The south of Morocco below Agadir is a wild place where the nomadic way of life is very much the normal way to be, especially as to the east of the sparse towns the desert stretches all the way to Egypt. The Berber’s here use old Land Rovers as their form of transport because they are simple, strong and easily, but more importantly cheap to keep going.

These Land Rover’s always seem to be overloaded with people and baggage and travel at a slow pace that is very much in tune with this environment where time is not “of the essence!!”. They can often be seen laying down a smoke screen from an engine that should have given up a long time ago but still pulls, sometimes reluctantly its overloaded charge through sand and across the rocky terrain that surrounds it.

During our recent adventure to Morocco we saw many of these old cars and two stories came to mind around these old beasts of burden. The picture shows a carefully prepared and nurtured Land Rover sitting in its garage close to a stone house set on top of the cliffs near Fort Bou Jerif. Perhaps it is an indication of the regard that the Berber have for these old cars as its “home“ was more palatial than the stone hut where the people who served it lived!

The second was at a police checkpoint on the outskirts of Tan Tan. As we approached, the Land Rover in front of us that was loaded up with what appeared to be traditional tents and bags of food turned off to the right onto a dusty track. I assumed that they were heading for a village or patch of desert, but to my surprise some ten minutes later the Land Rover reappeared from a turning to our right having successfully circumnavigated the checkpoint.

It made us wonder whether these checkpoints were a case of show over substance!!