The Ship’s Log: 22nd April to 2nd May 2018.
The
Answer is …
…blowin’ in the wind. Like us. This update follows over a
week and a half of living “au sauvage” – out in the cuds, basically – and
without any internet access. This alone would, apparently, be the End of the
World for some people, but we haven’t missed it at all. This is because we’ve
been too busy just trying to stay comfortable and civilised.
 |
| Not a distress signal, just the laundry. |
To sum it up, we’ve abandoned 2 of our Objectives – the Mauritanian
border and the Tropic of Cancer. Why, you might ask…? The Answer? It’s blowin’
in the wind…and it’s been increasing in strength and annoyance for the last 10 days.
I think our last attempted blog entry was about 9 days ago, but went
unpublished since we hadn’t got the photos ready. Since then we’ve been
fighting the effects of an increasingly strong north-westerly wind, sometimes
at gale force.
We’ve had to choose carefully how to park – Mike arranges it
so his door is slightly downwind so he can get out and open Sue’s door against
the gale, otherwise she can’t get out. Park the wrong way and there’s a risk of
damaging a door as it gets forced against the hinges by the wind – assuming
that you’re strong enough to control it as it opens. If we don’t point nose-on
to the draught the whole set-up catches the air like a sail and rocks about all
night. Not good. The net result of these conditions is we’ve been fully
occupied in the essentials of life – keeping secure, warm (yep, it gets cold
here), clean and fed and Elly suitably maintained, and there’s been no time or,
to be frank, inclination to do anything else. We did try, a day or two ago, to
write something but the windblown dust was clogging the keyboard and
threatening to put this laptop out of commission for the rest of the trip, so
we gave up.
Oh, and this was being done in the passenger seat as The
Chef carried out her duties Down The Back – and the racket from the wind was
such we could only communicate by shouting. The mouse was in my pocket and the
laptop on my – as designed – lap. Elly was rocking around like a Dutch barge in
a North Sea swell and the tent was flapping like a slack
sail in a Force 9. Appropriate weather for a “May Day” entry, perhaps.
2nd May. A lazy breakfast, a strip wash in the
sunshine.
 |
| Rest Day - in the oued south of Tamassoult |
The wind has dropped, thank goodness. The previous scribble
was last night and probably the most violent yet for buffeting us around. The
rush of air down the canyon –we tried to get some shelter in the deep gorge of
the oued, but it just acted like a wind tunnel – could be heard
approaching like the proverbial “oncoming train”. When it hit us the racket
made it impossible to have any kind of conversation, but it would sometimes
stop, completely, with no gradual dying down. Weird, almost as if someone had
thrown a switch. Sometimes the silence would last a minute sometimes a few
seconds, then the next blast would arrive. The effect was like being
blindfolded in a boxing ring- you know you’re going to get hit, but not when
nor how hard….the anticipation is actually the most disturbing thing; if it
blew a gale all the time you’d probably get used to it. As I said earlier, this
has been going on for over 10 days and we were both getting pretty tired of it,
so much so that we haven’t bothered with a rest day in that time- no point, if
all you can do is huddle in the cab. We tried to set up the rear awning but
even using about a ton of rocks we couldn’t weight it down enough to stop it
taking off like a kite, so this morning has been the first time since
Ouarzazarte that we’ve been able to have our toast and tea sitting down, not
sheltering behind the back door. I don’t mind sand in my shoes, but not keen on
it on my jam!
So, time today to do some catching up.
If anybody is actually following our progress then they’d be wondering what has
happened to us. Maybe. Ten days or so of Dear Diary isn’t going to make good
reading and we can’t really recall all the details now, anyway. Sue keeps a
regular pencilled log in a notebook of “Where, What, When” so we’ve got a
starting point, but the days tend to become a blur of memories and experiences,
often in the wrong order. However, for the sake of some kind of order, here’s
the Ship’s Log excerpt for the period 23 April onwards….
But first, this is
the bit, referred to earlier, that we did on the night of 22nd April:
We left the site at Ouarzazate yesterday morning after a sleepless night, feeling decidely "average". The previous night's storm hadn't been conducive to sound slumbers, so we were fairly tired and looking forward to a good night's rest. Unfortunately...well, all part of the local colour, I guess, but unwelcome in our condition...a political rally-cum-rave had us listening to bongo drums until 2am. The Muezzin kicked off at 4, the cockerel at 4-30 and the peacocks provided the infill all night. The dogs were, by comparison with their normal activity, practically silent. Sue asked at one point if peacock was "good eating".
We got up early, packed up and went into town to refuel and stock up with our chosen tipples from the wine shop next to the "Supermarche" . For anyone unfamiliar, Morocco hasn't banned it but it can be hard to find over the counter. The shop opposite Dimitri's restaurant is the only place we know where it can be bought at a reasonable price and in any quantity. Other than hotel bars,where it's an extortionate price, it doesn't seem to be available anywhere else.
Returning to the site we picked up a family from Kent who'd not done any off-road trips before and had asked to tag along on our transit westwards, just for the day. We'd replanned our route so we could drop them off on a major road at the end, and spent half an hour on the way back from the shopping trip scoping out the beginning of the track, since the description in The Bible didn't make any sense now that there's been a lot more road work. It wouldn't look good to get lost trying to find the first waypoint, would it?
The route turned out to be a really good mix of all the major features of Moroccan off-road touring. We began on tarmac, graduated to graded road, a bit of washboard, then "regular" piste and eventually to rocky oued beds and loose, rocky ascents in narrow defiles. We tried to give them a taste of what some of the longer routes might be like, and some experience of dealing with it. Lunch was eaten alongside an oued bed with its own pool of frogs and the youngsters got to drink water from a desert well. Experiences you have to get Off-Road to get. Hopefully they enjoyed it. The usual batch of "interceptors" at the end of the track might've spoiled things but they'd been warned, so hopefully kept their windows closed. Sue did the navigating and a superb job, given that Olaf wasn't working for us and the OSM gave too many options. She even managed to avoid being seduced by the confident driving of a pair of horn-blowing, overtaking bikers, obviously intending to go the same way but who carried on past the "critical turn" off the tarmac where we turned onto the sand. They passed us again a while later having realised their mistake, but not quite so cockily this time. Points scored.
We left our guests on the N10 near Anezal and set course solo for the Tizi-n-Melloul /Tizi-n-Tieta pass and MH7 in reverse. The road stretched ahead as fast tarmac and continued like this for 2 hours, so we were beginning to think it would go all the way. The smooth surface stopped abruptly, though, in a tiny hamlet and we continued uphill on loose stones and dust. At this stage a young chap of about 12 appeared, waving his arms madly as if to signal that we'd taken a wrong turn. This had happened earlier in the day and saved us some complicated re-routing in a tiny, narrow-street village, so we stopped. Having brought us to a halt, he then proceeded with the usual requests. Actually, no, not requests. What he said was "Je demande stilo". This has happened earlier too, and we'd hardly believed what we'd heard. This time, Mike gave him an earful:
" You "demand"? You don't think you should say "I would like, or Please give me?..shame on you! Go away!" All this in a mix of French and Arabic and we thought it'd had the desired effect initially, but then we were aware of catcalling and 2 unwanted passengers hanging onto the ladder at the back. Feeling like a scene from a Western with the Apaches climbing on the back of the stagecoach, John Wayne and Annie Oakley tried to gently shake them off. One of them dropped away pretty quickly but his mate clung on for quite a while. Given that every second was giving him a longer walk home he eventually gave up and hopped off as we slowed for a sharp uphill bend. Sue saw him in the dust, picking up a rock which he threw after us. Luckily with our retreating vector and increasing altitude his missile didn't have the legs to make contact. Should've chosen a smaller stone. One of the Indians did succeed in damaging one of the wheel arches, trying to climb onto the roof. A small consideration given the damage they might've inflicted on us compared to what we could impose on them - and get away with it.
With that little incident behind us we needed to get a good few miles away to be sure the little buggers wouldn't come calling later. We found the "idyllic camping spot" described by Scott on the col between the 2 passes at about 8500 feet of elevation...you know what that means, right? We'd bought ourselves a quiet night with the currency of heat. The temperature dropped to close to zero and we cuddled together for warmth....
As we sorted ourselves out for the night, we had some visitors.
An old chap and, we guess, his grandson spent some time with us shortly followed by two of their fellow shepherds, who we nicknamed "Derek and Clive". The first pair understood our Arabic perfectly, the second didn't seem to. In fact they didn't even seem to get any language we attempted to use to talk to them.
Eventually we worked out that their Berber dialect was close to what we knew, but not close enough. Added to that our pretty dodgy pronunciation and we were all on a loser. We managed to get some new words out of the encounter, though, and they got a couple of beers, so a fair trade.
Monday 23rd - onwards to the Tizi-n-Tieta pass – as far as we can tell. Derek and Clive returned this morning to watch us pack up. They sat about 5 yards away, said not one word, and observed proceedings with interest. As we rolled of the chocks, Clive asked, with sign language, if he could have a go at driving. Since even a minor incident might have serious consequences for us, Mike said "No". A pity, it would've been fun...perhaps!
We anticipated that today we'd find ourselves back on lower ground fairly quickly, but 'twas not to be. We followed the obvious piste down but this was bisected by a new road and had no obvious continuation beyond, so we took the road.
4 hours of twists, turns, hairpins and tiny villages later we finally found some names on roadsigns that we could recognise from the map. Since the spelling isn't consistent and the locations often approximate we really haven't been able to fix our position even having stopped for the night.
We know where we are in general terms, of course, but as far as pointing to "us" on the map - not a hope! So, perhaps for the first time and hopefully not the last, we're travelling "more in hope than expectation" and don't really care where we are.
Askoun. Issoual. Driving SW and going down. Ssloumte. Azrou. Ousra.
Found tarmac at 1240 near Iguidi having negotiated their souk. We’d moved aside
in the narrow street to allow a double-decker truck loaded with gas cylinders
to “pass”. He didn’t. He stopped alongside us and the “shop” he was delivering
to was on the other side. The other side of us,
that is. The next 5 minutes had us watching with bated breath as 25 kg butane
gas bottles were tossed from the top of the truck 8 feet above to waiting arms
below – across our bonnet and windscreen.
There followed another 5 minutes as
the process was repeated with the thankfully smaller empties, but in the opposite direction.
Nobody fumbled. We escaped unscathed. A credit to the Moroccan cricket team.
Bread replen in Oswiya and found a very pleasant camping
spot in a cedar forest overlooking a lake about 5 kms from Aoulouz. View from
the bedroom included our own castle.
A tent a mile away across the lake, otherwise deserted. Fixed
broken door latch with locking wire. This involved dismantling the inner trims
which we managed to achieve without breaking any of the pesky little plastic
“Christmas tree” clips – another masterpiece of Solihull
design. Can’t get the window winder handle and it’s equally silly wire clip to
engage, so another minor annoyance to cater for – need to be careful we don’t
lose it in the sand one day.
Tuesday 24th – Left late as had long chat with
aforementioned tent occupants who had appeared, walking out.
Two very pleasant and
educated Moroccan chaps who spoke pretty good English and were able to explain
why our Darija wasn’t understood by everyone - there are about 6 versions of it
used by Moroccans and most of them don’t understand what the rest are saying
anyway, so they use French. We repaired their broken tent pole and they taught
us some new words – a good trade.
Cloud. Rain.Taliouine. Locals using anything available to shelter
from wind and rain – one woman had what looked like a tin bath on her head.
R106 to Igherm to pick up a route from Gandini’s guide book (5c and 5b).
Asrouks. Place names have different spellings, not just from the guide book and
the maps, but also between road signs, where there are any. Surrounded by
Djebel.
Sue was having to translate the guidebook, monitor the Garmin, write the log and keep the tripmeter updated while feeding Mike with jelly babies. A busy day.
Hairpin bends on track no wider than one vehicle – glad
no-one coming down the other way. Cold (14C). Huge panoramas. Camped just off
the track under Argan trees – the only flat spot we’d found all afternoon.
Wednesday 25th – cut in rear OS tyre. On the
sidewall and not too deep, holding air so we won’t change it yet but it’ll be
an MoT fail when we get home. 3 bolts loose in front drive flanges – odd, as
all threadlocked, but all torqued up anyway. Used no oil or water in the
engine, no leaks from anywhere either. Looking good. Awning frame socket broken
and repaired with tape – a poor design that we can improve. Fridge working very
well and just sipping energy. Nice cold beer!
Started Gandini’s 5c at Azerfine late morning. Met tarmac at
Km 53 and felt cheated that new road building had eradicated a lovely piste,
but this only lasted until Km 69 and was only in place to help the locals climb
the very steep mountainside.
Reverted to piste and
had a great day following the route, collecting water at a well and chatting to
very friendly locals.
Aiming for Tizi Ougouz pass at 1395m. Some parts of the
track concreted, no wider than before, smoother but not level, so making good
speed but Elly is pitching and rolling like a galleon under full sail. Each
hairpin bend reveals another incredible vista, stretching into the hazy
distance.
Still going up – a never ending climb. Lots of small
villages with women and children who made no attempt to approach us but all
waved a greeting – very different from the areas where tourists normally go.
Garmin has now given up! We have no ability to input waypoint info to our
gadgets so are making point-to-point progress by comparing where we are (GPS)
to where we want to be, and using Mental Dead Reckoning to assess a course.
This doesn’t always tie in with where the track appears to go or the compass
reading, so a couple of wrong turns were inevitable. Making positive progress,
though, as (mostly) the way is pretty obvious. Track becomes rougher, took a
wrong turn near Tandenst-we think – and had a conference over lunch – do we
press on or retrace? Decided that as we were exploring, not touring, we’d go on
and see where we ended up. Villages now deserted apart from the occasional dog
or donkey. Siesta time?
Finished the route at or near Anamer around mid afternoon. A
superb experience and in itself worth the £40 the book cost. Picked up Gandini
Route 2a/b (Igherm to Ait Abdallah) and found a
camping spot with some shelter – but not a lot - and saw a fox working for his
supper amongst the rocks.
Thursday 26th – Back on tarmac, Igherm to Tafroute, reached
at midday. Shopped for chickens,
bread, water and veg. SW on R104 towards Tiznit. Water for washing drawn from a
well, added to the washing machine (already loaded with our smalls) and small
jerry, lashed onto the roof to heat up for later.
Lots of folk around
today, mainly what appeared to be family groups. The women were always laden
with huge bundles of sticks, grasses or something on their backs –sometimes
including children in amongst the load – and the men and older boys walking
ahead, unburdened by domestic luggage….some caustic comments from The Soup
Dragon here.
Picked up Gandidni’s 14c, which goes from Ifrane to Amtoudi
as a springboard to find a camping spot, which we managed to do far enough from
the road. We’re in an abandoned nomad camp for an alfresco shower – on
the downwind side of a windswept Elly. We stood on Elly’s rubber floor mats and
soaped each other down….feels sooo good to be clean.
Friday 27th – Scott’s MO2 route. An early start to run
down to Guelmin and on to the Atlantic
Coast road down towards our
southern objectives –the Tropic of Cancer and the border. Lots of people about
again today but now dressed in “Sunday clothes”, as we might say. Very sparkly
and colourful – and that was just the blokes. Obviously a holiday for most, although
the road gangs and souks seem to be as busy as ever. In fact, far more
commercial activity visible today, with pavement stalls and ad-hoc jumble-sale
type setups everywhere. Butchers are closed, though….
Soup Dragon is looking forward to hitting Guelmin and its
Marjane supermarket – the equivalent in her mind of Harrods. Anyway, retail
therapy high on the agenda today. It wasn’t a good idea, then, for a
moped-riding “guide” to suddenly appear in close formation on our left as we
negotiated a critical roundabout in the middle of town. His sudden appearance,
yelling “Where you go? You go to TanTan? You going wrong way. I show you”
through Sue’s window made Mike swerve right to avoid hitting him, but he just
followed the manoeuvre, forcing us into an early exit from the rond-point and into the back streets. He
continued to pursue us, yelling through the window, with Sue getting
increasingly annoyed, particularly as the much hoped-for shopping experience
was looking increasingly unlikely. Now, he might’ve been trying to be helpful,
but when we’ve been intercepted like this before the motives have always been
commercial, so we weren’t interested in entering into negotiations with our new
outrider, despite him now being joined by several more, all offering to show us
the way. To their brother’s carpet shop, probably. By the time we’d worked out
where we were versus where we wanted to go we were on the road out of
town…goodbye Marjane.
One other thing to mention about Guelmin: we saw more old
Landrovers to the square inch there than anywhere else. In the World. Apart
from the assembly line they’d come from, probably in about 1965. They were all
ancient but clearly in daily use, and so many of them we thought we might’ve
arrived in town on the day of the Moroccan Series Owner’s Club annual rally.
Heading west-southwest. Overcast and drizzle – standard
coastal weather in our experience here. And at home, some of the time.
Fuel and essentials bought in TanTan
and then set course for Layounne, 120 miles away. A featureless, dull drive at
the best of times, but with the occasional view of pounding surf on vertical
cliffs.
Noticeable increase in police checkpoints now. Passed
Tarfaya on the main road south with what seems to be a police checkpoint on
every major road junction. They’re always polite, friendly and efficient, speak
French but appreciate our attempts in Darija, and are always confused by Sue’s profession. We’ve settled on medecin de pied for want of a better
description of “podiatrist”. For Mike, they’re happy with “teacher”. While no
hassle, each of these checks take about 5 minutes, sometimes longer if there
are several vehicles or a guy hanging about in a black leather jacket and
Ray-Bans. These, we think, are the supervisors, who can take a bit more
interest in proceedings sometimes, which is always Bad News. Extra time and
quizzing for apparently no real reason. Just ‘cos they can. The guys in
uniform, though, are unfailingly Nice Blokes.
Past Sebkha Tah which we explored last time. 8 hours on the
road now, still a way to go to Layounne, pink air with blowing dust, 25
degrees. Crosswind increasingly difficult for vehicles to deal with, especially
the ones with high – and generally unstable- loads. Almost “180-by-zero"ed by
one truck who’d overcorrected a wind-induced swing and was snaking all over the
road. Windows closed or the cab would fill with dust, so we’re getting very hot
and sticky.
Into Layounne for fuel, filling the jerrycan this time as
opportunities to do so further south might be limited. We now have a 700 mile
range, which ought to be plenty, but….we’re now having second thoughts about
the Mauritanean border “tick”. As we negotiate some major diversions in town,
the OSM app in the Android tablet blows a
seal…file has dumped, no mapping. We find our way out of the maze of streets
that the diversions have sent us into using the compass and MDR,
but the loss of the OSM maps is a major
blow. Signpost to Dakhla, 544 kms. That’s still 20-odd miles north of the
Tropic of Cancer, and a bloody long way to go to the border beyond.
As we left Layounne the windspeed had picked up and was now
in excess of 70kph. Plastic bags and other rubbish were blowing across the road
faster than we were, but not as fast as the sand which was piling up across it.
Saturday 28th. The following morning was no
better. No visible horizon and a pink haze under an overcast sky. We made a
decision: to go south was to chase a dream, take a picture, maybe two, and turn
around to drive 400 miles back again. The book, as they say, wasn’t worth the
candle. As we discussed this decision “upstairs”, there was a change in the
ambient noises “downstairs”. More thud and snort than sandblast and
flap…looking out, we saw we were sharing our camping spot with a passing camel
herd, browsing their way to a late breakfast…all around us.
 |
| A squirrel; or rather, an ex-squirrel |
Anyway, back to the Log. Reluctantly, we decided to move
down to Es Smara and attempt to go south into the desert from there, where it
might be a little less windy but certainly have less traffic to delay us. The
weather and associated road conditions had driven the decision to abandon our
trip further south. In addition the loss of 2 of our navigation aids was a
factor. With no means of putting waypoints into the GPS
and no reliable mapping we’d be wandering about the Western Sahara
desert with nothing more than a position – reliant on the
demonstrated-to-be-unreliable Garmin – an electronic rally tripmeter and a
magnetic compass. Assuming the GPS position
remained good, and how do you check? At best, we’d know where we were but only
a mentally calculated direction to move in to get to somewhere else and with no
idea of what might lie in the way. That form of navigation is OK on a flat
feature, but a bit dodgy in terrain interrupted by all kinds of obstacles.
We’ve tried it before on the Rekkam and it worked there, but the terrain is
different down here. And the consequences of getting it wrong potentially much
more serious.
 |
| A line in the sand....with a lot of politics either side of it. |
We set off in an attempt to see how difficult it might be
but hopefully following an established route with obvious tracks. We used the
position we had for a start point in a guide book which was supposed to be a
piste junction. The GPS said we were there,
the terrain didn’t. No tracks in sight. A square search over 1 km in cardinal
directions revealed nothing, not even an old path. Either the book was out of
date, or something else was wrong. Whatever it was, we couldn’t justify the
risk of going off into the bundo on guesswork and hunches. The wind was getting
worse, the vis dropping. With visions of getting caught in one of the dust-storms
that’d so far missed us, or worse, we retreated to Es Smara and a walled compound
that advertised itself as a “campsite” but had no facilities other than a
hole-in-the-floor loo and running water. And dogs. This was our first “proper
campsite” for a week and offered little more than a wall to hide behind but it
was a welcome relief, if only partial. The rooftent was above the wall! The
place was under construction, apparently by the young owner and his brother.
It’ll be “nice when it’s finished” as they say, but at the moment just about
justifies the 30 dirham (about £2.50) that they were seemingly embarrassed to
charge. Good luck to them though. Some enterprise and design skill in evidence.
One day they’ll be rich.
Sunday 29th – With the limitations of the nav
aids now obvious, we decided to move further north into more “benign”
territory. This would be a better place to practice our Dead Reckoning skills
since the guide books might be more accurate and the tracks better defined, if
we needed them. We paused for a number of police checkpoints where even they
complained of the wind and expressed surprise that we intended going to Mseid
and Djebel Rich– we’d decided earlier - via le piste. We pointed out the rough
line of the track we hoped to find on the map but they didn’t seem to know it.
We soon found out why. Again, the GPS co-ords
of the track might’ve been accurate, but with no track in evidence at the
point, what do you trust? We did find an appropriate roadside marker though…
Coming off the tarmac we drove for a while on the chott just
for the experience of the surface and the tussocky grass clumps, some of which
are probably more solid than they look. We didn’t do this for long, though as
every time we turned onto a more easterly heading the dust caught up with us.
After 30 minutes of gritting our gritty teeth we returned to “N” on the
compass.
Back at TanTan, a quick slurp of fuel and a decision to pick
up Scott again and the MW1 route behind the Djebel Ouarkaziz to Assa via Mseid.
A lot of varied terrain here, with sabkha, wide open sandy plains and rocky
fields. Crossing the old “Polisario” berm we saw the last people we’d see for 2
days apart from a Berber family, of whom more later. Camped at a palm-fringed
oasis after 37kms of dusty progress. Air still full of wailing banshees who
howled all night. Exhausted.
Monday 30th – Sue says, at breakfast – “I think I
can hear a truck”. Mike can’t hear a thing. The result of 35 years of sitting
between jet engines….Ten minutes a later an old Landrover, piled high with
colourful bags, blankets and people, crawls slowly into view. We’re in the
middle of folding the tent away, so Mike waves from the roof and they stop,
dismount, and 6 people emerge from this Tardis. The older of them, a man of
perhaps 60, approaches followed by 2 women and a baby wrapped in a blanket.
Unusually
the younger men stayed back. The usual pleasantries and a halting conversation.
He gets some of our French but speaks none himself. We get some of his Darija
but he struggles with ours…We do get the odd flash of understanding, though,
enough for us to respond to his “Is everything OK, where are you going?” with a
sensible reply in a language he seemed to understand. Mike asks if he can take
a photo, he’s happy but the women less so, but he persuades them, up to a
point.
They didn’t make much attempt to hide their faces when the camera wasn't pointing at them, though, which is not
normal particularly with their menfolk about.
A drink of water –which the younger and very pretty woman spat out – and
they left. As they turned away, she turned back and asked, in sign language,
for something to eat. We gave her half our bread and some oatmeal bars. We’d
already given her 2 toothbrushes and paste. An investment for the child
perhaps? They’d looked at them as if they had no idea what they were for. A
while later, as we departed, we saw them a hundred metres away, setting up
camp. What a life!
There followed a day of challenging navigation for Sue.
Scott’s route description was over 10 years old and very few of his landmarks
now exist, at least if they do, his positions are different to the ones our GPS
was offering. Tracks disappeared in random directions so the choice of which to
follow had to be made on the calculated direction of the next waypoint from
where we were – or thought we were. With a rough bearing and distance worked
out it was possible to pick a point on the horizon and aim at it, using the
tripmeter to record the distance run. Sometimes this corresponded with a track,
sometimes not, but eventually everything seemed to come together well enough
for us to find the little oasis at Km137 for the night. We checked Elly’s
compass with the astrocompass a couple of times to make sure we weren’t being
sold a kipper by inaccuracies, but the vehicle compass has proved to be
accurate to within 10 degrees or so, depending on the cardinal we’re closest
to, except on bumpy – ie stony - ground or corrugations. It doesn’t like the
vibrations and just spins uselessly. Mike even got the sextant – “sun-gun” in
his words - just to see if we could get a decent position using it.
We also had a blowout. Not, unfortunately, the already
damaged OS rear, but the other side. A hole about 40cm long in the sidewall and
a dented rim. We heard the “bang” quite clearly despite all the other din from
the track, engine, wind and stones flying up and whacking the chassis. Mike
reckons the tyre was already deflating when we hit the rock that dented the
rim, but the result was a hot and windy wheel change that took longer than
normal because we had to make sure Elly didn’t get blown off the jacks, it was
gusting so much. So now we’re down to one spare wheel, which is a 100%
improvement over the situation after it happened to us here before. Now we
carry two spares - good insurance and it means we can delay getting the damage
repaired.
Which brings us back to Tuesday 1st May. Having
arrived at this “sheltered spot” late yesterday afternoon, we took stock of the
experiences of the last week. Sue’s learnt a lot about navigation, equipment
and its limitations and how to cope with them. She did so well that the gap in
the berm that we absolutely had to hit yesterday – it’s the only one –she got
spot-on after just using MDR and
Best-Guesswork.
Admittedly, there only seemed to one obvious fault line in
the Djebel ahead through which a pass might go, but when all’s said, we got
there on her directions alone.
So, a lot’s gone on. We’ve been up and over the High and
Anti-Atlas mountains, down part of the Atlantic coast and then back inland to
explore, with meaning or not, the Western Sahara. But
the wind….we kissed off our southern aims because of it.We did get one unexpected picture, though....
 |
| A bit too heavy for a souvenir - One-Ten to TanTan |
Since then, we’ve been running ahead of the gale, trying to
leave it behind us and now it's at last calmed down. We'll spend the rest of the day cleaning up and reorganising the kitchen - again - then move on to Tata tomorrow.
1545. The Chef de Village has just turned up to take our names...very pleasant chap who we'll probably see more of later, as he's the headmaster of the local infant school as well, and will distribute our toothbrush stash to where it'll do most good. He took our fiches and photographed our passports. This is the first time this has happened, so is security increasing? Why?
 |
| Hamza and Mohammed |
4 hours later - le Chef is back, with his 2 sons. We have a long and eventually useful conversation, and they go away with some "little gifts" for the school. We'd have preferred to hand them over ourselves, but tomorrow is a holiday and they won't be in class.
...and school is here, on the left. This is Ighir Smougouen. The R107 piste has been upgraded to tarmac, so this village is now much more accessible to tourist visitors. And their bonbon habits...a good place to donate some free dental care, we thought.
The remainder of our toothcare cargo has been offloaded to a number of happy recipients over the last 2 weeks:
No comments:
Post a Comment