Goodbye Taroudant and hello clear blue Atlantic! Between here and there is 200km of Moroccan drivers, variable signage and half a dozen stops to look for caterpillars. Two hundred kilometres sounds reasonable but this is Morocco. The best roads are two lanes wide but when a truck or bus approaches, you may want to drive partly off the tarmac! The road to Agadir from Taroudant is full of trucks transporting fruit and vegetables from the Souss Valley to Agadir an...

One of the products of the Souss Valley is Argan oil. The Argan tree Argania spinosa is an ancient species that resembles the olive tree. This tree has a very interesting story. The southwest of Morocco is the only place in the world that it grows and it is an integral part of the daily lives of the rural population here. The fruit contains a nut which produces a highly nutritious and valuable oil. Argan oil is reputed to be a wonder oil in the cosmetic industr...

The 2009 Painted Lady migration to northern Europe and British Isles was one of the largest on record and it was predicted by Constanti following a visit to the Souss Valley in the Spring. Here he recorded thousands of caterpillars near Taroudant. And we are really excited to visit the site. What will we find? Our hotel is booked up so this morning we have to find another before we can head out. Taroudant is an ancient, red-walled city and a maze of narrow str...

The snow-covered High Atlas Mountains are a striking backdrop to the cityscape. And these are where we are heading. We successfully negotiated the chaotic network of alleyways and roads of Marrakech, find a car hire agency and bargain a good price (bargaining is an inherent part of Moroccan culture). And we're off...! Okay, well it wasn't that straight forward. The Moroccans are crazy drivers. Absolutely crazy. And they don't seem to like signs. Doesn't everyb...

"Why Morocco?" was the question that friends and family asked when we announced that we were going there to chase the Painted Lady butterfly. What a good question! One that I'll try to answer in the first post of this blog. The Painted Lady butterfly is the most widespread butterfly in the world and one of the most common butterflies in the British Isles in the summertime. In 2009 it was one of the most abundant butterflies recorded by both the Irish and UK bu...