From Your Desert Correspondent – “Hammered by Hamada.”

Dear Readers,

firstly, an apology for the lack of pictures in this post - and the next. We're on a patch of waste ground, which might or might not be a car park, in the middle of Assa at midday on Sunday, with a very dodgy internet connection which isn't allowing us to upload anything other than what you see.

The campsite at Mhamid had some entertaining permanent residents:

Today (written on Friday 8th April) has been a bit of a trial. Hour after hour of washboard tracks with nothing to do but endure…

The day had much promise, though. We set off from Mhamid, ignoring the insistent “flag downs” from, it seemed, everyone in town. All they wanted was to offer their services as a guide. Mhamid has the atmosphere of a real ”Frontier Town”, with old and new mixed together  - one element focussed on the opportunities offered by us “passing Trade”, and the rest, who carry on as they have for hundreds of years, probably.

The area to the immediate west of Mhamid is prime 4x4 Country, and clearly a great many of our fellow drivers have come to grief in the sand out there. We’ve already done this route, so the suggestion that it “couldn’t be done by one vehicle alone, you must have two. I will help you” was politely declined. Several times. The locals are nothing but persistent. We lowered the tyre pressures to about half the normal level but, given our experience a few days ago at Rhamlia, we could probably have done without this precaution.

The “sandy bit” didn’t last more than ten fun miles, if that,

Vid of sandy bits

 and we soon found ourselves on firmer ground, where the tyres needed more air. At this point, Mike found that the bouncing around in the sand had shifted the contents of the locker that held the pump, and one of the latches wouldn’t open. After a while, he decided to try to get a long, thin lever down the gap made available by the latch that would open to dislodge whatever was jamming the other one. This worked, but not until said lever – which was long and thin but had a very sharp edge, had opened not only the locker, but also Mike’s thumb. One step forward, two steps….

We stopped for lunch at an oasis, and congratulated ourselves that we were the only ones to enjoy this idyllic spot.

Less than a minute later, the equivalent of the bus tour arrived, complete with immaculately dressed French ladies, chic-looking kids and a one-to-one allocation of appropriately dressed “Touareg” guides.

[Editor comment, i.e. Sue. We have been informed by locals that the Touareg are not Moroccan. The guides that wear the kingfisher blue djellabas and headdress for the tourists emulate the Blue Men or Schler who originally covered themselves in indigo as a protection from the sun].  

The guides were very pleasant and while their charges were Ooh-ing and Ah-ing around the date palms and smelly green water, we shared tea and philosophy. They invited us to share the lunch that was being set up “around the corner”, but we declined, as diplomatically as we could. We couldn’t see the St Laurent – clad French birds being too impressed with some additional (and smelly) guests at their picnic.

The afternoon was a five hour endurance test involving some exhilarating fast driving over the northern part of Lac Iriki, and some painfully slow and bone-jarring progress over black-stoned hamada, which shook everything to within an inch of breaking in two.

There were few features to draw our attention and the temperature hit 36 degrees. Sue began to nod off, only kept awake by Mike’s advice: “If we hit a big bump and you’re away with the fairies, you’ll probably lose your teeth on the dashboard”. We’d installed 4-point harnesses for exactly this reason, but find them impractical. There are times, though, when they’d be quite handy…zzzzz.

The intercom system has worked well, as before, and we could talk to each other without the need to shout – Defenders aren’t quiet at the best of times, but under these conditions, the racket is deafening. Unfortunately, this gizmo too has suffered the results of the continual vibration and now has a permanent and annoying crackle. I see its days as numbered!

We stopped at a military checkpoint to have our “papers” inspected. The Officer In Charge – we assumed, because he wasn’t in uniform, remembered us from our visit last year.

Given the number of vehicles he must see pass through, this was quite amazing, but even more astonishing was his apparent recall that Sue was a Chiropodist. Once the “Hello, how you doing’s?” had been dealt with – and this always takes a while - he pulled off his sandal and presented Sue with a list of foot-related ailments that’d keep her busy for weeks at home. He wanted medication but we had none to give away, so she wrote him a list of what medication he needed and suggested that he get to a pharmacy soonest.

We decided to stop but had some difficulty identifying a place that was sheltered from the wind. Eventually – and too close to our day’s destination of Foum Zguid than we’d have preferred, we found grove of Acacia trees and a flat, sandy spot that seemed the best we’d get. Within minutes of switching off the engine, we had our first visitors….and they weren’t the last. We played the Counting Game again, and got rid of our remaining biscuits.

 Unfortunately the word has got around the local goat herd community and now they’re virtually queuing at the door. Our own fault – shouldn’t have weakened in the first place. We are, though, able to get them to retreat to a respectable distance, and now they’re setting up an Observation Post in the bushes on the ridge above us.  Sue finds this irritating, being watched, but I think we represent little more than Something Different to Look At. Given the featureless terrain we’ve been looking at all day, I’m not surprised that we’re the most interesting thing they’ve seen all week –or maybe longer. The group of observers is growing, though.

We’ll be hearing the drums soon, no doubt, to summon the outlying tribes to the party. Like last night. Campsites, we’ve decided are only good for one thing - a hot shower. Yesterday’s choice offered that but barely delivered, given that the hot water came from a tank heated by a stove that was fuelled by dead palm tree, and the fire went out within minutes of being lit. No-one appeared to check it so it was clearly Allah’s will that we had tepid water. The wi-fi was barely able to raise one finger on the scale of one-to-ten, so we rigged up the Maroc Telecom stuff and got a good signal straight away. This, and a suitable supply of white wine, will keep Sue happy all night, so the rest of the cost of the nightstop we put down to a donation to the local economy. It’ll be a wild camp for a few nights now, which ought to spare us the chorus of barking dogs and tom-tom rehearsals until 0300, all punctuated by the complaints from the residents of the adjoining donkey sanctuary. At least, that’s how it sounded.

Updated from Tan Tan 11 April