We
arrived in Tata on Tuesday afternoon after a long, hot and frustrating
day. Leaving our desert camp at about 0930 we felt we were lagging
behind the sun a bit. The clocks changed here last weekend - have I
mentioned that twice? - and our body clocks aren't in sync with that
yet. The sun still comes up as normal and the cocks still crow at the
same time. They need some education on the new wake-up call.
Passing through a police post at the end of the desert piste, there was a squadron of dune buggies headed in the opposite direction that was keeping most of the officials busy. Clearly they feel that they need to know who is going where, and our details were checked against some list that was perhaps being used to keep tabs on our progress. It'd be nice to think that if we didn't turn up in the next place we said we were heading, they'd send out search parties. What do you think? Take a bet?
Anyway, through F-Z and tried to take a shortcut to the beginning of our next piste, but this turned out be "un route ancien", according to a very pleasant chap we met (as we retreated) who turned out to be an English teacher who'd trained in Marrakech. What he was doing, smartly dressed, walking in the middle of nowhere we didn't ask. His estimate of the distance to the correct track was 2 k's, but it was actually 12, so maybe his language skills are better than his maths.
After a long boring stretch of tarmac we left this behind and began making dust again. The washboard road was really giving Daphne a good seeing to, and Mike was wincing every time the vibrations hit a high point. Over the course of the past few days, this vibration has slowly begun to have an effect on how things are holding together - or not. The dashboard, or rather the rather fancy radio and gps unit that Mike built, has begun to come away from the mountings. The driver's headlamp has rotated through 90 degrees,the cupboard doors keep bursting open - and these are airline food boxes with "bombproof" latches - everything that isn't strapped down starts to move about the cab in a clattering fashion, a mudflap has been left behind somewhere, and, worst of all, some of the beer cans have punctured! There are lots of unexplained Bangs and Clangs. One of these turned out to be a burst tyre.
A flat tyre, as I'm corrected. The rear driver side is a bit deflated. Like, no air at all. There's a slit in it about 30mm wide, probably caused by a sharp stone. This takes 45 hot minutes to fix, and progress thereafter is slow to reduce the risk of getting another. If that happens, we're in trouble. As a result we get into Tata a bit later than estimated, tired (tyred?) hot and needing to find a tyre fixer before anything else. I've been researching the French for all the words we'll need, and Mike does the talking when we find the local KwikFit. Actually, this is another one of those "hole in the wall" enterprises that we've seen so many of, but appears pretty proficient and happily very used to 4x4 offroaders limping in with one shoe off - Pneumatic Chibani. He tells Mike about the last time he fixed a damaged Landrover, having been called out at 0400. He had the guy back on the road by 0900, and this from somewhere miles out in the desert. He proudly showed us the new sticker, donated by his grateful client. We agreed a price - 120 dirham -and agreed to call back the next morning at 8 to collect it.
The campsite was OK, if a little noisy. We had another faff with the electrical connection so gave up on that, getting a 10dh reduction on the bill to offset it. In fairness, they did all they could do to resolve the problem, to no avail. The only difference this really made to us was having to work pretty quickly to get our blogging chores done before we ran out of juice. There was the usual cacophany of dogs at intervals through the night, underscored with the loudspeakers from 2 nearby mosques trying to outdo each other for clients during the early hours. We didn't sleep well and promised ourselves that we'd spend more time in the wild wherever possible. Experience so far suggests that the only thing campsites have going for them is wi-fi and showers. We have our own shower. If we can work out how to write up the blog using Notepad without it throwing up those annoying "Don't Understand" icons, we could do it in the evening and blast it through the 'net as we pass a Telecom mast the next day. We didn't appreciate the two Austrian kids sitting 5 feet from our back door, watching us with zombie-like expressions, either. They must've been taking lessons from some of the locals.
Wednesday morning. April Fool's Day. We're outside Chez Chibani at the appointed hour. All is locked and the street is just coming to life, so perhaps they've ignored the clock-change? While we wait, Mike goes off in search of a plug that'd fit the campsite sockets and I get the evening meal - some tired looking greens and a chicken. The latter hasn't actually been killed in front of me but I see it out through the de featherer box, and it is still warm as I hand it to Mike to put in the fridge. I get an odd look back, as if he doesn't believe what I must've just done...In the course of the shopping trip, it's become clear that French isn't as widely spoken here as further north. Mike's directions to a likely source of "prises" (plugs) are accompanied with hand signals which are the opposite to the words used - left instead of right. Mike queries this and the speaker corrects himself in what sounds like Arabic but might have been the local Berber dialect - Teshalhit.
We're on our way by 0945, heading for Tan Tan via a long offroad route that hopefully won't have had the attentions of the tarmac layers.
Although fast - obviously - these new roads lack the atmosphere of the desert tracks, which is what we came for. Unfortunately for us, this is becoming quite common. Great news for the local communities, though.
Some very interesting rock formations were seen as we progressed west.
The first few hours of the day are spent on one of these new roads. We make much faster progress as a result, and in a moment's inattention The Navigator misses her vital road junction. This only becomes apparent quite a while later when the Driver queries the distance to the checkpoint that'll signal the turn off-road. There follows a silence known as "eloquent" by some. Others might say it indicates "I haven't a clue where we are". Mike translates this in professional terms as "You've porked it, haven't you?". Indeed, we have. The options are to retrace our steps and lose 2 hours, or press on and try a new route that'll get us to the same place but from the south not the north. We agree the latter, but under some strain...
At just after 5, we call it a day. We're in the middle of nowhere, up a creek, literally. The good thing is, we know which creek and how far up it we are, and we do have a paddle, so all's well.It was also, probably, the best offroad section we've done so far with some vey "technical" parts and stunning situations. A Happy Accident. Relations remain strained, however, and supper is eaten in a grumpy silence. Perhaps it was the Puy Lentils....Silence made the more noticeable by the complete lack of any other noise save the hissing of the grass as the wind blows through it.
It's an equally silent night save for the buzzing of the mozzies, a few millimetres away on the other side of the nets. We are the bottom of the food chain here.
A restful night. The lack of barking dogs or Immams is a definite factor when it comes to the choice of campsite (pay) or campsite (free). Today's the day. We should get to Tan Tan, our notional "furthest south", this afternoon. Inshallah.
We pick up a good tarmac road very soon, and it seems that we may be cursed to follow this all the way. Scott's tome warns us that the whole route is likely to be sealed by now (he last saw it in 2012). Luckily the road improvement programme, while still ongoing, judging by the piles of hardcore lining the track, hasn't progressed as fast as he feared. Tarmac gives way to a hard graded surface and then back to sand, gravel and rock. Good stuff. The route finding is being shared between us, with the rally notes being read by the Left Seat while the Right Seat does the pointing and compass reading. We do not get lost although there are a number of "backtracks" to cross oueds (watercourses) that our chosen line has brought us to and are too difficult to negotiate. Otherwise , progress is steady though not rapid - Mike is being very careful with the tyres today.
We stop for lunch. We just had to get at least one photo like this in here:
1600. Here we are:
Hurrah! Furthest south. Sad though. Time to head back. As we return to the truck, two local lads arrive on their pushbikes. You guessed it, Donny Moir and his brother, Un Bonbon. Donny demands, a "cigar", then "dirham". We respond with a tip we were given by Anya : "Pourquoi? Pourquoi je vous donne la monnaie?". The effect is almost magical. It's as if we've hit him flat in the face with the back of a spade. Dumbstruck....but not for long. His next utterance isn't in French, and, we assume, not too pleasant either. Oh well, c'est la vie, we're here now, We've done it.
Before we do, we need to check and replen. We find two campsites next to the beach in TanTan plage, under a clammy Atlantic haar. One site looks disused but the Guardien tries to entice us to stay. We do a quick 180 and beat it. The second looks more promising. It's the size of 6 football pitches and has one customer. We might as well have wild camped, though. The plug doesn't fit the socket (no surprises) and the water's off - in the whole town. No worries, we can cope with all that. I just wonder what kind of discount we can get when we check out.
Some maintenance is required, both on us (alcohol stocks remain adequate) and on Daphne:
Running out of battery now, so this has to be the end of this post. A bientot.
Passing through a police post at the end of the desert piste, there was a squadron of dune buggies headed in the opposite direction that was keeping most of the officials busy. Clearly they feel that they need to know who is going where, and our details were checked against some list that was perhaps being used to keep tabs on our progress. It'd be nice to think that if we didn't turn up in the next place we said we were heading, they'd send out search parties. What do you think? Take a bet?
Anyway, through F-Z and tried to take a shortcut to the beginning of our next piste, but this turned out be "un route ancien", according to a very pleasant chap we met (as we retreated) who turned out to be an English teacher who'd trained in Marrakech. What he was doing, smartly dressed, walking in the middle of nowhere we didn't ask. His estimate of the distance to the correct track was 2 k's, but it was actually 12, so maybe his language skills are better than his maths.
After a long boring stretch of tarmac we left this behind and began making dust again. The washboard road was really giving Daphne a good seeing to, and Mike was wincing every time the vibrations hit a high point. Over the course of the past few days, this vibration has slowly begun to have an effect on how things are holding together - or not. The dashboard, or rather the rather fancy radio and gps unit that Mike built, has begun to come away from the mountings. The driver's headlamp has rotated through 90 degrees,the cupboard doors keep bursting open - and these are airline food boxes with "bombproof" latches - everything that isn't strapped down starts to move about the cab in a clattering fashion, a mudflap has been left behind somewhere, and, worst of all, some of the beer cans have punctured! There are lots of unexplained Bangs and Clangs. One of these turned out to be a burst tyre.
A flat tyre, as I'm corrected. The rear driver side is a bit deflated. Like, no air at all. There's a slit in it about 30mm wide, probably caused by a sharp stone. This takes 45 hot minutes to fix, and progress thereafter is slow to reduce the risk of getting another. If that happens, we're in trouble. As a result we get into Tata a bit later than estimated, tired (tyred?) hot and needing to find a tyre fixer before anything else. I've been researching the French for all the words we'll need, and Mike does the talking when we find the local KwikFit. Actually, this is another one of those "hole in the wall" enterprises that we've seen so many of, but appears pretty proficient and happily very used to 4x4 offroaders limping in with one shoe off - Pneumatic Chibani. He tells Mike about the last time he fixed a damaged Landrover, having been called out at 0400. He had the guy back on the road by 0900, and this from somewhere miles out in the desert. He proudly showed us the new sticker, donated by his grateful client. We agreed a price - 120 dirham -and agreed to call back the next morning at 8 to collect it.
The campsite was OK, if a little noisy. We had another faff with the electrical connection so gave up on that, getting a 10dh reduction on the bill to offset it. In fairness, they did all they could do to resolve the problem, to no avail. The only difference this really made to us was having to work pretty quickly to get our blogging chores done before we ran out of juice. There was the usual cacophany of dogs at intervals through the night, underscored with the loudspeakers from 2 nearby mosques trying to outdo each other for clients during the early hours. We didn't sleep well and promised ourselves that we'd spend more time in the wild wherever possible. Experience so far suggests that the only thing campsites have going for them is wi-fi and showers. We have our own shower. If we can work out how to write up the blog using Notepad without it throwing up those annoying "Don't Understand" icons, we could do it in the evening and blast it through the 'net as we pass a Telecom mast the next day. We didn't appreciate the two Austrian kids sitting 5 feet from our back door, watching us with zombie-like expressions, either. They must've been taking lessons from some of the locals.
Wednesday morning. April Fool's Day. We're outside Chez Chibani at the appointed hour. All is locked and the street is just coming to life, so perhaps they've ignored the clock-change? While we wait, Mike goes off in search of a plug that'd fit the campsite sockets and I get the evening meal - some tired looking greens and a chicken. The latter hasn't actually been killed in front of me but I see it out through the de featherer box, and it is still warm as I hand it to Mike to put in the fridge. I get an odd look back, as if he doesn't believe what I must've just done...In the course of the shopping trip, it's become clear that French isn't as widely spoken here as further north. Mike's directions to a likely source of "prises" (plugs) are accompanied with hand signals which are the opposite to the words used - left instead of right. Mike queries this and the speaker corrects himself in what sounds like Arabic but might have been the local Berber dialect - Teshalhit.
We're on our way by 0945, heading for Tan Tan via a long offroad route that hopefully won't have had the attentions of the tarmac layers.
Although fast - obviously - these new roads lack the atmosphere of the desert tracks, which is what we came for. Unfortunately for us, this is becoming quite common. Great news for the local communities, though.
Some very interesting rock formations were seen as we progressed west.
The first few hours of the day are spent on one of these new roads. We make much faster progress as a result, and in a moment's inattention The Navigator misses her vital road junction. This only becomes apparent quite a while later when the Driver queries the distance to the checkpoint that'll signal the turn off-road. There follows a silence known as "eloquent" by some. Others might say it indicates "I haven't a clue where we are". Mike translates this in professional terms as "You've porked it, haven't you?". Indeed, we have. The options are to retrace our steps and lose 2 hours, or press on and try a new route that'll get us to the same place but from the south not the north. We agree the latter, but under some strain...
At just after 5, we call it a day. We're in the middle of nowhere, up a creek, literally. The good thing is, we know which creek and how far up it we are, and we do have a paddle, so all's well.It was also, probably, the best offroad section we've done so far with some vey "technical" parts and stunning situations. A Happy Accident. Relations remain strained, however, and supper is eaten in a grumpy silence. Perhaps it was the Puy Lentils....Silence made the more noticeable by the complete lack of any other noise save the hissing of the grass as the wind blows through it.
It's an equally silent night save for the buzzing of the mozzies, a few millimetres away on the other side of the nets. We are the bottom of the food chain here.
A restful night. The lack of barking dogs or Immams is a definite factor when it comes to the choice of campsite (pay) or campsite (free). Today's the day. We should get to Tan Tan, our notional "furthest south", this afternoon. Inshallah.
We pick up a good tarmac road very soon, and it seems that we may be cursed to follow this all the way. Scott's tome warns us that the whole route is likely to be sealed by now (he last saw it in 2012). Luckily the road improvement programme, while still ongoing, judging by the piles of hardcore lining the track, hasn't progressed as fast as he feared. Tarmac gives way to a hard graded surface and then back to sand, gravel and rock. Good stuff. The route finding is being shared between us, with the rally notes being read by the Left Seat while the Right Seat does the pointing and compass reading. We do not get lost although there are a number of "backtracks" to cross oueds (watercourses) that our chosen line has brought us to and are too difficult to negotiate. Otherwise , progress is steady though not rapid - Mike is being very careful with the tyres today.
We stop for lunch. We just had to get at least one photo like this in here:
1600. Here we are:
Hurrah! Furthest south. Sad though. Time to head back. As we return to the truck, two local lads arrive on their pushbikes. You guessed it, Donny Moir and his brother, Un Bonbon. Donny demands, a "cigar", then "dirham". We respond with a tip we were given by Anya : "Pourquoi? Pourquoi je vous donne la monnaie?". The effect is almost magical. It's as if we've hit him flat in the face with the back of a spade. Dumbstruck....but not for long. His next utterance isn't in French, and, we assume, not too pleasant either. Oh well, c'est la vie, we're here now, We've done it.
Before we do, we need to check and replen. We find two campsites next to the beach in TanTan plage, under a clammy Atlantic haar. One site looks disused but the Guardien tries to entice us to stay. We do a quick 180 and beat it. The second looks more promising. It's the size of 6 football pitches and has one customer. We might as well have wild camped, though. The plug doesn't fit the socket (no surprises) and the water's off - in the whole town. No worries, we can cope with all that. I just wonder what kind of discount we can get when we check out.
Some maintenance is required, both on us (alcohol stocks remain adequate) and on Daphne:
Running out of battery now, so this has to be the end of this post. A bientot.
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