It’s Thursday, so this must be Boudnib…
We’re keeping notes, you see, otherwise we’d completely lose
track (ha!) of where we are with all this blogging stuff. It does actually take
a fair amount of effort to keep up, and the lack of time to do all the essential
chores doesn’t help with the flow of narrative juice. Anyway, enough boring
excuses, on with the show!
We’re esconced in the lemon grove at Camping Rekkam – a fine
spot with great showers, which is the reason we’re here. “Wimps!” I hear you
cry. But…the only water we passed over the last 2 days – pardon the
double-entendre- looked a little less than enticing where bathing was
concerned, and we have
a rule not to shower with our drinking water…you never know….
and to give you some idea of how Daphne's crew might look by now, this is her rear end -
So to catch up on
the last 2 days, we need to rewind to yesterday, and I wrote this as we relaxed
after quite a long day:
Wed 30 Mar – Figuig to Korima pass
A beer, a shady spot to camp, no noisy neighbours, cordon
bleu cookery going on in the kitchen…who could want more? This is us tonight:
Looks idyllic, and it is. There are moments in your life
when you really wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, and for us, this is one of
those. It feels even better for having crossed over 200 kms of piste to get
here. In fact, it wasn’t really testing driving like some previous days, but
hot – 38C at 1300 – and blowing a gale most of the day. Still, we’ve had 2 days
to rest and sort ourselves out, so not a major drama.
The site in Figuig – the only campsite, as it turned out –
was superb. Despite being the “only game in town” we had the place to
ourselves. Even though it was on the edge of town it was quiet – no dogs or
muezzin. This was possibly due to the hotel, in whose grounds we camped, being
almost the last building in town before the border with Algeria,
whose lights we could see from the terrace:
We took a stroll
through town yesterday and did some shopping for basic food, more to
practice speaking “local” than anything. Sue’s very pleased with herself for
doing the whole thing in Arabic, including the negotiations for a chicken. The
subject of the debate was still alive, but not for long.
I won’t say we got
spattered with its blood, but as good as. No arguments about whether it’s
fresh. Tasted marvellous, too.
While we waited for the de-feathering process to complete,
the locals came and went, we had a glass of mint tea and exchanged the time of
day. All very satisfying that the months of effort with the language were
paying off. We’re both still dropping into French sometimes, but then so do the
locals; it seems to be interchangeable, but they definitely appreciate the
effort not to. It works magic in other areas, too. While we waited in the
butcher’s I felt a gentle tug at the back of my shirt. I knew it was the guy
who’d been loitering at the door as we came in, making signs for money by
rubbing his fingers together. We did the Standard English thing and ignored
him, but I knew it wasn’t going to work for long. Since the distance from the
shop doorway to the counter was about 2 feet, he hadn’t had to pursue me very
far. Now, when we were getting our tour in Fes, we were
approached by a woman who said something to Mohammed, and he dismissed her,
very curtly we thought, with a phrase which basically says “May God give you
help”. I got him to repeat it slowly and he explained that she was begging for
money but clearly wasn’t ill nor impoverished. Apart from registering that even
the locals get fed up with the behaviour of their neighbours, the phrase he
used was different from that which we’d picked up at home. I turned to our
shadow and used the same expression, quietly, that Mohammed had used. The
effect was magical. The locals stopped talking, the beggar nodded and walked
away, and I felt satisfied….and a bit mean at the same time….but “when in Rome..”
We really enjoyed our “days off”, catching up with this
blog, playing with some of Daphne’s toys and fine tuning some of our gear in
the light of the last week’s experience. It’s time to move on, though.
 |
| Looking into Algeria through a gap in the berm. |
We want
to get from the “furthest east” point across to where we can turn south without
tripping over a border fence. The first leg of this will be from Figuig to Beni
Tajjite by way of Mengoub, and piste (track) all the way apart from the first
60Kms west from F.
We used R602 for the first 60 kms or so then joined the
piste that features in Chris Scott’s book – ME4, in reverse as before. This is
a fast track with a firm surface but with a few areas where the oueds have
washed out. Some are easily crossed but...
Sue did a couple of hours in the driving seat.
She was hesitant
to start with – not wanting to break anything - and with me providing “appropriate
advice” from the navigator’s compartment. Take that how you like, but we didn’t
come to blows and Daphne survived the experience undamaged. This is the point
where I’d “insert Smiley” if I could. ..:-).
The driving was interesting and the scenery spectacular.
We passed the disused railway station at Mengoub, with its ancient tracks twisted by time:
Since we were on a constant heading of west and the wind was
southerly, the left side window and vent had to be kept shut, and the driver’s
window could only be opened a crack, so we were slowly boiling up inside with a
temperature on the cab thermometer of 40C at one stage. We don’t have aircon,
so nothing for it but to sweat – sorry, perspire! Despite this, the blowing dust
got in and we soon had gritty teeth and a pink coating to everything else. One
of my pet hates is sand in my sandwiches, and today ….the remains of the
chicken we cooked last night was eaten in the poor shelter of what would be a
bothy at home, and we debated the wisdom of continuing in the face of the dust storm.
We decided, rightly as it’s turned out, to press on. We had an escape route –
ME5 – after a couple of hours, but I thought that as the daytime temperature
dropped, so too would the wind strength and a wild camp wouldn’t be too
unpleasant.
The aft passenger door catch gave up again so I lashed it
closed with a ratchet strap. It would appear that it isn’t the load shifting
against the door that’s the problem, but something mechanical that will
probably have to wait until we get home to fix properly. In the meantime, the
lash-up will do.
Thursday dawned cloudy but despite a few noisy blasts during
the night, the winds had abated leaving a hazy day with all the dust suspended
in the air. We completed the route down to Ben Tajjite, stopped to buy some
groceries and picked up ME7 down to Boudnib.
B-T was busy with people but there
didn’t seem to be a lot going on. It was just after lunchtime and the kids were
on their way back to school. We got the usual requests – nay, demands – for
“stilo/bonbon” and the usual abuse when we refused. Eventually Sue got fed up
with being called a “bitch” an a "bastard" and gave them some gutter French of
her own. At this point an adult came along and gave the kid who was making most
noise a cuffing and we left town pissed off. Such a contrast to the other
exchanges and meetings we’ve had on the trail and in other towns…This second
leg was interesting. The piste track is being upgraded and a new tarmac surface
runs alongside it for half it’s length, but hasn’t been opened for use yet and
thus there’s a track that runs roughly alongside it. Because this track is
relatively new and unconsolidated, it’s very sandy and quite a challenge to
drive. I suppose, with hindsight, we should have let some air out of the tyres
to help with traction, but we weren’t expecting the sand patches to extend for
quite so long. The sandy piste stopped about halfway, at the same time as the
tarmac on the new road. After that, it was back to what we expected, a firm
surface with lots of dips and gullies to keep the speed down and the attention
up. We actually only managed an average of about 12-15mph all day, but any
faster than that and you’re continually braking and changing gear to allow for
the dips and drops in the surface. I could just blast over them, but we don’t
have any rescue backup like the guys who we’ve seen do just that, and a breakdown
due to simply going too fast and busting something underneath just isn’t worth the
risk as a solo vehicle. We stayed in low box a lot of the time, just because
it’s less effort and gives a lot more control over the trickier bits; the trade
off is a lower average speed, but it’s more comfortable, and we ain’t in no
hurry.
Lots of oued crossings today. These watercourses vary in
width from a metre or so to several hundred. Some are straight forward, others
require a little more thought. The rain that creates the flash floods that
create these obstacles originates high in the jebel, so if you happen to choose
a nice, flat, shady, dry, river bed for a camping spot, you might have a very
rude interruption to your sleep. If you saw the TV news 2 years ago, you’ll
remember the huge amount of damage that was done by these freak conditions, and
the terrible destructive power of the water/rubble/ boulder soup that smashed
along them.
“More people die of drowning in the desert than of thirst” I read
somewhere. Looking at the damage to most of the bridges, you can see why that
might be.
We met a few people along the way but considering the distance we've travelled, remarkably few. Apart from the kids in B-T, they've all been friendly, smiling and waving as we passed.
We asked permission to take this picture and wanted more but got the impression that wouldn't be well received. The 2 guys in the background were extremely friendly otherwise. Sue caught the eye of a shepherd at one point: "Hey, he's blowing kisses at me!" Sometimes I dunno what planet my wife's from..."I think that putting two fingers to his lips means he wants a cigarette, my love."
There's a lot more I'd like to add to this post, but there are limitations to battery power and I'm about to see the last of my spare. Standby for more pictures later as edits to this, but the site wi-fi while widespread moves at the speed of a striking sloth. Bye!
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