We hired a car last Thursday and Friday for a trip to Sidi Ifni which was not without incident. The rain had stopped so we were feeling optimistic. We were stopped at the main roundabout by traffic police who told us thqt the bridge on the N10 was down and if we wanted to go to Tiznit we should head for Ouazazate and then turn right and go through Freyja. Freya itself was awash with mud so that the metalled road seemed more like piste. Crossing the river there involved what appeared to be a longstanding deviation at a washed out bridge through the river bed although the main bridge in the village which was still under construction on our trip last may was now finished. When we got to Tiznit, only 100km away, they had had no rain the deluge being restricted to the Sousse plain (and presumably Casablanca).
On the way back Beloved thought we would avoid this detour and take the old Agadir road back which goes by the Gazell D'Or and is favoured as a grand taxi route. We got about half way home from Agadir when there was a deviation sign. Inspection showed that the bridge was washed out. It looks as though it will take some time to repair.
I could not have been more wrong about this. 5 days later we went along the road in a Grand taxi expecting a deviation but it was completely repaired with a causeway for half the width and a bridge in place for the other half. Traffic was back to normal.
By then it was dusk and we had to go back and then through Ouela Teima and down the old N10 and then round the Freja deviation in the dark.There were a lot of lorries on the road unusually so for that time of night so that there was an impression that everybody was having to go much further and take longer than usual.
This is the taxi drivers' view and for a while taxi fares to Agadir doubled. Meanwhile the traders in Taroudant Souk are bemoaning the lack of trade and the tourist buses are conspicuous in their absence.
Meanwhile the Gazell D'Or road is breached in a second place nearer to #taroudant where a small stream through on of the orange plantaions had been dammed. The rains caused a new alternative stream to form and this then had to cross the road washing it away.
The taxi drivers have improvised a transport system driving up to the bridge on each side and the the fares wade across the river on fott. On Friday this seemd to be a solution utilised on by young men and at some embarassment as "friends" on the bank called out "useful" advice or encouragement and waited for the to slip and fall in the water.
