8th June - Agadir

Today was a car maintenance day, as far as I was concerned. Our persistent oil leak seemed to be getting worse, so I thought that while we were parked in a sheltered, gravely campsite, in a town with a Land Rover dealer, I’d look at replacing the valley gasket. This is one of the things we got done in Spain, but it carried on leaking regardless.

To get to the gasket, you have to dismantle the top part of the engine: the carburettors, all the vacuum hoses, part of the cooling system. This in itself isn’t that complicated, but it does take a while to get through everything. Eventually I lifted out my prize: the inlet manifold, along with the carburettors, and plonked it on the floor outside the truck. The valley gasket then lifts straight out, and you throw it away and put another one in, helpfully brought out by Nicki when she joined in Dakar. I cleaned up the surfaces, which by this time were all covered in crud, using baby wipes and cotton buds.

Before putting the new gasket in I smeared all the mating surfaces with a liquid sealing compound, as per the military manual. I think this is the first mistake that the garage in Spain made: there was no sign that they’d used any sealing compound at all. The second issue was that they’d used the old type of rubber oil seal at the end of the gasket, whereas Brookwells had supplied me a newer type. Hopefully this means that my new repair will solve the problem: time will tell. I replaced the inlet manifolds and bolted everything down, using the torque wrench Nicki brought out in her hand luggage, and laboriously put everything back together again. In the process, I snapped the end off the throttle cable, but was able to modify the mount slightly so it doesn’t make a difference.

The signs are that all is OK, but it’s too early to tell: it could turn out to be something else, and we’ll probably find out after the long drive to Marrakech. Whilst I was working on the truck, Nicki had a wander around the town, went to the Internet café and changed some money. She also bought some bread and some croissants. After I’d put the truck back together, I had a shower at the campsite showers. Given this is supposed to be the flagship campsite in a big touristy city, it’s a bit crap really. The showers are cold only, smelly, and all your stuff gets wet when the floor floods. The loos are smelly and in a state of disrepair. The pool’s empty, and the café’s being rebuilt. You can tell I’m a fan of the place. I actually prefer it when we camp rough in the middle of nowhere: the facilities are better, the views are nicer, and we don’t have to pay!

As I wandered back across the campsite in my towel I stopped to talk to an Englishman we’ve been talking to. He’s an artist, in his 50s I estimate, and he has three children here, and others scattered around in Canada and UK. He’s living here in a tent with his youngest son, who’s about 15 months old, and the other two are living with their mother in the city, who he sees daily. He makes his living by painting, and from what he’s said I think he stays in an area for a while, and if the fancy takes him, he goes off somewhere else. I think he quite enjoys having other English people around to talk to. He takes his little son around with him on the back of his bike, held on by an old leather belt! It looks like an accident waiting to happen… but that seems to be the culture round here.

With the truck back in action, we drove off into town to look for the Land Rover garage. Nicki stopped to ask for directions at another garage, and was told it was out of town on the road to Marrakech. She had the presence of mind to ask next door, who said it was just along the road on the left. Luckily, the second people were right. The garage had a look at our exhaust downpipes, and I described what was wrong in a mixture of English, French and gesticulations (they’re both blowing, and one of the bolts has snapped off on one of them), and they said to bring it back in the morning at 8am and they’ll sort it out. Good-oh.

Our last job was to go to the huge French supermarket, where we managed to spend forty quid, but on the bright side we shouldn’t need to buy anything other than bread for the rest of the trip. Nicki found some Stellas which she was very excited about, she is enjoying one currently. Back at the campsite, we found the kitesurfers breaking camp. One of their two Nissan pickups was in the garage today to have the clutch replaced, and with it due back imminently they were preparing to head on to Marrakech. It was interesting to see all the things they had to pack away: tents, sleeping bags, roll mats, table, chairs, cooking stuff, awning (which took about 20 minutes, compared to ours which you can get out or put away in a few seconds), clothes, personal bags… They’re still packing their trucks as I write, and they started well over an hour ago. This is a stark contrast to living in the truck, where at most it takes us 10 minutes to put away our chairs, put the stuff inside somewhere it won’t fall over, close the windows, and drive off. It’s one of the strengths of the truck, that you live in it, as opposed to living out of it.

We spotted a McDonalds in the centre of town, so Georgia, all is not lost in Africa after all!

Dinner consisted of sausages, fried potatoes and baked beans, with an éclair to follow. Delightful! I went even further, pie that I am, and had a bounty as well. (Haha, I (Nicki) put that in!).