stop me squashing them.

Continuing on I arrived in the big(ish) city of Oujda and had a quick look around. It used to be the starting point for the main border crossing into Algeria, but as this has been closed for quite a few years, the town is struggling a little it seems.

It was quite windy as it's situated on a large open plain, and lacking a campsite it didn't offer much to hold my attention. I stocked up on food as well as I could and headed south on the long straight road towards Bouarfa and then Figuig.