We wanted to take the ferry back to Spain soon. To spend some relaxing days before leaving Morocco, we decided to join our German friends at a riverbed in the Rif Mountains. Despite the fact that this place is not easily accessible, a young French man traveling alone followed us. We enjoyed his companionship and prepared a campfire for everyone that evening. It was a nice place to camp. Every once in a while, farmers or herdsmen would cross the river directly in front of us because there was a shallow spot. It felt like being in a movie.
But there were other guests who seemed to live in the area permanently: Three dogs. We think they found themselves because they all seem to be disadvantaged in some way. The first dog had only three paws and never walked far from us foreigners. The second dog seemed to suffer from parasites because he kept his eyes closed most of the time and scratched himself until he had bloody wounds on his nose. The third one appeared fine, aside from being relatively thin. However, she might have experienced something bad, as she acted anxious and shy and went down on her back if a human approached. They were all so lovely and slept right beside our cars. They probably tried to protect us, even at night. So cute!
Their behavior might be based on an obvious reason: we gave them food. Since we didn’t have any meat, we knew we couldn’t offer them anything healthy. They got some bread and seemed happy with whatever they could get. When we left, each dog had received no more than a handful of bread or similar food from all the campers at this place. This was everything within two full days. We wondered how they survive in this area, as we are sure that campers do not regularly stop here. Moroccans seem to prefer helping wild cats over stray dogs. So, on the morning we left, we decided to give them our last piece of bread, which we had soaked in olive oil.
We soon arrived at the Mediterranean Sea and ate lunch. Sadness overwhelmed us. Every once in a while, we felt unhappy, especially when we realized that we were on our way back home. This time, we also thought of the three dogs and realized that nobody would feed them anymore. We were so sad that we spontaneously decided to turn around. Not caring about our expired insurance, we drove an extra 150 km to give the dogs some proper food that we had bought along the way. They were so happy! We were happy, too. We stayed another night and took our time feeding them. Additionally, we applied parasite prevention to each dog. Seeing them end up in a food coma made us feel better about leaving this place.
On our way to the ferry, we stopped at a small bakery with a huge variety of sweets. We probably got the best bread we had in Morocco there. Everything was relatively inexpensive, too. That was the next highlight of the day. We changed the dates on our tickets and boarded the ferry as the last passengers before it took off. We were lucky not to miss it! We believe these will be our last experiences in Africa for a while.