The Paperback of the Blog

I've just published the Book of the Blog in paperback format, which at about 6 quid is a fifth of the cost of the full colour hardback.

The pictures are all still in there but they're black and white.

The Truck's on eBay

The eBay auction for the truck went live last night.

The Book of the Blog: Now Published in Hardback

Due to the wonders of the Internet, I've been able to actually publish the Book of the Blog in glorious full-colour hardback. The 250-page book costs about £30.

The Truck is For Sale!

I'm going to be selling the truck. It'll be put on eBay in due course, but if anybody wants to make me an offer I can't refuse before then, you're welcome to.

See here for details.

And finally... The Book of the Blog

Please sign our guestbook - on the right!

As promised, we've put all the blog stuff, along with many photos and various other bits and pieces, into a book format. Mainly aimed at close friends and relatives, but anybody is welcome to download it.

Just click on this link to get the PDF document. Be aware, this is a 31MB file, so may take a long time to download. If it looks like it's not doing anything, be patient, it's probably trickling through.

By the way, our final mileage tally was just short of 14,000km.

Musings

Things we should have brought but didn’t

• Torque wrench
• Engine & gearbox mounts
• Shock absorber bushes
• One Shot grease
• Tin opener (the first one we bought broke, the second was left in Gambia accidentally)
• Spare tea towels
• Photos of home
• Pepper
• Drawing pins
• Mosquito nets for all the windows & hatches
• Supernoodles
• Spatula (purchased in Spain)
• Better thought-out selection of food
• Spare bulbs for the spotlights
• Toothpicks (essential in endemic mango regions)
• Lots of squash, because it brightens up the water, and it’s really hard to buy in Africa
• Matches (easier to avoid burning your hand when lighting stove)

Things we brought which were a total waste of time

• 4 different hats (David)
• Gallons of moisturiser
• Steering lock
• GPS cable (didn’t work properly)
• Laptop mounting bracket (moved around too much, too hard to hide from police, so sat laptop on engine cover instead)
• 240 PG Tips tea bags

Things we brought which turned out to be really useful

• Baby wipes
• Lots of bin bags
• 50% deet in non-aerosol spray
• Hand Sanitiser (alcohol-based cleaner, needs no water)
• Awning
• Foldaway chairs
• Gaffa tape (for waxing Nicki’s legs)
• Carnet de Passage (useful in all countries south of Morocco)
• Photo printer
• Nicki’s piece of material: used to lie on at beach, used as a towel, used to block exhaust fumes from getting into cab, used to stop seatbelt burning her love handles
• Spare set of engine gaskets
• Spare clutch master & slave cylinders
• Vacuum pump/gauge (for checking vacuum-operated diff and bleeding clutch)
• Decent nozzle for fuel jerry cans which lets air back in as they empty

Places we particularly liked

• The beach at Tujering, Gambia
• Mali town, Guinea
• Niokolo-Koba National Park, Senegal/Guinea border
• Dakhla, Western Sahara
• Nouadhibou, Mauritania, considering it’s basically a big ore terminal
• The desert north-east of Smara, Western Sahara

Places we were particularly unimpressed by

• Rosso border crossing, Mauritania/Senegal border
• Barra ferry terminal / town, north bank of the Gambia river
• Kaolack, Senegal (David didn’t mind so much but Nicki was not a big fan)
• The campsites at Agadir

Recommended food to take (with hindsight)

• Supernoodles
• Squash in large quantities
• Tinned puddings, eg sponge puddings
• Custard powder
• Salt & pepper
• Small amounts of rice & pasta
• Tinned fruit
• Tins of mixed vegetables
• Pasta in sauce
• Packet sauces, eg cheese sauce
• Sandwich fillers in jars
• Tinned tuna
• Baked Beans
• Smash

Recommended food to buy there

• Bread – baguettes everywhere, round flat baps in Morocco
• UHT milk
• Fresh fruit & veg
• Bottled water
• Rice
• Mayonnaise
• Crisps
• Nuts (not as cheap as you’d think)
• Biscuits (varied quality)
• Ice creams

Things you have to remember when you get back

• Don’t finger the bread to try to find a loaf that isn’t stale and doesn’t have ants in it.
• Don’t toot your horn when the traffic lights go green.
• If somebody is driving like an idiot, it’s not because they are used to a different method of driving, or that there’s a cultural difference, it’s because they’re an idiot.
• Don’t talk about people out loud assuming they probably can’t understand you.
• Drive on the left!

Nice things about being back

• When you have a shower, you don’t have to worry about the water going cold or running out altogether.
• There’s nice food in the fridge and it hasn’t gone off.
• The cheese isn’t Laughing Cow.
• You’re not likely to get malaria.
• Mobile calls and texts are cheap again.
• Nicki doesn’t wake up, look across and think “Oh no! I’ve pulled a man with a beard!”
• The putty on the car windows isn’t melting.
• All your stuff and your living space isn’t totally covered in red dust.
• You don’t have to give out pens to the officials at the border.
• Everything’s really green!

Things we learned

• West Africa is not a dangerous, edgy place to travel. We even heard of somebody who’d been through Liberia and said it was fine. There may be occasional dodgy areas, like any part of the world, but I’d say on average it’s no less safe here than in Somerset.
• However, malaria is a serious risk. Each year, British tourists to Gambia die of it. While we were in Morocco, a Polish traveller in Ghana died of malaria.
• Bush camping is more comfortable than camping in a campsite, in every respect we can think of.
• It’s quite hard to work out who is trying to rip you off and who is just being friendly. Unless they use a giveaway phrase like “It’s nice to be nice” (see below).
• The Mandinka for “white man” is “toubab” – but we didn’t get the hang of the more complicated word for “black man”.
• It’s useful to pick up French-speaking hitch hikers when crossing French-speaking borders.
• The roads and pistes here really do pound the daylights out of your truck.
• “Ciel” bottled water is made by Coca-Cola and is bottled tap water, somewhat like their Dasani fiasco in UK. It’s the only bottled water we actually disliked the taste of.
• The little sturdy-looking brown & black goats fart something chronic.
• You should write down your passport & vehicle details on a sheet of A4 and photocopy it, to give to police checkpoints as a “fiche”.
• The Moroccans north of Tiznit are out to get your money. Possibly all of them, but certainly the vast majority.
• If anybody says “it’s nice to be nice”, “it’s good to be good”, or even worse, “it’s nice to be important, but more important to be nice”, then you can guarantee they’re NOT going to be good or nice. Ideally run these people over straight away.
• Dollars are useless in West Africa. Euros are a much better bet. Travellers’ Cheques are a pain to change because you have to use a bank in most places. Euro cash is king here. I wish I hadn’t brought any dollars at all, and had brought mostly cash and only a small amount of Travellers’ Cheques for emergencies.
• You get much less hassle in the tourist-centred souqs if you go in the middle of a World Cup football match.

Useful information on countries

Just a few notes on some things we could have done with knowing before we got there, but which weren’t in the guide books. I recommend reading Sahara Overland, by Chris Scott, and Africa Overland, by Bradt Travel Guides; the Michelin 741 map; and, by default, the Lonely Planet guide for West Africa.

Morocco & Western Sahara

Money

The currency is Dirhams, currently about 15 to the pound.

Travellers’ Cheques can be changed in banks, but take your original receipt with you. Cash can be exchanged at banks too. The Moroccan way to queue is to leave a document in the long line of documents on the counter to mark your place; be prepared for a long wait, although some banks have a separate counter for money changing so ask first.

Moroccan Dirhams are restricted currency, so don’t take any out of the country with you as you won’t be able to exchange it away from the borders.

Vehicle Insurance

I got a Green Card from my insurer (cis.co.uk) which covered me for Morocco. This cost £30 but also covers various countries in Europe.

Camping

There are plenty of campsites around, and you can buy a book in French which lists all of them, including GPS coordinates. This is available in some campsites and some Marjane hypermarkets. Bush camping is not legal but in Western Sahara it’s very straightforward, because you can pull off the road and disappear into the desert where nobody cares less.

Water

The easiest way to get water is in campsites. Some have a separate tap for drinking water.

Mauritania

Money

The currency is Ouguiya, currently about 500 to the pound.

Cash can easily be changed on the black market; you won’t have any problems finding somebody to change it for you. You get a better rate from the touts than the bank, but negotiate. Travellers’ Cheques can only be changed in banks, or in some exchange counters during bank opening hours only.

When you arrive at the northern border, you may have to declare “all” your cash (ie as much as you feel like declaring), and you will be expected to get receipts for any money you change, to show you’ve exchanged using the official channels. However, some of the black market exchangers will be able to get an official receipt for you anyway. We found when we left the country, we weren’t asked to turn in the receipts after all, and when we went north through Mauritania we weren’t given a form at all. So it doesn’t seem like it’s that important.

Don’t take money out of Mauritania as it’s totally useless anywhere else, and nobody will exchange it apart from touts at the border, who will give you lousy rates.

Vehicle Insurance

This is specific to Mauritania and must be bought from an insurance office, in all major towns including Nouadhibou and at the Rosso border compound. The insurance offices in towns are only open weekdays and generally close at lunchtime on Friday, so if you arrive at a weekend you’ll be immobile until you get insurance, which will probably be checked at the first police checkpoint. It costs around €20 for two or three weeks.

Camping

There are campsites in major towns. Like Western Sahara, it would be easy to bush camp, particularly in the north of the country where you’re unlikely to bump into anybody who cares.

Water

We got our water from campsites; for example Camping Sahara in Nouakchott has drinkable water from an outside tap.

Senegal

Money

The currency is West African Francs, CFA, currently about 1,000 to the pound.

Easy to change in banks and exchange outlets. If the banks are shut, various shops and other places will change cash for you, for reasonable (negotiable) rates; ask around or some local hassler will find one for you.

Vehicle Insurance

At the Diama border, a wise old lady will issue you official insurance which, if you wish, can cover the ECOWAS countries, ie all of the countries in West Africa south of Mauritania: Senegal, Mali, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Benin, Togo, Niger, Cape Verde and Nigeria. This saves worrying about insurance anywhere else. I presume Rosso has similar, but more aggressive, facilities.

Camping

There are campsites in some of the larger towns, but not always: for example, in Kaolack we had to shoehorn ourselves into the gateway of a third rate Auberge. Bush camping seems straightforward as long as you keep out of people’s way.

Water

We didn’t get water in Senegal so we have no idea.

Gambia

Money

The currency is Dalasi, currently about 50 to the pound.

Money can be exchanged in banks. Touts will offer to exchange money at the borders, but they’ll give you a lousy rate and it’s not necessary. Camping Sukuta will exchange money too.

You don’t need Dalasi for the Gambia River ferry crossing from Barra to Banjul, because you’ll be expected to pay in CFA if you are in a European vehicle.

Vehicle Insurance

Gambia is an ECOWAS country so can be covered by insurance bought in one of the other ECOWAS countries.

Camping

Camping Sukuta is the only campsite we saw in Gambia, although Tony is trying to change that. Bush camping is fine if you keep out of people’s way, or make friends with a local and park outside their compound.

Water

The villages have wells, which you can use to fill your jerry cans; some of the water is of drinkable quality and the metal hand-operated pumps apparently have built-in filters, but you can always throw some Puritabs in to make sure.

Guinea

Money

Guinea also uses West African Francs, CFA, at around 1,000 to the pound.

You can easily exchange cash on the black market. We exchanged $300 in the petrol station in Koundara. Be aware of what the current rates are, such as shown on www.xe.com/ucc. We didn’t try to exchange Travellers’ Cheques in Guinea.

Vehicle Insurance

Guinea is part of ECOWAS so insurance can be bought to cover it as well as the other ECOWAS countries before you get there.

Camping

The best bet is probably to find an Auberge with space for you to park up, or bush camping is very easy.

Water

In the mountains water is hard to come by, so take it with you if possible, rather than drain the already depleted wells. In the lowlands I expect it’s probably like Gambia, but we didn’t fill up there.

Video of 101 in desert

Here's a bit of video of part of our desert route, Semara -> Assa.
The fact that this took 5 attempts was entirely down to the driver!

We're home!

Just a quick note to say, we're safely back. The truck rolled into Bagshot at about 8pm this evening, the only last minute delay being a police check at Portsmouth which ironically took longer than any of the ones we had in Africa.

Over the next couple of days I'll be uploading all the information we talked about, so don't go away folks!

21st June - Bay of Biscay

We're on the ferry on the way home. It's a pretty dismal place. Nicki described it rather accurately as like Butlin's, Saga and Fatfighters all rolled into one. We watched an enormous couple wobbling across the café with two cakes each. Causality eat your heart out.

Yesterday's highlight for me was dinner, for which we went to the buffet, but the ship was porpoising quite a bit in the swell, so Nicki lasted for precisely one bread roll before retiring to our cabin, rather whiter than when she went upstairs. The view from the restaurant was over the bows, so periodically everybody rushed to the window to look at dolphins leaping out of the water. Nicki was on deck when they announced a dead whale floating past, but we've not seen a live one.

I went to update the Book of the Blog with all our photos, but after a while, Microsoft Word crapped out and won't edit the file because it's got too big. I'm hoping it'll work on the trusty Mac at home, otherwise I'll have to start again, which would be most frustrating as it was really coming along. In the evening I watched the first half of the England match, then we listened to the rest on the in-cabin radio.

Last night our cabin was 30°, despite the heater setting being turned right down. They sent out a repair man who made it better for a while, but then it packed in again. I tried a shower but there was no cold water. A bit annoying bearing in mind the ferry's not exactly cheap. In the end they moved us to another cabin, regrettably not upgrading us in the process. We both slept better than we have for ages.

Right now we're just counting the hours until we arrive. According to the captain we're about to join the eastbound shipping lane to enter the Channel.

Supplemental

Abby emailed me about another traveller, a Polish lady, who started hitch-hiking across Africa in January, taking pretty much the same route we wanted to take, but who adventurously went on through Liberia and Ivory Coast.

The tragedy is that she died ten days ago in Ghana from malaria-related complications.

Her blog makes fascinating reading.  http://www.kingafreespirit.pl/

19th June - Bilbao

Nicki reporting her last blog!

I have to start with last night. After we posted the blog and had showers and baths, we headed off to the restaurant for dinner. Before we went in we consulted our guru behind reception (Anne) about where we should eat and she recommended we try a small restaurant around the corner because as it was Sunday the hotel restaurant would have a limited menu. So we went for a short walk to the place which seemed nice but lacked a little in atmosphere, so (glad of the walk) we returned to the hotel after all. We had a lovely meal as it turned out, we both had wild boar and enjoyed the bread and olive oil and sparkling water. I had a glass of red wine, which, on trying a sip, David then ordered a bottle of. Yes, I was sitting opposite the non-drinking vegetarian who was eating wild boar and drinking red wine!! We then finished off with delightful puddings and following this instructed our waitress on what a cheese board was, and she duly asked the chef who created one for us! Overall it was a lovely meal and was the first proper meal we had had for weeks. We retired to our clean sheeted beds and slept like logs.

I awoke this morning to David saying 'what time does breakfast finish because its ten to ten!'. So I legged it out of bed to catch breakfast before it finished, which again was lovely and huge but a bit expensive, so I think I will have to go without tomorrow! We lazed around most of the morning watching TV and using the internet before heading out for a bit of sightseeing. We navigated our way to the Guggenheim Museum to find it was shut on Mondays. Great!!! Typical! Oh well, we thought, we will go to another museum. No, they are all shut on Mondays except the bullfighting museum which neither of us wanted to see anyway! Why would everything be shut on Monday?! So we headed to the centre of town and found an H&M, so we went in and I advised David on some clothes which he bought.

We started to get bored of all the Spanish boutiques after a while so we headed back to the hotel and had lunch in their cafeteria. This was after David sprinted up to the room to change into his new clothes! Our afternoon consisted of lazing around in our lovely hotel room, watching TV, using the free internet and having baths and showers again. We are now waiting for the restaurant to open so we can repeat last nights lovely dinner! It is possibly one of the best birthday/Christmas presents I have ever had!

18th June - Bilbao

Please sign our Guest Book – click on the link to the right.  Thanks!

The El Greco campsite in Toledo generously laid on a live band last night.  This being Spain, of course, they played until quite late in the night, and were pretty loud, so neither of us got to sleep at a reasonable time.  So when the alarm went off this morning, it was promptly silenced.  With one thing and another, we left at 10am, having filled up with fuel from some of our remaining jerry cans.

Another long day of driving isn't much to write about.  It was hot, it took a long time, the scenery was quite nice.  You do notice that the Spanish roads are still large and empty though.  There was an element of irony when I emptied our last jerry can of fuel into the truck, then a couple of hours later nearly ran out of fuel because we couldn't find a petrol station.  I'd have been a bit peeved if we'd run out of fuel, having carried 220L of spare fuel around for the last 15,000km!

We had decided to treat ourselves to a hotel in Bilbao.  Partly because we've been living in a truck for three months, but also as a birthday present from me to Nicki, as she'll be in South America for her birthday and Christmas.  We drove into Bilbao looking for something about 4*, with parking for the truck.  Anybody who knows Bilbao will know that space is at a bit of a premium here, so parking is limited, and all the hotels have underground parking, which are totally useless for us because we can't fit.  We stopped at a couple, and the second one suggested we go to a hotel near the stadium, because there's on-street parking there.

We ended up at the Hesperia Zubialde, which was exciting for a number of reasons.  Firstly, they have a parking area outside which we fit in, and we can use because there are no matches on at the stadium.  And it's free.  Secondly, the room has a BATH!  And a TV!   And Air Conditioning!  It might be hard for anybody who hasn't lived in a 20' truck for three months in African heat to realise just how exciting this could be for us.  The clincher is the free wireless internet access.

So we're tuned into CNN and Nicki's in the shower while I'm writing the blog.  Tomorrow we'll explore Bilbao.  But let me tell you more about the exciting things you'll see on the blog over the next few days!  Can you contain yourself?

I'm currently uploading a couple of videos to Google Video, of some of our truck antics in the desert.  Once these are published by Google I'll post a link for your viewing pleasure.

We've compiled a list of useful stuff to know, the sort of stuff it might have been useful to know in advance, and also some random stuff we just felt like saying.  This'll be posted in the next few days.

Next is our Country Rating Chart.  We've rated the countries we've visited, totally subjectively, on 30 different attributes we could think of, from the quality of the bread to the loudness of the Muezzin.  Adding up our scores gives a ranking for each country.  Will Gambia take the crown?  How will the rank outsider Western Sahara bare up?  Find out soon!

And, saving the best until last, we've spent a while compiling a BOOK out of the blog entries, maps of where we went, lots of photos and other exclusive bits and pieces!  We'll make this available as a free PDF download by next weekend.  It's really aimed at family & close friends but anybody is welcome to download a copy.

Right, I'm off to have a bath, because I can.

17th June - Toledo

Before I tell you about today, here's a quick commercial break.

 

We may be back in Europe, but this isn't the end of the blog!  Over the next few days we have some good stuff to post, including a video of the 101 cresting a sand dune at the fifth attempt, and some info about the various countries we picked up on the way.  It'll take a few days to get all this posted so please tune in for regular updates.

 

Secondly, Si has set up a guestbook.  We've had messages from all sorts of weird and wonderful people, who we never thought would see our blog, so we thought it might be a nice idea to find out who you all are.  PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE take the time to click on the link on the right and sign our guestbook.  Thanks!

 

So, today we drove up all the way from the Costa del Sol to Toledo, which is (a) about half way to Bilbao, (b) a nice town and (c) has a good campsite.  Hours of motorway driving doesn't make for a fascinating blog, but the truck helped liven things up a bit.  Shortly after stopping I noticed the voltage gauge on the dashboard was flicking up and down like an ECG.  It's not supposed to do this, so I pulled over, before anything got fried, and got the multimeter out.  This showed a nice steady 12.8v at the battery, but with the engine running, the voltmeter on the dash was still up and down like a yo-yo.  The implication was that the battery had become disconnected from the alternator somehow, and sure enough, when I turned the engine off, the starter motor was dead, and our hazard lights went out.

 

I grovelled around in the dirt for a while (that rollmat we bought at Camping Sukuta has been worth its weight in gold) and wiggled some wiring, which brought the hazards back into life;  however, when I turned the key to start the engine, everything went out again.  After more waggling, I found that the big spade terminal at the end of the thick cable from the battery to the starter motor is a bit loose, and I think all the dirt we've driven through, plus some soot deposits from where it's probably been jumping across the bad connection, meant the connection wasn't being made any more.  It's not easy to get to to re-crimp, so I fiddled with it until I got a good connection which should last until the UK where I can sort it out properly.

 

The motorways in Spain are large, smooth and mostly empty, so when I get back to the M25 I'll have to remember to keep looking out the front window all the time, otherwise I'll probably pile into something I wasn't expecting to be there.  We had a spot of rain, for the first time in goodness knows how long, and chased rain clouds for much of the day.  Nicki dozed off in the back of the truck at one point, which is one of the benefits of lugging your home around with you.

 

Lunch today was a couple of totally underwhelming sandwiches from a motorway garage.  Mine was an Omelette Sandwich, which was the most vegetarian I could find, but it had ham in it, which rather defeated the point.  The bread was anaemic and soggy.  Nicki's wasn't much better.  Ah, the wonders of mass-produced, unimaginative food.  Give us a stale shrapnel loaf and some Laughing Cow & marmite any day.

 

We're relaxing back in Camping El Greco for tonight and heading to Bilbao tomorrow to stay for 2 nights.  We're about half way up the country, but have to negotiate Madrid in the morning;  luckily it's Sunday so should be quiet.

16th June - Marbella

We, or I (Nicki), had an interesting night's sleep last night, as David was busy snoring away, and because he was feeling ill from eating a dodgy batch of nougat I did not want to wake him. So I slept on the seat in the truck (about 1m in length) till about 3am when David stopped snoring.

 

The decision was made to drive to Ceuta today and cross over to Spain. So we headed off about half nine as it was 90km away, and that was predicted to take about 3 hours in the truck. We delayed ourselves royally by doing a full loop of the town before finding signs to Ceuta, which took us back to a road about two roads away from the campsite. Oops! The scenery was equally impressive as yesterday, although without the fields of hash, and only one person offered us a joint. An improvement on yesterday's few hundred…

 

We followed the windy road and reached our destination in fairly good time. We passed through the Moroccan border with little hassle (far less than when David went the other way through the same border three months ago), so finally we were in the Spanish town of Ceuta. You can tell you have entered a European area immediately, from the standard of cars and infrastructure and the non-existent hassle. There were large supermarkets and Spanish people walking around. We could have been in and Spanish town!

 

While at customs we had a visitor into the truck, a police sniffer dog. He was very cute and jumped in the truck on the word go, sniffed around carefully and then hoped back out again. The only thing he hesitated at was the goat-skin covered drum! He probably does not come across many of them.

 

David bought the ferry tickets and we only had to wait ten minutes to board the ferry. Apparently last time he was at the port heading south it was manic, but it was very orderly and hassle-free today! I dived in the back and made tuna sandwiches for lunch before we left the truck to sit upstairs on the ferry, and we watched Africa fade into the distance and Europe fast-approaching. It almost signals the end of the trip, which is quite sad.

 

We landed and realised, thanks to Dad, that we were now the owners of a restricted currency. For those of you that do not know, some countries place restrictions on their currency preventing you from leaving the country with more than a few pounds equivalent. We did not realise Morocco was one of those countries, until Dad texted us to confirm it was! Oops! More to the point we had about £100 in Dirhams which is obviously no use. Luckily David dived into the ferry terminal in Spain and managed to change it to Euros (albeit at a lousy rate). Phew! That could have been messy.

 

Now we are parked up in a campsite in Marbella. We had a brief stop at McDonalds (I could not resist) in Puerto Banus, and David got quite excited about having a milkshake, as he doesn't partake in any other McDonalds products. However when I ordered one the cashier said they did not have any, and they were not even on the menu. McDonalds have thus dropped even further in David's estimations which, as you might gather as he is a vegetarian, are not that high anyway. I was sitting outside with my book but the sun has gone in and the wind has picked up a bit, so I am back inside the truck.

 

Point of interest: we are now one hour ahead of you, instead of one hour behind! (Caused me some confusion at the ferry terminal when I was checking we were in the right queue).

15th June - Chefchaouen

Our guided tour was rubbish.  The guide turned up late, in a Fiat Punto driven by a mate, not exactly the "tourist car high up so you can see things" that we'd been expecting.  He then drove us through the three towns which make up Fez, past the royal palace without stopping, past the public parks without stopping.  We arrived at a viewpoint where we were allowed to get out and take some photos.  On the bright side, the guide did at least tell us something about what we were looking at.

 

Then we drove straight to the Medina (walled city) and walked at a brisk pace through the various souqs.  If we stopped to look at things, the guide carried on ahead until he missed us, then stood around talking on his mobile phone.  We went to the Wood Museum, which was quite pricey to get in and contained, well, stuff made of wood, mostly from the 20^th Century.  Then we rushed on through the market to a "traditional house" which was in fact a carpet showroom, but it did house the day's first interesting sight.

 

On the top floor, a family of women were weaving a carpet, in the traditional way, hand-tying all the knots.  I've seen carpets being made before, but these people were actually doing it as a way of life, not just in a cack-handed fashion to show tourists.  They beckoned us to sit down and showed us how to tie the knots, although I was pretty rubbish at it, particularly compared to the young girl sitting next to me who did it so quick you couldn't see her hands move.  She had a huge callous across her left hand from the weaving.  Nicki had a go too, and I took some photos, and we left them with a fairly generous tip as I'd run out of small change.

 

Then the hard sell began;  the guy in charge offered me a tea, rushed through the history of the house, and started to unfurl carpets.  I told him straight away that we appreciated his efforts, but we weren't going to buy a carpet.  He then went on about how reasonable they were and how we could buy two, sell one in the UK and pay for the other one with the proceeds;  of course, we still didn't want to buy a flaming carpet.  He wasn't exactly aggressive, but he was certainly forceful, and liked to talk loudly bordering on shouting.  It gets annoying when people won't take no for an answer though.  My tea arrived at length so I drank up and we left.  It was about this time that our guide, who was obviously on commission, just about gave up altogether.

 

On we rushed through the souqs, stopping to eye up bananas (too expensive), joss sticks (too expensive), dried apricots (too expensive but I bought a quid's worth anyway), and nougat, which was the only thing we looked at where the guy was charging a reasonable price and didn't try to rip us off.  Exiting stage left, we waited for our official Tourist Punto to turn up, and off we hurried to visit the Pottery Workshop.  (The guide wanted to take us to the tannery, but one tannery is enough;  again, he was not happy about this, because he was focused on the commission he'd have got if we'd bought anything there.)

 

I found the pottery workshop the second interesting thing of the day.  We were shown round the whole process, from making the clay, fashioning it into tiles, glazing it, firing it, through to the intricate process of marking the tiles and cutting them individually with a hammer into shapes to make mosaics.  Elsewhere, we saw a guy expertly making a tagine on a potter's wheel, and we saw plates being hand-painted, the work being quite impressive.  Here we didn't get such a hard sell;  we were invited to look around the shop, and they did have a couple of nice bits and pieces, but it was actually quite pricey, so I didn't buy anything, but I tipped the guy who'd shown us around.

 

Our wonderful guide then announced that the tour was over.  Apparently we'd seen all there was to see of Fez and that was the best he could do.  When he'd turned up late in the morning, he'd said we could have an extra hour to make up for it, but that all went out the window, and when we protested he accused us of trying to find a reason to complain!  We insisted on going back to see the outside of the Royal Palace again, so when we stopped there, we walked around the area in no hurry whatsoever, saw the palace, and bought some bread.  When we returned to the taxi, the guide had left altogether (apparently his son was ill so he went home), and the driver took us back to the campsite.

 

Nicki wanted to pay less than we'd agreed, as we'd been given a whole lot less than we'd been led to believe, but in the end I thought it would be so much trouble to argue with the guy that we might as well just pay and leave.  In hindsight we should have got him to spell out exactly what we were getting, written it down, and put times to it, but the tour we got in Marrakech was good, so we didn't expect to come such a cropper here.  Interestingly, the other English couple also went on a tour, and they paid more than we did, but they were quite happy with theirs.

 

We had considered going on from Fez to Rabat, the capital, but quite honestly by this time we were getting pretty fed up of the Moroccans, whose sole aim in life is to rip off tourists.  Sod em!  In some ways things haven't changed so much since Mungo Park found the Moors so objectionable 200 years ago.  (In defence of Morocco, I should say that until we got as far north as Agadir, and the tourist trail, we found the Moroccans effusively friendly and charming;  Fez has been a particular nadir of the whole Moroccan experience.)   So instead we decided to head towards Ceuta and the ferry back to Spain.  As we left the campsite, they tried to charge us for an extra night, as we'd stayed past mid-day, but I think the murderous look in Nicki's eyes convinced them otherwise.

 

Our goal for the day was to reach Chefchouan, which entailed another mountain drive.  We navigated across Fez with surprising success, and started ascending through the spectacular Rift Valley mountains.  Here we found many people at the side of the road waved, or even clapped and cheered, and at one point about one oncoming car in three was flashing its lights and waving at us.  As the journey progressed, however, we reached an area known more accurately as the Hash Valley.  This is the centre of Morocco's successful marijuana industry, which accounts for about 85% of UK usage and is worth a staggering $2bn to the country.  Although illegal to farm, the authorities overlook the industry to a ridiculous extent, as great areas of the valley are carpeted with fields of marijuana plants, and you can see the happy farmers harvesting their crops with gay abandon.  The stuff's all down the side of the road.

 

At this point the friendly waves changed into strange gestures which meant "Buy some hash off me!"  To start with it was quite funny, and Nicki even mimed back the Macarena dance to one guy who was making all sorts of odd gesticulations.  However, pretty soon, literally every single man we passed, young, old or juvenile, whether standing by the side of the road or in another moving vehicle, was whistling, waving or shouting at us to try to sell us dope.  The guide book explains that the locals just won't believe that any European passing through isn't trying to buy hash, and that hit the nail on the head.  It got rather tiresome as the hours went by.  I pulled over at one point to stretch my legs, and every single car passing us pulled over to try to sell us drugs.  You can't get a moment's peace here.  In the town of Ketama, it reached epidemic proportions;  a couple of times people actually drove after us and tried to pull us over to sell us dope!

 

Ketama demonstrated to us another Moroccan national past-time, that of people wandering aimlessly down the middle of the road and getting in the way of the traffic.  It's not that there aren't perfectly good footpaths, it's just that pedestrians seem to be oblivious to the fact that there might be vehicular traffic using one of the main cross-country freight routes.  Our air horn generally gets people out the way, although it feels very un-English to be using it.  Ideally it would be nice if the idiots didn't meander down the middle of the road in the first place, particularly when you're following something else and they all fill in behind it.

 

I was getting a bit irritated by this time, and was considering actually trying to run people over, when some guys in an ancient Renault pulled alongside us, greeted us in English, then pulled in front of us and started gesticulating and shouting.  The gist of what they were trying to get across was that they wanted us to pull off at their farm and they'd most generously give us hash, show us photos, etc.  This is the last thing we wanted to do, and would probably have ended up with us being robbed, if not set up with the police, who work in cahoots with the dealers.  The guy drove right in front of us for several miles, going through all manner of song and dance, and of course we didn't have the speed to overtake.  I started to wonder whether it might come to us having to diplomatically ram him if he tried to force us to follow him off the road, or block our route.  Luckily, this didn't happen, and eventually he pulled over, hoping we would too, and we drove on past him.  It sounds dramatic, but it was quite threatening at the time.

 

The mountains don't stop, but the scenery gets even more impressive on the way north.  It was beginning to get dark, and driving on these windy mountain roads with Land Rover headlights at night wasn't a very appealing prospect;  however, the English couple from Fez had tried rough-camping in this area and had been forced to drive on in the middle of the night, having been surrounded by rowdy, stone-throwing youths who were climbing on their van, so we didn't want to stop.  On the bright side, we did get a spectacular mountain sunset, although when I stopped to photograph it, people materialised from nowhere and tried to sell us hash.

 

We made Chefchouan at about 9.30pm.  The campsite is signposted right across the town, which is lucky as you'd never find it otherwise.  The first vehicle I saw as we pulled up was an English-plated Land Rover, so I stopped for a chat.  The couple have driven all the way from Namibia, and are now heading home.  But, by an amazing coincidence, ours isn't the first 6x6 101 they've seen today!  Apparently an English guy in Spain has just finished converting one, and they met him this morning.  Rather astonishing that there are only two of these trucks in existence, and they should see both on the same day, in North Africa.  I was disappointed not to have seen the other one as well, as it would have been great to have compared notes.

 

As Nicki checked us in at the campsite, a hullabaloo erupted outside.  Apparently a rabid mountain dog had just walked into the campsite and was causing a few problems.  This happens frequently, so they knew what to do:  a small child went to capture it on a lead, whereupon the kafuffle increased as the dog started howling and all the other dogs on the campsite went off as well, so eventually the check-in man apologised to Nicki and went out to help.  They loaded it into a van and drove it off somewhere.  The van came back later empty.

14th June - Fez

As we were dozing off to sleep last night in our lay-by, we heard a car pull up, doors banging, voices talking in Arabic, and a torch being shone around.  However, then it all went quiet, and we heard the car pulling away again about 7am.  It seems it was just somebody else looking for a place to bed down for the night like us.

 

Today was one of those fairly unexciting days which I've been looking forward to.  We drove to Kenifra, which is apparently known for its prostitution, and stopped at a web café.  The connection was dismally slow, and after half an hour, neither of us had so much as checked our email.  Then there was a power cut, so rather than start again from square one, we gave up and went to the next place along.  The connection there was fast and the machines new, and it was cheaper too, so all in all, a much better bet.

 

From Kenifra we continued towards Fez, driving through the mountains and plateaus.  Here it's quite fertile, with plenty of corn being grown, so we had to vie for road space with all the combine harvesters and bailers being driven all over the place.  The hills were green with trees, the valleys golden with corn, and the light was particularly good today, with an overcast, sullen sky ahead but sunlight lighting up the areas around us.

 

I took advantage of a comfort break to ring the RAC and upgrade my membership to European cover (all of Western Europe apart from Greece and Portugal, apparently) in case we come a cropper at the last minute.  So all the truck has to do now is last until Spain .  And I have actually recorded the part of the conversation where the guy confirmed that it does cover the vehicle even though it's over 3.5 tonnes!

 

Just as you think you're descending from the mountains, you climb up another one, and in this way we found ourselves in Ifrane, which came as quite a surprise, because instead of the red, brick-built, flat-roofed blocky houses you see everywhere in Morocco, we were surrounded by what appeared to be Swiss chalets with tall peaked tiled roofs.  The roads were lined with trees, and if you took away all the Moroccans you could easily be in a Swiss Alpine town.  It's a ski resort in the winter.  For once we found the campsite with ease, and it was clean, green and friendly.  However, by this time we were debating what to do over the next few days, and one of the options involved pushing on to Fez, not far away.  So after being parked for 15 minutes in the campsite, we decided to leave it after all, much to the disappointment, possibly annoyance, of the guy who said he'd already written down our vehicle details on the check-in forms and everything.  We apologised for leaving, and then, on the way through the gate, I very nearly accidentally ran over his cat, which would have made things much more uncomfortable.

 

Fez was only an hour's drive further.  On our way into the city, we saw a signpost for Camping International, and just at that moment a motorcyclist pulled up alongside us and said "Are you coming to our camping?  Follow me!"  Just for a change it was nice not to have to hunt high and low for the campsite, so we did follow him.  The campsite is a turnout for the books:  it has a swimming pool with actual water in and everything, hot water in (some of) the showers, a bar, and a restaurant.  Because of this it's one of the more expensive we've stayed in, but still only about £6 for the night.

 

Already in the campsite were an English couple who live in Spain, with whom we chatted for a while, and Nicki drank one of their beers whilst I threw a drool-covered tennis ball for their enthusiastic dog Jemma.  We compared notes and exchanged tips, and they kindly lent us their Rough Guide for the evening.  What a coincidence – they too had been intercepted by a motorcyclist and escorted to the camping!

 

We booked to eat at the restaurant, which was expensive (the bill ultimately came to about £13), but very nice.  My "Seven Vegetable Couscous" was excellent, but had a surprise ingredient:  half a chicken hidden in the middle.  The only sour note was when we found we'd been overcharged, and had paid the service charge twice, so we contested the bill, and were told that we had to pay more because we'd eaten in the restaurant instead of round the pool!  This is despite ordering off the "Restaurant" menu, with all the prices clearly laid out, and you could almost argue they could charge more for service except they had also added that on the bottom of the bill!  What did I say about the Moroccans trying to get money out of you at every step?  We put our collective foot down and got a refund of the difference.

 

By another strange coincidence, the chap who had escorted us to the campsite has a "brother" (who, oddly enough, is about twice his age and looks nothing like him) who has generously offered to act as our guide tomorrow.  We negotiated on the itinerary and the method of transport, and he's meeting us in his car tomorrow and taking us around the sights of the city for £15, which seems worth it to save the hassle of all the taxis and to know what we're looking at.

 

Thanks once again for the various texts we get to the satellite phone.  We had one particularly nice one today which was anonymous, so if anybody wants to own up to it, please text again!

13th June - God Knows Where

The first job today was to change the clutch slave cylinder, which is an easy job, although you get covered in clutch fluid in the process. At least now I know where all the fluid had gone, as the old slave cylinder was leaking like a sieve. I had a quick root around the gearbox to try to find where low ratio had gone, but the main gearbox isn’t that easy to access, so I thought, sod it. I also found I’ve lost my brand new 11mm spanner, which I have a suspicion I left hanging off the underside of the truck after the pit-stop in Marrakech.

Note from Nicki: While David was doing the truck I headed off into the market to get some bits. It was quite a hive of activity, with the usual vegetable stands, Coca Cola signs everywhere and people begging for money. A sight I did not wish to see that early in the morning was a few dead goats hanging by their back legs, with their heads still attached… I personally don’t like to see the look on the face of the thing I am eating! I bought some bread and bananas and some popcorn to snack on during our drive later on.

Our campsite was within a short distance of the Cascades (waterfalls) of d’Ouzard fame. First we walked to the north side of the falls, where several little streams of water disappear down into a very large gorge. At the north edge, you can only stand at the top of the gorge, but the views are good. Then we walked round the top of the falls and down the side of the gorge. All down the path is blanketed with gift shops, restaurants and tea places, but all the gift shops sell exactly the same selection. I’ve been on the lookout for a psychedelic cretaceous ammonite since the very expensive ones we saw in Paradise Valley, but this wasn’t the place to find one. Thankfully, nobody here called me Ali Baba, unlike eleven different and unconnected men in the souqs of Marrakech, who evidently thought it was the height of sophisticated wit. Rather like all those irritating touts who say to you “lovely jubbly” and call their camels Michael Jackson. It’s very faintly amusing the first time, and then after you’ve heard it all day, it really gets on your nerves.

Half way down the side of the gorge we spotted a dog, which in itself wasn’t unusual, until I noticed something very odd about it. In the Wanderlust magazine we have with us, there’s a mention of the two-nosed Andean tiger hound, rediscovered last year after being believed extinct. I am not making this up – they have a photo of it in the magazine (April/May 2006, page 11). It’s basically a dog with two noses. And we found its twin on the side of a waterfall in the Atlas Mountains! Mindful that this might be one of the great scientific discoveries of the decade, I took some photos of it, but they didn’t come out that well (typical), and then the dog wandered off anyway. I’ll take a look at them on the laptop later and see if they’re any better close-up.

At the bottom of the gorge there were some nice views back up to the waterfall, and lots of tourists milling around (coach parties from Marrakech). After taking plenty more photos, we started back up the steps. Nicki counted all the way up, and got to 660 steps – that’s quite a few (although some of them are only small ones). Half way up we stopped for a drink, and Nicki didn’t have anything as they only had local-brand Coke, but I asked for “un tasse du thé” – notice the word “un”, not “deux”. So the man brought back two cups of Moroccan mint tea. Nicki stopped him before he’d poured hers out, but of course he still tried to charge me for two cups. I only paid him for one. Nice as they are, the Moroccans try to swindle you at every step, and it gets a bit tiresome after a while.

Back at the top we packed up and went to leave the campsite, although we had to wait ten minutes whilst the owner came back from the souk. He wanted to charge us for the salad we’d had last night – the one they brought me because they’d forgotten my tagine – but we said, we hadn’t asked for it, so in the end he just charged us for the one tagine and the night’s camping, which was a bit more reasonable. He didn’t seem unhappy with it so we don’t feel we ripped him off back.

Off we went through the mountains, although I think we were taking the end of the road the coach parties avoid, because we got lots of waves and even a couple of rounds of applause from children at the side of the road. The scenery was still fairly spectacular, although today was the first overcast day we can remember having, and nice and cool for it. The scenery is positively green in places, and once back on the flat plain we saw hordes of combine harvesters bringing in the harvest. They’re available for rent, complete with driver, helpers and bailing machine, but you wonder what the owners do for the rest of the year?

Our second stop of the day was at Beni Malal, described in our guide book as a small town with a significant market. It appears to have grown a lot since 1997, but we did get out to have a look around the kasbah, souq or whatever you want to call it. It sold mainly vegetables, particularly the whomping great melons we’ve seen a lot of in this area, but there were also some meat stalls selling whole goats, skinless but with or without head; or if you wanted you could just buy the heads separately. We stuck to green beans.

Because the truck hasn’t been entirely trouble-free during the trip, I thought I’d ring the RAC and get my breakdown coverage extended to Spain, just in case the worst happens on the way back. Normal breakdown cover only covers vehicles up to 3.5 tonnes (2.3 tonnes in the case of the AA, apparently) so I have a special “Arrival” policy, available from the RAC to Caravan & Camping Club members, which means they’ll still cover me on the basis that it’s a motorhome, up to something like 7.5 tonnes. So I rang the RAC, and spent 15 minutes on the phone, established it was an Arrival policy, got a quote (£36 for a few days of extra cover, which seemed reasonable), gave them all my details, and he said they’d send the paperwork out. Just before I hung up, I said I just wanted to be clear that I’d definitely be covered as I have a vehicle over 3.5 tonnes. No, he said, what he’d just sold me only covers normal cars… if I wanted European coverage for that weight I’d need a separate annual policy, for £80! What a waste of a 15 minute international phone call – did he think I had the special Arrival policy just for fun, or what? The whole point of the flaming policy, for which I pay through the nose, is that I DON’T have a normal car!

Further north we hit the town of Kasba-Tadla, partly by mistake as Nicki hadn’t noticed that the road we wanted peeled off just before we got there. So we backtracked, picked up the right road again and found El-Ksiba, where we planned to spend the night in a campsite. But, what do you know, the campsite is closed, although we couldn’t quite grasp why. There was an alternative spot where we could camp at the side of the road, which we were told some people use instead, but it was rather public, and also it’s technically forbidden to bush-camp here, so we carried on up into the mountain again, until we spotted a little lay-by hidden behind some trees, and that’s where we are now.

It’s actually quite a nice little spot, nestled in the tree-covered mountains, and a couple of hundred metres above us is the cloud line, so it has the air of a tropical mountain forest; Nicki said it felt like the Congo. I just saw a hummingbird outside, about the size of a bee, the first one I’ve ever seen.

12th June - Cascades d'Ouzard

Nicki again. It was meant to be David, but we just had another eventful moment and he is too annoyed to write the blog! All will become clear…

We turned today into our relaxing Sunday as yesterday was such a busy day. So we had a long lie in, then slowly rose to several cups of tea and (eventually when the man decided to open the shop at nigh-on midday) some croissants.

The original plan was to go to a hotel for the day and sit by the pool and eat in their restaurant, but after a count up of our money we decided we had better not, and David was not too keen on the idea anyway. So instead I bought some bread and made lunch, wrapped up the rolls in cling film and put them in the fridge. We decided to head on a day earlier than scheduled, as we may want to stay longer in a place further on. So we packed up the truck, drove to reception, I jumped out and paid and….. then we realised then banks would be shut till at least 2pm. As it was now 12:30 we reversed and decided to wait for 1 ½ hours.

We read and ate our lunch and then set off for real just before 2pm. We found a bank just off the main road into Marrakech and changed some money, then headed off north-east towards Fes. The scenery was very lush, we passed some olive groves, rolling green hills and farms, plus several small villages. We took a detour to the town of Demnate which our guide book described as ‘a small village, painted all in white cut out of the hillside, with an unusual Kasbah surrounded by olive groves’. We discovered quite a large town with not a white building in sight! I suppose that what happens when you read a ten year old guide book…

We headed on to a cavern 6km further on, that reportedly had huge stalactites hanging from the ceiling. It did, and we took a wander down a small path to take some better photos. We could have clambered over rocks and boulders and gone all the way underneath it, but we didn’t really have time. We pushed on another 60km or so instead to our stopping place for the evening, Cascades d’Ouzard. Our only halt was for an ice cream. When we tried to restart the truck, it wouldn’t start. David quickly thought through it and thought the starter motor might be jammed, so rolled backwards a bit and it started fine, thank goodness.

On arrival in the town we were on the look out for camping spots so were rather pleased when we saw a ‘Camping France’ sign on the edge of the town. We entered the square to see another sign so we continued on. We saw a third sign that said 600m to go, so we continued. After travelling further than what we thought was 600m we spotted another sign with a telephone number on it, and a track leading off to the left. It was quite a narrow track with a drop on one side, but David assured me the truck would fit, which it did. But as we turned a sharp left into a sort of driveway by a house we realised this was definitely not the campsite. As I jumped out to ask two very bemused looking old ladies, David attempted to turn the truck around, on a gravely slope, with a sharp drop behind. I soon realised the ladies did not speak English so went back to jump in the truck, David said ‘quick, the clutch is playing up again’. Oh god. I leapt in, for him to inform me the truck was not going into low ratio gear (which would have allowed us to drive easily up the slope), as well as the clutch acting up, and the fact that with the handbrake fully on the truck was still rolling backwards unless David had his foot on the brake (he says all Land Rovers are like this). So began several attempts to accelerate up the small hill to get back on the road out (that had the huge drop on the side). We made slow progress as David revved the truck as hard as possible with the hope the clutch didn’t burn out, with intermittent slides backwards towards the drop behind. Another ‘tense’ moment in the truck. Eventually we did it, but needless to say we were both a bit worried and David was just slightly angry! We nearly ripped the misleading camping signs down on the way out but resisted, and returned to the small village we had originally passed through to another campsite we had seen. It is more just a car park really, but there. On the way we passed the camping 600m sign and noted a small arrow left in the corner, well they should make their arrows bigger!!

Conclusion: the truck and David are not on speaking terms. He has a spare clutch slave cylinder which he will fit tomorrow, and he’ll take the other gearbox apart to see why low ratio isn’t engaging. We are heading north through Morocco anyway so hopefully we can convince the truck to play ball for the rest of the journey.

Postscript by David: for dinner, we decided to order a couple of tagines from the campsite, as we were running a bit low on inspiration. Nicki’s conversation went something like: “Je veux une tagine avec legumes, et une tagine avec poulet. C’est deux tagines.” You’d have thought this was fairly unequivocal, but when her tagine turned up, I was left glowering at the truck without any dinner. Shortly afterwards, Nicki went back, and you’ve guessed it, they’d not made me any dinner. “But he doesn’t speak English!” the campsite owner said of the chef. “That’s why I ordered in French!” Nicki replied. So I settled down to pick some of the vegetables out of Nicki’s huge chicken tagine, which was actually really nice, and she whipped up a manky cup-a-soup as well. In the middle of dinner, the waiter materialised with a very nice bowl of salad as a consolation prize, so all was not lost after all.

11th June - Marrakech

As there is nothing truck related to report I, Nicki, will tell you of our activities today!

 

We had an early start because we had booked a taxi to come and pick us up at 9:30 and take us on a tour of the city. This we thought was quite a good idea as Marrakech is a very extensive city with a lot to see, and he charged us 30 euros in total which worked out cheaper than all the taxis we would have had to get plus all the haggling each time…you get the picture!

 

Our first stop was the Jardin Majorelle, a small tropical garden laid out by a French artist, Louis Majorelle. The buildings were a vivid blur colour and the gardens contained many cacti, ferns, palm trees etc., with the idea that all five continents are represented. It was pretty and worth the brief visit we granted it.

 

Next we moved on to the El Bahia Palace which was built in the late 19^th century by a former slave, Bou Ahmed, who had considerable power in his time. However he was so hated that when he died in 1900 his palace was looted and his possessions were stolen by his slaves and servants. Each room has an intricately detailed mosaic ceiling with the odd stained glass window and fireplace. There was a central courtyard containing fruit trees which apparently the favourite wife had views on to. We wondered if he changed who his favourite wife was, based on performance maybe?!

 

Our driver took us on a small drive after this, past yet another palace and also the Koutoubia Mosque which is closed to non-Muslims. At one point he showed us a picture in a brochure showing the typical pink coloured walls around some important building, with snow capped mountains in the background and palm trees, all looking very lovely. He told us that just around the corner was the very view, which we could photograph, but when we arrived we saw a crumbling wall with a half-dead palm tree and no mountains! In fact the only view we had was of cranes and rubble behind this wall, oh well.

 

We were dropped off at the Medina Gardens which are free to walk around, so we walked down the central boulevard to a large man-made expanse of water. Various lighting effects we could see were rigged up and there was seating around the water, which suggested a light show probably happened at night, with fountains and the like. In the day however there was not much to see, so we wandered back to our taxi man.

 

Our last sightseeing stop was at the tannery. As we disembarked the taxi we were handed a handful of mint, which we thought a little odd. However as we progressed with our guide we realised why, the whole complex absolutely stank! There were lots of small houses, and some small houses on small houses, with various people working away in the dark inside them. We reached the centre which consisted of the big baths they wash the hides in. They were all filled with something different depending on what you wanted to do with your hide:  lime, saffron, and even pigeon poo (don't ask me!). It seemed pretty unhygienic if you ask me, apart from the dubious looking pools in the baths there was rubbish on the floor and people were living and working in very cramped conditions. For this reason we did not mind tipping one man for taking a photo of him treading his hide in a murky bath!

 

Now about 12pm we were dropped next at a café. We think that possibly the taxi man is friends with the café owner as it did not look terribly busy and involved climbing up some back street stairs to a possible roof balcony. However we were not terribly hungry so we headed off down a street, looking in the little shops as we went. We spotted a cyber café so used that for a while, before heading off to decide where to eat. There was a small square with a café so we decided to eat there, their speciality being tagines (a clay conical dish filled with a meat casserole, the traditional Moroccan dish). However as we were not that hungry we opted for an omelette, which although nice was just a plain omelette. We compensated with an ice cream after though!

 

Next we were driven to the main square in the centre of the city, with the distinct feeling we had annoyed the driver a bit for not eating in the café we were presented at! The Djemaa el Fna is the focal point of Marrakech, a large open space with street entertainers, musicians and food sellers, located next to the Souqs. That is where we headed first and as the square was still quite quiet we found the entrance easily. The souq was a typical maze of small shops and stalls selling anything from jewellery, clothes, bags, shoes, woodwork, metal work, spices, food, carpets, leather goods, perfume and dyed wool. We spent a couple of hours wandering around, taking in the smells and the sights, haggling for various items. David spent quite a while in one shop haggling over a wooden bowl which balanced on a stand made of four interwoven camels (the stand had been carved cleverly from one piece of wood). After some persuasion he managed to get the price down from 1000 Dirhams to 450 Dirhams, which he was particularly pleased about! We decided it was very entertaining for both us and the shop keepers to go through this haggling malarkey, although David was very concerned about how you never actually know how much something is worth, so you could have just been ripped of royally! Despite telling him my view that you should decide how much you think something is worth and then haggle for that price, so you feel like you have bought something for a good price even if you have been ripped off! The other thing we realised was that David can not haggle well with children, see previous blog entry about the banana girl in Senegal!

 

After immersing ourselves in the souqs we found ourselves sort of out of the action and seemingly down the backstreets. We wandered a bit more trying to find our bearings, but to no avail. David said 'I think it is just down here on the right', I said 'let's just jump in a taxi and take it back to the main square'. 'No no', he said, 'I'm sure it is just down here!'. Typical man, I thought, won't admit he is lost! After another five minutes I put my foot down and we got in a taxi and took roughly a ten minute taxi ride back to the main square, totally in the opposite direction we had been walking! That was the best pound I ever spent…

 

Once we were back in the square we sat down and had a drink. It was fascinating people watching, from the local Moroccans to the stereotypical white-socks-and-sandals tourists. We sat there for quite a while, before giving in to temptation and having ANOTHER ice cream from a particularly nice ice cream shop next to the café. Ice creams in hand we wandered around the square properly, observing the Berber musicians/dancers, the snake charmers, the monkeys on chains (I was not too happy about seeing them) and all the other street entertainers. We also saw some other stalls and shops we had missed on our previous round, before heading to our meeting place with the taxi at 6:30. All in all a busy day, a day of rest and relaxation is planned for tomorrow!