A disturbed night due to wind
(desert wind, that is; the chilli for supper had nothing to do with it. Of
course). An early wake-up was inevitable as the place over the fence had the
World’s Allocation of cockerels, all in competition. Other guests – in the posh
end of the site where there were dummy Berber tents for them – were the Citroen
AX Club (Africa Raid cadre) who left on their continuing expedition just before
us. We gave them a 15 minute head start to let the dust settle:
A bread-and-water replen in
Boudnib. Sue is doing really well with her Arabic, but there’s always the
occasional slip, and while picking up the groceries she said “…and two loaves
of bread – Watch Out!” The shopkeeper was taken aback and looked it. The Dharija for “Look out” is “andak”. The
word for please is “affak”. An easy mistake to make. Tee hee. Just as we’re on
the subject of shopping, are there any readers of this who remember their local
grocery shop? In the days before the more modern mini-marts, we remember that
one went to the local grocers with a list. The list was handed over and the
customer then took a seat while either the shopkeeper, or more likely a small
boy or two, was despatched to gather the required items from downstairs in the cellar,
up ladders to lofty shelves and below counters in locked drawers (if they were
of a potentially embarrassing nature, like the News of the World Colour
Supplement, as my Dad once described “top shelf” magazines.). If you want a
spot of retail nostalgia, just come to Morocco
and have a wallow!
While Sue plotted the route for
the day using a combination of Scott, Garmin and Michelin, Mike got busy
tracing a maddening squeal that’s developed yesterday. Imagine, if you’re old
enough, pushing a Dinky toy car over corrugated cardboard…this was us driving
some of the tracks yesterday. Driving for 3 hours across these “washboard
roads” takes a heavy toll on Daphne and her crew. Bits that aren’t firmly
bolted on, fall off. Stuff that isn’t lashed down flies up, things that ought
to stay in, fall out. All in all, everything suffers. Where the squeak is
concerned, imagine spending a double period of physics, trying to concentrate
on a practical problem, while the lecturer ran his fingernails down the
blackboard as a distraction. As a remedy, we turned to the “cockpit intercom”
at max volume,
but we finally discovered a
metal clip behind a trim panel that’d slipped and was now trying to rub it’s
way through the roof. A suitable wedge rammed into the space has temporarily
restored quiet and it worked pretty well, only the squealing and whining now
came from a different source. Not what you’re thinking….!
The captain sent the First
Officer astern to identify the origin of the noise. We had to stop, and
eventually traced it to here:
Since there’s been no response
to our request for names for our mascot, we’ve come up with “Fourby”. Let me
explain…It had to begin with a “B” – stay with me, here – We chose Barry
because we only know one of those and we’ve already offended his ego so we’ll
lose now’t there. For alliterative purposes, there had to be two more “B’s” so
Beer Barrel naturally came to mind. Barry the Beer Barrel…Sue improved on that
one evening: “That bloody beer barrel…I could’ve got another 3 boxes of
Chardonnay in there if I’d known you were going to bring that…” So he’s
now Barry The Bloody Beer Barrel, the 4x4 stowaway…are you there yet? So
Four-B’s – Fourby, he is now christened. Phew, glad that’s out of the way.
Southwest-bound now – Scott’s
ME2 but from Boudnib to Erfoud. Our intention is to join up with MS11 and go
south to Erg Chebbi by tonight. We’re still going to be close to the border,
and the route is “not exactly on the shortlist for designation as an Area of
Outstanding Natural Beauty. A bleak plain sparsely occupied by hardy nomads on
the western limit of the Hamada Du Guir”. We agree. More featureless than
yesterday, so we passed some of the time playing I-Spy. Sue started. “I spy with
….something beginning with “S”.
I few moments thought from
Mike…” Sand”
“No”
“Sky”
“No”
“Oh, all right, SUN”
“No”
“I give in”
“Stones”
“Ok, you get another go, pick a
different letter”
She looked around and studied
the landscape for a minute…”I can’t see anything that you haven’t already
guessed…..”
A short inspection of a desert
well revealed a lack of a bucket or rope to attach it too, but a long peer down
the hole and, when your eyes get used to the darkness, you can make out water a
long way down. Mike dropped a pebble and timed it. 4.5 seconds to hit the
water.
As they say “You do the maths”. A little
further on we came across this:
Quite an enterprising – and trusting
- individual. We “bought” a rock that looked like a petrified bubble of lava
for 10Dh. Best of luck to you, mate.
The oued Rahman caused us to
pause for thought, or rather, Sue thought she had a photo opportunity while
Mike got to work deflating the tyres. This is the first really tricky obstacle,
other than gnarly tracks and Frenchmen, that
we’ve had to negotiate. We tried a tentative run at the edge but the sand
dragged the speed down and we came to a halt carefully, so as not to dig
ourselves in. Reversing out slowly, we tried again using a different gear and
drive combination. No luck again, so now it was the moment to be let down. The
tyres, that is.
Mike has some nifty gadgets
that attach to the tyre valve. These are preset to take the pressure down to a level
that’ll give us more grip or spread our weight a little more, and they whistle
like a kettle while the air comes out. When the whistling stops, they’re ready.
That way we should be able to drive across the 300 metres or so of really soft
sand easily. Or maybe not, and we’ll end up spending the afternoon digging and
swearing. Well, some of us might…
We made it, of course, but then
had to spend another 30 minutes re-inflating them. This is a necessary chore,
so we had an early lunch while the compressor (and Mike) got on with it. We
were still in the middle of the track as we didn’t want to pull off onto sharp
stones with flat-ish tyres. Far from holding up the traffic, we weren’t
disturbed, and in fact saw no-one all day until we reached The Crossroads.…
This was the junction we’d
aimed for with the MS11 track that’d take us to Erg Chebbi – the famous dune
field near Mezouga. Scott mentions a “tea tent” at this spot, and there was
indeed such a tent, together with large sign announcing –so we thought – it to
be the “Café Sahara”. With progress in mind, we didn’t stop but gave the
“proprietor” - who’d appeared at the sound of our approach
– a cheery wave as we turned south onto our new heading.
About two minutes later, Mike
was having second thoughts. “Perhaps we should’ve stopped and had some tea” he
said, “but part of me didn’t want the delay. The other part is saying “You mean
git. He’s probably, like us, seen no-one
all day and you have just robbed his children of their supper”. While debating
the merits of jebel tea shops vs a Lyons Corner House, we realised that we
weren’t going to make Erg Chebbi today. We decided to backtrack, spend the
night with old friends at Maddid, and have a cup of tea anyway.
The tea tent was nothing more
than that, and we were the only “customers”. However, Mr Laaguid El Kacimi was
very happy to see us and provided conversation and the usual ceremony. We
debated the merits of China
vs Indian, he loaded the pot with more sugar that we’d normally absorb in six
months and we exchanged life stories, family history and job descriptions. In
one corner of the tent – about 3 metres square – was a tray that instead of
being full of eggs, was loaded with tomatoes, and pretty dodgy-looking
specimens they were. We asked what he made from them, thinking they were part
of the foodstore. He explained that he fed them to the mice, and this kept them
away from his flour store, so he would have “good bread”. Laaguid is a game
warden and spends weeks at a time in this spot, looking after the wildlife –
mainly birds – and stopping illegal hunting. His “patch”, he showed me, was
quite extensive. In fact, we didn’t need to go outside; all he needed to have
said was look all around you, horizon to horizon. That was his bailliwick.
After an hour, we offered to pay, but he looked most offended – “ You are now
my friends. Friends do not pay”. Sue gave him some Walker’s
Shortbread we’d saved for occasions like this and I left 10Dh “for the
children”. He seemed embarrassed.
Minutes later as we drove away,
so were we. The “tea shop” advertised as the “Café Sahara” was, on another sign
we hadn’t seen, now indicated with a westwards pointing arrow, 12 km further
down the track. We had, unintentionally, invited ourselves into someone’s home…
We spent a very pleasant
evening in the company of the guys who own and run Camping Karla at Maddid. We
stayed there for a couple of days last year, having been “intercepted” on the
road south by Atman who was out scouting – touting – for trade. This year, as
we reached the tarmac and pulled over to sort out a minor - or so we then thought – electrical
difficulty, a Toyota 4x4 pulled up
in front of us. Out climbed our old friend Atman, who arrived at my window with
the same sales pitch we’d heard last year…”best campsite in Morocco, hot
showers, good restaurant…” I stopped him mid-flow and took him around to the
back door, as they say. He was clearly confused, but when I pointed out our
“Camping Karla” sticker, suddenly the penny – or should I say the Dirham –
dropped….”It must’ve been the beard” said Sue later.
The shower was welcome. The
mossies weren’t, and it’s the only place in the whole country we’ve been
bothered by them. They don’t bother Mike much, but Sue has a pretty violent
reaction – and I don’t mean slapping them dead – to the bites. We were more
than happy, then, to have dinner – a delicious tagine – in the bug-free
restaurant and to share varieties of
liquid refreshment with the whole crew afterwards. Atman, Mohammed, Hakim and
Ishmael all turned up, joined later by Abdul. Abdul is the local taxi driver
who’d been engaged to collect –and deliver to the party – a selection of local
wines, which he stayed to help us enjoy. He’d finished for the day and would sleep
on the floor…When we left the next day we worked out that the meal had cost us
£4 each and the wine was to match us for the Spanish beer and Scotch whisky
we’d provided. We got the better deal by far, not to mention the free language
tuition.
Atman & co would like to
expand their business, and are well aware that the internet is the way to do it
nowadays, but are struggling to get their heads around the way to advertise.
They all speak several languages – Hakim speaks English, Spanish, Portuguese,
Italian, some Dutch and, of course his native, French and Dharija Arabic. Apart
from the Dutch, he’s pretty competent in most of them. So what’s the problem?
Well, the problem for them is they can’t read nor write a word of any of
them. None of them went to school, and everything they know of other tongues
they’ve picked up by talking to tourists. I wish I had that kind of memory.
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