Day 16 Friday 02/10/09

We drove round to Tabant, passing many mountain bikers on the rough roads. One cyclist hitching a ride up a steep hill by holding onto the Land Rover roof rack to catch up effortlessly with his mates. JC gave a few locals lifts on the back of his bike along the route. Our tourist map showed a symbol of a cave at Tabant but when we got there it was a busy village with no sign of caves.


We decided to head on but as we drove out of the village we were flagged down by a car and inside were Tanya (British) and Adbellah Bouhrazen (her husband) and Abdellah (his cousin). They had noticed the British number plates on the vehicles in the village and because very few British people travel to this valley, Tanya wanted to know what we were doing. We explained that we were looking for caves and Abdellah, who is a mountain guide in Morocco explained that he knew of some and would we like to go for tea and a chat. Here the day changed for the better and in a way that none of us would have guessed.

We called in a cafe for tea and then went with them to Abdellah’s grandma’s house for a traditional lunch. We arranged to stop at the other Abdellah’s gite (mountain guide also) in the next village and go to find caves the next day.