( CONTINUATION)

It’s many a young man dream to drive from the top of Africa to the bottom or vice a versa. My advice is to stay at home if you don’t know how to drive a four-wheeled drive vehicle.

THE CROSSING

NOUÁDHIBOU      TO          NOUACKCHOTT
20.54 N                  18.09 N

17.00 W              15.58W

or

JACKALS WELL                                     TO                               PLACE OF THE WIND

We stop for fuel some fresh bread and water. It is hot.   Two hundred and sixty odd kilometres as the crow flies to Nouackhott.

Twenty-five kilometres out-of-town down the wonderful track we had driven in on we arrive once more at the town’s manned police barrier. Its necessity makes no sense whatever, other than to stop any Nouâdhibou residents from trying to escape into the Sahara to commit hari-kari. The chief of police has not stamped Fanny’s passport with the National Park pass.

Leaving the girls in the care of El Cid, I return to bribe half the town before I find the bastard house. A sweetener agreed, I get to drive him back into town to his office. There is a distinct feeling that this is not the first time he has forgotten to stamp a passport. The sun is setting by the time I Camel Trophy speed it back along the track.

Cleared through the barrier > the Spaniard sets off like Mad Max. Obviously, he has had while awaiting my return enough of infinitesimal tits.   He gets stuck well short of the fifty-kilometre railway sleeper – our marker to turn south.

In full view of the returning four-kilometre long iron ore train we dig and eat sand till the sun slides down the windward side of our first campsite. Pitch number twenty-eight.   Williwaw like me is restless. The sight of our Spanish partners with there curtains drawn for the night the Latin quotation ‘par nobile fratrum’ with all its ironic meaning seems more than apt.

The morning is clear – I mean no sandstorm. Our desert pavement of reddish black shale is littered with white fragments of broken shell. Under a sharp blue wash sky, the sandy desert floor stretches out before us as far as the eye can see. Looking out of the driver’s window into this great deal of nothing, I know in my heart and soul that the truck\bus now called ‘Cassé’ is going to live up to its new name.

Slipping Williwaw into first gear, I watch Florence in my wing mirror. She is sitting just behind me not quite awake yet.   There are no romantic sights of camel caravans silhouetted against the horizons only the promised heat of the day. Fanny’s veil of apprehension is justifiable as she watches the Spaniard pull away from our campsite.   Progress is slow.

We climb in a gestalt therapy tempo onto a plateau above the desert floor. Time itself is hanging still against the relentless encroachment of the moving sands below us. It is still early morning and the glistening heat of the day is just beginning to show its noonday promise to eat all shadows when the truck/bus goes lame.

“Par grave,” says El Cid, producing a hollow piece of piping and a wheel brace that has seen better days.

Luckily the wounded tyre is on the outside rear axle –   not requiring much leverage to get the thing off. But after twenty years of revolving it is a god-damn bitch to get back on. The difficulty is overcome by adding nut after nut, washer after washer until the wheel stops playing Waltzing Matilda.

A quick compass direction check taken far too near the truck\bus for my liking has us on the way again. The second puncture is not long in coming.   El Cid is now down to one spare tyre so I suggest that perhaps a re-inflation to combat the sharp shells might not be such a bad idea.

Like us, he is carrying two spare tyres. Unlike us, they are both under a Queen Anne bed.

(Top tip:   if you must house a spare wheel on the back door put it on its own support. not straight onto the door.)

On the ground in the oven heat of the day our little electrical pump gasps for air in its attempt to re-inflate one of our tyres.

 (Top TIP: if you must buy an electric pump, buy a decent one.)

Williwaw is fitted with three extra power cigar sockets, one external on the panel beside the rear door, one behind the driver seat into which the fridge is plugged and the last under the passenger’s seat for a hand-held spotlight if required.

(Top tip:   a dashboard fan is a waste of time.  Buy German cigar sockets plugs.   they are fused and much better quality.   OUTSIDE ADDITIONAL power points are an excellent idea.)

Late afternoon > Once more engulfed in a blowjob of dust and sand we draw near the end of a reddish sharp-shelled plateau > The choice facing us is a very steep descent onto the flatter terrain below or turns around and retrace our already covered tracks.   El Cid seems somewhat surprised at the sudden stop. I’m having strong feelings that he has not passed this way before.

The day is almost spent. There is no time to discuss if this is here or there. It is time to go down and hide behind one of the many horseshoe-shaped dunes for the night. They dot the landscape below us.   Cid ventures off to the left. To the girl’s horror, I point Williwaw head first over the edge. Without one touch of the brakes, she roars us down safely on the flat.

Upon the plateau edge, the blasting sand that whipped up over us cheated our half-closed eyes as to the distance to the nearest migrating dune. With our Wanker of a Spaniard’s desire to wallow in every soft lump of sand, we eventually arrive battle weary to the sanctuary of a newly shaping dune long after the last star has appeared. Pitch – twenty-nine

A tough day.

All praise must go to Fanny who has not only kept periwinkle tits, but also her little sister and Florence amused. She has fed and watered us in an environment that takes no notice of illogical borders set by man now or in the past.

With the night temperature plummeting I elected to sleep outside. Fanny and Flo accept an offer to sleep in the truck\bus. Within seconds, the sound of their snoring disturbs the desert silence. I am too knackered to care. Rolling out my sleeping bag I wonder if I will be found buried alive in the morning. Dust storms can be over thirty kilometres and are known to cover over three hundred square kilometres with a sprinkling of dust as far as London.

Morning >Hunkered down in my bag I watch our surrounding dunes continuously being shaped and reshaped by the wind. From our host dune a tail of sand streams from its running edge. Apart from us, there is no other visible sign of human occupation. Our entrance tyre marks are covered up by the night’s storm. We have arrived without a trace just like a yacht dropping anchor. From where we came no one knows.

In the tinted early morning light, our night camp has a stark beauty all of its own. We are tucked up close behind the slip side of the dune. Shaped like a quarter moon the dune runs from a few centimetres high to fifty or sixty meters in height.   Following the force of the wind from its high point, a small wake dune is in the process of being formed right in front of our eyes. (Wake dunes are formed in the lee of a larger dune).   By the time I have shaken myself free, the kids are running along the knife-edge of our overnight protector, sending avalanches of soft warm sand to the shadowed floor. We have all slept in too late.

It is not yet ten bells and the temperature is already up in the forties. No visible tracks to follow are a blessing in disguise. The flat rippled sand leading away from our campsite warns of yet another long day. Mauritania borders are big enough to hold four UK’S with room to spare. I check El Cids yesterday bearings with an old world war field compass. My compass bearings to Nouamghar place us a few degrees above our rum line.

The needle points in the direction of a set of longitudinal dunes which are quite visible in the far distance. “The park itself is highly inaccessible” according to one of our bibles “Never mind get over the frigging dunes,” says Fanny in a faint voice.   Nouamghar marks the southerly boundary of the Parc National du Banc D’ Arguin. There is no sign of last night’s wind but I can smell it regrouping.

(Top Tip: Summer Desert drive. Do it either very early morning or late evening when the sand is cool and at its LEAST SILKY. )

It is another day of sand ladders, more punctures, tyre pressures changes, sweating, engine cooling, tracks heading off in every direction, wind, temperature in the 50s, with sand in every orifice. All to achieve a day’s run of forty odd kilometres across a flat sandy desert depression.

The day has not given us much confidence to tackle longitudinal, latitudinal, or any ‘tudinal’ dunes.

Pulling in for the second night, it has yet again been another arduous day for Fanny. She has spent the day watching dig after dig unable to open the windows of Williwaw a fraction without getting a mouthful of fine grain sand or dust. The Sahara produces over three hundred million tonnes of dust a year. A mouthful or two won’t go missing or upset the ecosystem but at this very moment looking at Fanny’s drawn face I could do without the Spaniard who is holding us back from making decent headway.

The day’s exertions bear out for all to see that our man Cid lacks finesse when it comes to reading the driving sand surface.   His wreck, his appalling kids, his arrogance, if not curtailed could indeed present us with a life-threatening situation if we are not careful. However, there is one thing for sure, he is not a quitter. I find myself later that night making a mental note that if necessary I will leave him to fend for himself.

Our campsite number thirty of our voyage is once more behind a large dune. This one is jutting out from the depression wall and is the shape of a bent but not quite closed finger.   On our side, the slip side, smooth sand runs downwards and along the tilted hard floor to meet the rippled sands of the depression, the sands that tried to break our camelbacks all day.

Courted by the deserts spacious grandeur and an early moon, I forget the exertions of the day.   Fingered by starlight and a large glass of whisky I unfold my sleeping bag for yet another night in the open.   Nodding off, the picture of the two Paddy brickies who were on their way to a building project in Egypt when their plane was forced to land in the middle of the Sahara comes to mind. Looking out the window one turned to the other and say’s “Jesus Mick let’s get out of here before the fecking cement shows up.”

In the middle of the night, I wake to a gnawing of my head and the sound of scurrying feet. Both leave me with a longing for a pee but far from brave about having one. The desert, undisturbed by wind can be a profoundly quiet place yet full of eyes. Compared to the ocean it imparts a sense of permanency, where sounds can be heard in the purity of their musical notes. I lazily awake wondering whether it will be “Coo…ee” or “Ahoy there” that will be man’s first sound across the deserts and oceans of new planets.

The morning reveals a set of small footprints leading underneath Williwaw and a swizzle of unclear tracks emerging from the front bumper.   Florence and the Spanish brats follow the tracks up over the dune where they disappear without a trace; sucked up by a vacuum hover.   I tell them that my night visitor is a ghost desert fox that can hear us from the other side of the Sahara with his enormous ears. After three tough days, it is good to hear them laugh.

Over the depression wall, we are in for another day of tyre shredding on a mixture of sharp shale and broken shell.   In the cool of the morning, I suggest to CID that we should have a go at trying to break the seal of one of his punctured tyres before we leave camp. Apart from the brute force of whacking a tyre lever with a hammer, there are two other recognised methods of seal breaking.   Place the wheel flat on the ground and avoiding the hub, drive over it.   Alternatively, place the high jack just inside the rim of the punctured tyre, and jack your vehicle up – Neither worked.

In an attempt to drive the truck/bus over the wheel the bastards forgets to remove the jack – how Irish! I am left with one bent high jack.

Moving out onto the depression’s floor the bus\truck two wheel rear drive is now down to four tyres instead of six. I don’t have to tell Fanny that the day ahead has all the makings of yet another day in heaven. I can hear her saying without a spoken word, ‘Bloody great, it’s over forty-five degrees, not even ten- o -clock in the morning, all I want is out of here”

The day involves hours of digging and retrieving sand tracks. On one occasion, El Cid roars over the tank tracks ripping his exhaust off. On another occasion, he pierces his fuel tank.   On top of all this for good measure during a white-out, I pull his front bumper off before lunch.

The exertions of the day are driven by an uvula thirst increasing our water consumption up to alarming proportions.

Far from amused, (all of us are covered in dust and sand so that when we blink the moisture of our eyes congeals to form a paste that dries in the sun like concrete) we arrive at camp thirty-one exhausted.   Our chosen campsite adds to our desire for survival with the discovery by the kids of a load of bleached camel bones.

Today, day three is the day of connecting the red line.

Once again it starts badly with my Spanish friend asking for water. I am running short on temper, not water. I have asked him on numerous occasions not to dig in the truck/bus up to its axils before the sand tracks are in position. Once again for most the day, he roars away in the sand until we either come back or catch up to dig or tow him out. That evening camp thirty-two over a game of chess he gets the message. Cut out the el Matador antics or we will be exchanging blows or saying good riddance. In other words, ‘Adiós amigos see you in Nouakchott’

There is no need to worry about fisticuffs today, for unlike yesterday the shale windy surface does not peter out into silky sand but remains flat and hard. However, it not long before there is a large bang and down goes the back wheel of the truck/bus. The day is spent in the searing heat making a new head for the wheel brace. We unscrewing the wheel bolts, which were congealed to their thread worn, counterparts. Pounding with a hammer and tyre levers we remove the tyre. We manufacture a large patch which is stitched and glued to the tube and we steel weld the hub bolts back into place. Florence attends a schooling session. Pear tits and her sister either play with the tools or cause general havoc.   While I send a prayer of my own out over the landscape to keep my Irish temper at bay.   Fanny kept our energy levels up.

That night pitch thirty-two from my sleeping bag I watch the gleaming sash of the Milky Way and listen to the desert whisper secrets to the moon. I begin to understand and respect the Saudi Bedouin, the Tuareg and other nomadic cultures that follow a nomadic or semi-nomadic way of life > A way of life that has all but disappeared. It is difficult to appreciate that this part of the earth was once an ocean floor, a forest, and grassland where elephants and antelope roamed.   I recall reading some book on Africa where the writer or writers record in great detail distances, the road conditions, between one place and the next, which seems somewhat pointless in a place where time means nothing, making distance somewhat irrelevant.

Morning >   According to my compass we are still two degrees below the rum line to NOUACKCHOT. As we break camp in the cold air of a new day dawning there is no argument from Cid, with all the wasted energy he has burned up he is washed out.

Fanny refills our indoor plant spray bottle – a wonderful piece of equipment which when she had packed back in the UK, I gave her hell about.   There is nothing like the soft gentle touch of mist on an overheated burnt face, neck or cut.

(Top Tip: Don’t go without one.)

As if looking into a gipsy’s crystal ball the belching exhaust of the truck’s\bus cold engine has us hypnotised. We are on our new course back into and over the larger dunes we saw two days ago.   All goes well until we hit the sand at 9 am. Within minutes we are digging.   Fanny records the dig time and our length of progress between each dig. Over the next four hours, we manage to cover just over seventeen kilometres. Six digs varying in time from fifteen minutes to an hour each and all in the temperature of high forty’s or low fifties. Midsummer is certainly not the time to cross Western Sahara.

I am now experiencing what is called a survival mode of operation, a silent inner mind map.

(Top TIP: Survival situations rarely appear unexpectedly, but tend to evolve from bad preparations followed by bad luck. Set realistic itinerary and don’t skimp on preparations, or provisions.)

Over lunch, I can see the strain in Fanny’s eyes. She has been physically unable to help but nevertheless has contributed way beyond her wildest imagination to the triumphant struggle of this trip. She reads story after story to Florence, sprayed my sand sore eyes slipped dehydration sachets into our drinks. Receiving with great restrain a bite from thimble tits that nearly causes a ‘Big Country’ punch up. The bite being returned by me with a full unrestricted open-handed slap to her white trasero (backside) impressing Florence surprising the brat leaving El Cid is in two minds, Fanny shock and sore.   After this event, Cid manages four hours, or fifty odd kilometres without a stop which restores peace to our world.

Our fourth night in the encroaching wilderness is one of utterly exhausted sleep for all. Pitch No 32.

For once in the morning we are on way by five thirty am.   The driving is considerably easier if undertaking before the sun heats up the sand to egg timer silkiness.   Eighteen kilometres on sand without a stop from camp Fanny and I are beginning to think that this could be our lucky day when all of a sudden up ahead, El Cid shows all the signs of digging in again.

Two hours later he has another puncture. With no peel-off patches left we cut a patch from one of his shredded tubes. On the go again Fanny announces that to date I have dug El Cid out ninety odd times. She has had it them up to her, (we hit a bump). “They can fry.”

The large to be crossed dunes ahead might grant her wish.   We roar on without a hitch until during one of our tyre re-inflating and cooling engine’s stops (I have long given up on my small air compressor using the truck/bus one forgiving attribute blowing.) we spot a black flag on the sandy floor below us.   Looking through my 8×24 field 7°   (Top Tip: Excellent Bird Watching power) I see a car with two black turbans looking in our direction.

Stopping at a suitable precautionary distance, El Cid and I walk over to find two young Mauritanias.   With the assistance of sign language, we soon learn that they are awaiting the return of the car’s engine.   Apparently, two friends walked off with it some days ago. Bearing in mind our struggle of the last five days the thought of two fellows walking along in the middle of the desert carrying a car engine seems absurd in the extreme. We leave our two young Arabs with a handshake. They settle down for a long wait beside a large barrel of water their fingers pointed in the direction to Nouamghar.   ‘How far’ draws a blank. “Follow our friend’s footprints and you can’t go wrong.”

Pitch no 33.  Twinkle tits apologises for the bite. Our spirits are better. After yet another three early morning dig outs, we hit the seashore of Parc National du Banc D’ Arguin. In a flash, a chain of vibrant affirming ripples confirms the drawing power of water.   Disturbing the resident pelican we are all charging headlong for the water.

Down the shoreline awaits Nouamghar and civilisation.

Passing the jaw bones of a dead whale well on its way to fossilizing we enter a small settlement set in drifting sands. It contains a shop with a few bleak windowless buildings straight out of a Steinbeck novel. A coke sign creaks in the wind. Coke – something we’d all die for in our condition.

There is a strong feeling of being watched as we all enter the shop Inside the wooden walled building there is a fridge out of which we are handed six bottles of cold Coke. (Put Coca’Colá in it Arabic style here)

Standing half in and half out of the shop, swatting flies and gulping coke, we are a forlorn and lonely looking bunch.

Re-emerging from the shop a flapping djalaba tries to pull the wool over my eyes with a tax demand.   He became somewhat agitated when I pulled the driver’s door in his face. After what we had been through he was lucky I had not slammed the door on the fingers. He had another thing coming if he thought I was going to pay for it.

Camp number thirty-four is out of sight of the settlement but not out of range of its rubbish dump.   According to Cid, there is a choice to be made here – we can go down the sea-shore to Nouackhott in the time it takes for the tide to turn or cut inland to find the main off piste drag.

Looking at the soft sand there is no need for you to guess as to what option we took. Come hell or high water it’s down the beach in the morning. Whether we make it or not is of no concern, as elicit tits had just added to the dump aroma with a dump of her very own >   RIGHT on our very doorstep.

The beach run is about one hundred and fifty kilometres long, fully accessible only at low tide with no get out if things go wrong. The seawall is a solid run of Sahara dunes protected by a high ridge of sand. The sort of sandy ridge you get on the bank of a river when it crosses a beach to the sea. It cracks with the weight of your foot, falling as a mini-landslide with a solid slosh into the racing water.

Examining the high water mark, I figure that the tide will be turning at six am in the morning. Wrong it does not turn till ten am which is just as well as the Truck/bus gets stuck at its first attempt to get over the soft sand edge onto the beach.   We waste almost an hour of the tide trying to get him out.

Fifty kilometres flash by with our speed only slowing for a few outcrops of rock and the odd shipwreck circumnavigation.   Going hell for leather we are passed by two packed to the gunnels Peugeot taxis, their huddled passengers clinging on like limpets. If you fall out, you walk. They give us heart.

At the eighty-odd kilometre mark, we are waived down by a military blockade. Whether their jurisdiction extends beyond the low water mark is not up for debate. What is for debate is whether El Cid is going to turn around from where he has stopped down the beach? Waving Kalashnikovs inform us that if my friend does not come back, they (the military) are going to keep our passports.   It’s the last straw as far as Fanny is concerned.

Time ticks away. My explanation that the truck/bus has nothing to do with us other than we were forced to accompany it across the desert, is not having much effect.

I signal to the pointed gun barrels directed towards Cid and beckon him to back up. There is not enough room with the incoming tide for him to turn his vehicle.   He reverses back with a crunching noise that announces the pending death of the truck/bus. After a suitable dressing down all is explained > the tide, no brakes, did not see you, no Comprende and – we are finally allowed to continue.

It is now very much a race against the tide. El Cid runs out of fuel. I syphoned some from under my driver’s seat spare tank. One hour later we turn off the beach with the waves slapping against the driver’s doors. We roar up an outlet, cut into the sandy seawall and get stuck not for the first time in the whole crossing in the soft warm yellow sand of mother Sahara. Sand tracks, once more. With feeling, we dig to join the red line.

According to Michelin 953 & 954, there are from the North, three other Redline joining crossing choices they are,

Reggane ( Algerie)         to     Gao   (Mali)                             1317 km approx

Tamanghasset (Algeria)     to     Arlit (Niger)         598 km approx                         Aswan ( Egypt)            to     Berber (Sudan)    1214 km       with a dash of water

Our five hundred and twenty plus kilometres with over fifty dig outs, six tyres, one hundred and eighty litres of water and a race against the tide has cured us of any other red line joining routes.   What normally should take three to four days has taken us the bones of eight hellish days.

With black tar visible at the top of the sandy exit for a change is a hefty sigh of relief.   Not even the sight of itsy- bitsy tits opening the door of the truck-bus while Cid sprays sand to the four winds dampens our joy. I am no Gipsyologist, but I can tell you that crossing this part or for that matter, any part of the Sahara with Spanish nackers is a No No.

Somewhat Gipsyfied we head for the centre of Nouakchott better known as the Place of wind > A capital city besieged by dunes.

Cid tells us that he has some friends in town who are going to put himself and his brats up for a few days. Before he can escape I stick him with the cost dinner, a fill of fuel and a promise of collecting my straightened high jack plus a full bottle of gas in the morning. We exchange overdue Adios.

We scarper out-of-town, as far away from the slums as possible, to a hotel named Sabah positioned at the top of the outlet where we had roared up two hours ago.

At seven thousand unutterable (Ouguiya) a night, we did not give a tinkers about the odd cockroach in the shower. The girls deserved the best the wind place could offer.   Western hospitality is not one of Mauritania strong points. Morning breakfast consists of two moth-eaten croissants and a cup of coffee that could pass as cold camel pee.

Driving yet again into Nouakchott’s featureless city centre square we see why Mauritania has the biggest drop out of nasrani (Hassaniya Arabic for white Peace Corps Volunteers). The hostile city environment setting has a leg ironed on most of its residences. With many-sided line pious religious dudes its populated is still governed by a caste system of nobility. Slavery was only abolished officially some twenty odd years ago. Prior to the ethnic clashes of 1989, it is no wonder that most of its black Soninke peasants bugger off back to Senegal leaving its soul to disappear into the sand.

Tracking down of El Cid turns out to be a problem but eventually, we track down the truck/bus parked with a previous wreck he had driven down in the garden of his friend’s house. While I recover our gear, towing strap, gas bottle, bottle jack, spanners, torches and the like Fanny makes good use of the friend’s house washing machine. Leaving our calling card of two full lines of drying we head back into town for a spot of lunch.

Down one of the side streets, we find a small restaurant named “de Iraq.” Sitting outside, Florence is spell-bound by two bonking monkeys. Fanny and I buy two omelettes made from dubious chicken eggs that never crossed a road.

That evening in the shower a tiny film of sand in the basin reminds me that it is water or the lack of it that determines a true desert, an authentic desert people, and not the mask meaning carried in the name of Mauritania the Land of Sand. Bedouin Arabs came to Mauritania as predatory invaders with a strong aversion to settled life we came as tourists that now know shifting sands are the true invader.

Donations are still peaking at zero.  Have some feeling for an Unpublished Author that can spell.

R Dillon. Account no 62259189. Ulster Bank 33 College Green Dublin 2.

Sorting code: 98-50-10.  Thanks.

 

 

MAURITANIA.

Named after its Berber inhabitants called Mauri.
(Mauras: Latin meaning Moor, and Aquitania: meaning land of Sand.)

 

 

 

 

 

What we know:

Dry. Sand. Slavery. IMF/ World Bank Clients. Iron Ore. Islam.   80 % Moors Black 18% Blacks.

Engaging low differential we fall off the red line into a heavily sanded track. The border turns out to be a chair and table with a chain hanging between two sticks.

Pulling over to wait our turn it is easy to see that what is sitting at the table is not one of the five university graduates or fifteen students MAURITANIA had when it got its Independence from France, back in 196O.

Seated at the small table is whatever you do don’t look up, don’t stare labelled army colonel. He is sporting a moustache that causes a secondary shadow to set over his narrow lips. Surrounded by a group of wander bouts, give me fag, I have the packet, pocket the light types he looks like something out of Mad max.

With my palms requiring a wipe on my shorts we approach. I have a mental picture of myself stripped standing in the searing sun.   Looking to his left and right there is not another table for thousands kilometres. It’s tempting. All of a sudden there is some ugly talk. Our Germany foot Tourist is being led off over the sand to spend the night in jail. No Visa.   My nerve end tingles. Is this the gate to Hell or Heaven, too late, only the visas will tell?   > Moving one closer. One of the wander bout soldiers is at the window asking Fanny to have a look at one of his friends. “He has a fever ”   The German say’s you are a doctor. She offers a few of our trusty multi vitamins.

(Top Tip:   Vitamins pills. > A must for Africa.   All over the continent it is — doctor, DOCTOR give me a pill. The safest is a multi vit.)

My tinker visa passes with flying colours. The pills are turned down. How far to Nouâdhibou gets a reply, “Nouâdhibou is not more than an hour down the line from this point.”

II hum did LLLai (Praise be to God)

“All you have to do” say’s the colonel “is follow the track beside the railway line.”

The well-defined colonel track soon turned into a million tracks obliterated by deep sand. For the next hour it ebb and flow from gravel, to shale, to ill-at-ease sand, to rocks > Wheel spinning stuff. Then last but not least a dose of smooth rolling sand coaster that are unavoidable. These are bottomless ruts of sand that can only be driven a neck breaking speed > Foot to the floor stuff to get to the opposite side without spending hours of digging, out with the sands tracks, more digging, and more sand tracks. The first victims are the two ancients French in their Toyota Hatchback. They being somewhat top-heavy have come a cropper in one of the sand traps. I and El Cid Eugene the Spanish Bus driver stop to lend a hand > A running repair with rope and wire. Using the same method I once use to splice a broken boom of a yacht we strap the French Masion back onto the chassis. Eventually we leave our two unfazed French friends to struggle into town at their own pace.

Next it’s a puncture for the lorry/bus. With a great deal of sheer force and ignorance we manage to remove the offending wheel, and heave it up onto the floor of the bus. After many more stops to cool our overheating engines, sort out hostile police checks, we arrive, beating the longest train in the world from Zouérat by a short head, in Nouâdhibou. The train by the way is carrying three to four kilometres of iron ore.

Nouâdhibou first impressions rival that of Dakhla for dump of the year. Domineered by an iron ore smelting works the port takes its name from the word for Hassaniya > Arabic >   for > The Jackals well.

Full of Korean/Spanish/ fishing rust buckets, most of which are lying to anchor at different hilts of sinking.

A fine film of iron ore dust covers the harbour, the town, and all adjacent mud brick buildings and inhabitants. It is a wart on a finger of the Sahara called Cape Blanc peninsula.

Whether you arrival here on four wheels or by camel your first impressions will remain justifiable long after you leave. On the way in and on the way out unless you are leaving by air or train, you pass over the town’s open dump   > A heap of rubbish in a state of constant spontaneous combustion that gets hold of your breath to the point of suffocation.

Nouâdhibou is featureless and flat. Its views, if any, to west are blocked by the railway embankment. The east offers flat sand with a strip of distant blue that could be either water or sky. The air strip which subs up as a road is a good thirty minute walk outside the town, with the railway station if there is one a good deal further.

Why are we here? > To get permission to travel on to Nouakchott the Mali capital where the red line starts again on our map. Sounds easy I hear you saying. We are to learn different

.A wonderful cup of coffee, some foreign exchange dealing on the black market for Ouguiya (Mauritania cash) and the ejection of an over persistent guide who has somehow or other managed to get himself sitting in Williwaw cab. We followed El Cid down over the town edge, on to the runway, heading for Baie de l’Étoil.   It offers the only secure camping site near Nouakchott. Skirting the runway we head off out over the flat sand which has the habit of being covered at high tide. Somewhere out on this vast hard sandy wasteland we are once more stopped by two traffic cops. By the look of them they have been standing out here all day waiting for us.

El Cid handles them in the head lights of the bus. We head further out from the shore to avoid any more speed traps. After what seems ages of twisting this way and that, dodging the incoming tide, we arrive at a set of high gates. These are opened by a man obviously knowing to our man El Cid.   We drive into a small walled empty compound capable of taking five tents. In the dark all is exceedingly depressing looking. A gale of wind blowing in short sudden puffs whips across the floor of the compound, rattling its surroundings corrugated sheeting walls.   By the time I have the tent pitched and secure for the twenty-seventh time, everyone is too knackered to care.

The compound has a shanty type shed built along the wall facing us. Inside this shed some tomato plants are defying the lack of water in an effort to produce more than shrivelled up skins. The wall to our right has a pedestrian door that opens up onto the blue strip we saw on the way into Nouakchott. > The seashore.

There is also a stable like open structure building made of mud bricks containing two rooms, which we presume are supposed to pass for accommodation in some forthcoming ‘out of door camping’ tourist brochure. Attached to these rooms is a kitchen with a tap, a loo, a shower. All of which have run out of water long before the Sahara did.

It is not a good night. The tent, to the background sound of slapping little waves is battered from every angle. Rocking and rolling its canvas quiver while the window zippers jingled to the strain on the guys and poles.   Every slapping sound is a waves coming closer – not to mention the sheets of tin roofing that spend the night awaking the dead. The humour barometer is at an all time low by the morning. Frantically search the plastic bags for loo paper the morning confirms last night’s feelings. We got to get out of here as soon as possible.

Welcome to MAURITANIA it can only get better.

Look say’s Fanny “it is over four times the size of Britain, and fourteen times bigger than where you Paddies come from.”   How she worked that out by her finger measurements method I don’t know, but this is not the time or place to ask.   “The whole God damn place only qualifies for eight pages out of the one thousand three hundred pages in our Lonely Planet bible.”

“There is no answer to this profound observation as she has studied all eight pages over and over for the duration of the night.

As the morning progress its get better. Not so. First it is the tea bags, then the time of the month.   There is every likely hood that we are to be the first couple to split up over plastic bags if we don’t watch it.

The Spaniard and I go hunting for a fish for lunch.

Moored about two hundred meters from the hall door of the compound in the deep blue is a bad attempt at a Huckleberry Finn box raft.   It is being pulled ashore by a rope and back out again to it mooring by two individuals that have the same look of fear as our shower or loo would do if they saw water close up.

After an hour or so they eventually pull themselves ashore with their catch. I leave it to the fish expertise of the Spaniard to do a deal > A fish as big as a salmon is unloaded from a sack that is just about to be put into the back of waiting taxi. It is gutted, and eaten by high noon.

Taking a short walk after lunch not far from where we are camped I discover an Air Afrique lodge building.   It is as desolate as it surroundings with boarded up windows looking out across to the opposite shore beaches where we will go in the near future.   Behind the beaches a solid illusion of dunes stretching south and north as far as the eye can see. They’re are endlessly denying their continuation.

Advanc’ed Dunes, Anti Dunes, Attached Dunes, Barchad Dunes, Head Dunes, IceBarchad Dunes, Lateral Dunes, Longitudinal Dunes, Phytogenic Dunes, Plinth Dunes, Seif Dunes, Tail Dunes, Transverse Dunes, Wake Dunes ……   to mention but a few……

With the heat of the day subsiding we all squash into Williwaw for a trip into town.

Bouncing along past the airport we charge up the sand that separates the town from the sand flats. Our first attempt comes to a halt less than two meters from the top. We roll back down for another assault. This time we hit a rock, and come to a sudden standstill in the soft sand. We all bail out and start digging.   Our trusty Spaniard laying to rest our sand shovel pontificate’s on the different methods of getting a jeep out of the sand. The shovel is never to be found again.

A round of excellent coffee in a surprising well run cafe, has Fanny back to the sparkling person I love. Florence in the meantime is having a ball with the younger of the Spanish girls, playing in the street some Moorish game that only children can comprehend. We all cross over the street to the market place. El Cid is to replace my spade. I search for six or seven meters of black cloth. After the other night I have sworn to learn the secret of wearing a Bedouin style head wrap around. “They don’t wear them just for the good of their health”

Before the hazards of our return trip to our compound we learn that the French ‘old dears’ have been seen in town. We meet up and have several drinks while they fill us in. They had just arrived yesterday. The house as we speak is being re welded to the chassis and they hope to be on the road again in a few days. I did not have the heart to tell them that they did not have a hope of crossing the dunes I had seen in the morning.

Once more, in near darkness we pass along the outer limits of the sand to avoid unwanted hostile police attention Early dinner, compliments of Eugene, a game of chess, with a few Johnny Walkers, the decision to accompany the Spanish Gypsy across the gap to the red line, to Senegal is made.

This is not a difficult decision. The only other option is that you must take a guide into the waste of dunes that makes up the Parc National du Banc d’Arguin, one of the world’s greatest bird breeding parks. The very thought of a guide after the earlier ejection of our cab sitting individual is nauseating in the extreme

Safe in my sleeping bag that night, listening to the music of the splashing lake waves, I have no idea of what we are letting ourselves in for – just as well.  I also can’t help thinking who would have thought that we would need a bird book for the Sahara.

What I had not take into account is the Spaniard’s undisciplined children. The first hint of what lay ahead should have been obvious The next inkling is the state of the Spaniards Truck/Bus. The third and the most serious one is that we are all of us still ignorant of the Sahara’s timeless nature. To be fair to the Spaniard the last hint of what was going to happen is hidden in both of us and how we will cope with each other.

To top it all there is still no sign of Madre (mother) who is expected to turn up in Nouâdhibo to keep the little boobs in hand. She is supposed to be flying in for the trip across to Senegal. The chances of a mother arriving seemed rather remote to me. On looking back I might have been better to have spent some time learning Ground to Air Signals.

Our first visit of the morning to the Police station in town makes it is plain for all to see that getting permission to cross is not going to be a piece of cake. If the chief of police is anything to go by there is every likelihood that we are all going to learn the value of time without speed for the next few days. A large bed inhabits his office.

Early each morning and for the next several days we witness the pleasure of greeting his lordship the cop. A Mauritanian greeting can take up to a month of Sundays to deliver. It usually starting with “Iyak la bas” (Hope you have no bad) another words, “How’s it going.” Then it is on to how’s your mother, how’s your father, how’s the tenth son of your first wife the seventh son of the next wife and so on down the list, till you are dismissed with a nod of his head.

This ritual is carried out by each and every one that enters his office. All stared at outside by a group of very disinterested donkeys in the searing heat, and a small crowd that is battles in the dust for position in an ever elongating waiting queue.

Passing sand colour police wearing uniforms that make them Chameleon-like against the walls of the station we enter the station. This is not a place to spend time explaining visa this or visa that.   Luckily I have read in the Bible that advises not to let go of your Passport on any account. Follow its advice I supply photo copies which I had done back in the UK.   (Top Tip:   Photo copies of YOUR PASSPORT information page is another must to have with you.)

With a show of just how efficient he could be we are returning to Williwaw in a matter of minutes rather than days with instructions to report up the other end of town to the customs, then the army and back to customs for a currency declaration.

Stepping out into the blazing sun I feel white privileged as we pass the starched white shirts and blue djalabs that will have to go home and unroll their head-gear to lighten their days load of sand to return and try again tomorrow.

At the other end of town the next hurdle commenced with all of us been ushered in to a small room I spot one tooth in the adjacent room.   It was he who had taken our details two days previous at the last barrier just outside the town. I had given him a hand in his fly infested shed to write our details in his jotter.

Four forms each, three for the car one for the loot are all copied letter by letter, amount by amount, into a large ledger by a woman who had not discovered the pleasures of smiling, as one tooth has done on seeing me again.   Using find the column first method she runs her index finger along the top of the page then down to meet her other finger that is tracing the line along to a free spot. She has not quite mastered the technique. Taking her eye off the ball to look at our forms she loses the column arriving at a filled in spot. A re run of the fingers is required only to write the wrong information in the wrong place. In the intense silence of this important work we listen to the silent creeping tide approaching with every torturous entry. The possibilities of dodging the police on the drive back to camp are becoming less and less with every wrong entry.

The next office is further down the corridor where the entered forms are now shuffled in front of us from one bundle to another.

One tooth offers Florence one of the many machine guns resting up against the wall. She turns it down. Then all of a sudden for no apparent reason a stamp, a scribble we are acceptable for a month but not yet cleared to join up the thin red line. This has to be granted by the chief of police.

We celebrate with six hundred ouguiya worthy of chicken surprise, and a visit to the Spanish consulate to see if we can pay a visit to the fuckers (Spanish sound for Seals: written Focas.) According to El Cid all the fuckers, and there are thousands of them, hang out on a beach the other side of the Peninsula which belongs to the Spanish. This side not too long ago once belonged to a French multinational company named Miferm which was once more powerful than the whole MAURITANIA government.

The consulate is not in, so we go and dig him out of his home. His is the only one living in a house behind walls with a border of grass running along its length. Not difficult to find in a place where there is not another blade of grass to be seen for hundreds of kilometres.

Sentencing a consulate to pull his plonker in a hell hole like this is beyond the call of any diplomatic duties. What the Spanish will do for a fish has no limitations.

We meet a balding man, with heavy glasses, a heavy stomach in his early fifties wearing African sandals and loose Senegal trousers to match. There is no invitation to have a cup of tea, or a cool drink. With my extensive command of Spanish I soon gather that the Fuckers are no longer in the Fucked Area. It has been mined by the Mauritanians. However we can drive out-of-town (he draws a small map: A – you are here, they are now there – map) to where better Fuckers can be had on the French side. The Spanish side is also mined. Adios.

Once more in the dark the shore police are given the slip and the night’s sleep thanks to Allah is without much disturbance.

Day three > The wind has died, fanning Fanny’s ado of early morning grouch. Before setting off her patience is tested by a bottle of suntan oil that has opened in one of our small day backpacks. Our police station is not opening today so we are free to cross over the Peninsula to La Gouera on the Atlantic side in search of Monks Fuckers according to El Cid. Not quite to Fanny’s liking but it is better than spending the day sitting around in the heat. A swim in some Atlantic rollers wins her over. Williwaw, however, puts up some stern resistance with yet another flat tyre.

(Top Tip: Don’t strap, or bolt the high jack on to the front bumper. The best position is in behind your roof rack ladder. An electrical winch is an expense we could not afford. If you learn how to use your hight jack, you can manage without one.

Eventually, all is set. The plan is to drop off my tyre in town along with one of El Cids tyres to have the punctures repaired. Then on out to the cape not to the very end, but to a place called Faux Cap Blanc, where according to the latest reports, all the fuckers are sunbathing.

This time after our normal five-mile beach run into town, we mount the sand embankment at a different angle without any trouble. Our search for the tyre people takes us over mountains of plastic bottles, and general household rubbish. We zigzag in and out and between mud baked houses all looking exactly like its neighbour. Watched by a carnivorous eating free range goat we eventually arrive at a generator with an air hose.

I am assured by El Cid that we will need all our tyres for the crossing. “There is many places where we must deflate and re-inflate” says he in his not so bad English. “I have a compressor on the Truck so it will be easy.” What a relief.

Promised the same tyre back, we head off in the direction of the Iron Ore Smelting plant. Iron ore once supplied over eighty percent of Mauritania exports.

Crossing the railway line we have not gone half kilometre when we are bogged down up to the axial in soft sand. El CID has conveniently left my replacement spade in the back of his truck. We dig with our hands arriving one hour later, fucked at the Fuckers reserve.

The little fuckers have fucked off.

Battering the outside of Williwaw a sand storm whistles up over the cliff edge. What better time to test my black wrap around.   Looking like a black pawn chess piece, I battle my way to the edge.   Through the seven meters of cotton stinging sands are stabbing my wrapped face. Large ocean growlers break on to the beach below. There’s not a fucker to be seen anywhere. I venture over the cliff edge to find that the sand storm is only the sand being blowing up over the edge from a set of large sand dunes running down to the sea-shore. The beach below is clear and sting free.   Beneath me a small lagoon is nestling in behind a sand barrier. It looks wonderful for a swim.

Returning to the girls I convince them that it is worth battling the sand to the edge. Little tits is first out of Williwaw in her bikini and glasses, and runs over the edge squealing, followed by Fanny and Florence, and the other small one all holding hands till they reach the edge. El Cid has disappeared into the sand storm wondering where all ‘you – know – what’ have gone.

Although our map shows us to be now down the coast well below the Canaries Islands, the water is freezing. Pip tits nipples are now hurt so much she start back up the sand dune clutching her boobs while her rear end turns to pumice stone. Everyone eventually follow her in the blazing sunshine to the warmth of Williwaw.

I wade out onto the bar, where I find a shelter better described as a hovel. Made from bits of fishing nets, fish boxes and shore debris. Looking up the cliff I spot its owner huddled in a sandy cave half way up. Our silent contact becomes embodied with the swirling wind, the sea, and tern cries, we meet or our sea natures meet without the need for a spoken word.

Arriving back we take a look further along the cliff top. We meet two Arab Fucker spotters they produce nothing. The girls are fed up and they tell El Cid he can get in or walk the whole way back. We return to town in a blizzard of flies that have taken shelter in Williwaw from the sandstorm. Approaching the outskirts they that is the flies mixed with a cloud of ore dust that swallows the whole place making the journey back to town like driving across a landscape that has suffered a nuclear holocaust.

The next day is not one to remembering.   The start is not too bad. We are to go into town in the Truck bus, to collect the pass for the Park and have two more bus tyres fixed. The Chief of Police is his efficient, self-taking pride is once more using up another page of our passports. (Top Tip: Get an extra-large passport, as each frontier official likes using a fresh page.) Eventually he charges three thousand six hundred whatever’s for each pass.   Then he demands another three thousand for insurance just in case we run into a tree or have an accident with an oncoming vehicle on the wrong side of the desert.

Next we go to pick up the truck\bus tyres. Five whole hours and one mud wall later that has collapsed with the strain of trying to break the seal on the tyres we leave not knowing that it is a spring tide.

With the girls asleep in the back, El Cid shows a side of him that I was going to become acquainted with on several more occasions over the next few days> blinkered Moorish arrogance, which could cause a life threatening scenario.

Frustrated by the day’s puncher repairs, he hits a sand mound at speed that sends all who are asleep to the roof of the Bus. A few minutes later we are all plunged head long into the sea. We arrive back well after midnight to dine on peanuts. We awake to the sound of incoming traffic, Germans with Merc jeeps for Senegal buyers.

To be continued.

Donations are to date overwhelming. Zero. Hopefully by the time I get to South Africa we might strike a vane of writers support. Just in case you missed an opportunity to donate here are the details. R Dillon. Account number 2259189. Ulster Bank 33 College Green Dublin 2. Sorting Code 98-50-10.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Western Sahara.

 

1. Polisario Front.

What we know:

Sand, Harmatten, Dunes, Camel, Tuareg, Mistral, Refugees.

 

Leaving Morocco’s haunting sounds hanging on a drying sea breeze we cross its disputed border into the Western Sahara.

In the shifting sands as to exactly where the frontier is anyone’s guess. This little bit of the Sahara is the size of Britain with a two thousand five hundred kilometres electrically monitored fortified wall (longer than the wall of China.) It has a capital city called El Aaiún not marked on our map. Indeed it does not make the grade for any large yellow letters on our map anywhere.

Perhaps it is one of those “here today gone tomorrow” part of the African Continent.   All the same it is difficult that night to ignore it, or, for that matter to get any feel of being fenced in.

We settle into our twenty-second pitch of the trip, a wild pitch. (Wild pitches are when we set up camp in a spot of our own choosing.) It has been a long hot day reflected by Florence’s choice of name for the night game of dominoes ‘Desert fire.’ The girls hit the sack. There is not a noise or sound to be heard.

With the simmering of another desert day over, I sip a Paddy whisky, disappointed that there is no feeling of nearness or farness but I have a strong feeling of time.   My time feelings, I suppose, are because the essence of reality is time itself.   I am looking for time to heal the wounds of the lost of our livelihood. My hope is that later or I should say deeper into Africa I will find time that is born out of death not subjugated to speed or the science of my western culture. One day = 86,400 seconds. The uninterrupted view to my left the real desert is a constant reminder of where we are and where we were going without an EPIRB. (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon) I sleep fitfully.

Morning, Fanny has been up since six am. Florence and I sleep on to seven. The air is cool and my Essaouira surf leg strain seems a lot better. An oil change, new filters, cut knuckles, black fingernails. By 9 am I am looking like wildcat oil driller rather than a respectable Paddy on his way to South Africa by car with his beloved and child.

The day brings several more police control checks points before arriving in Tan Tan. Here we strike it rich with the cheapest fuel in the whole of Morocco at 2.95 dirham per litre. We fill to the brim.

Hugging the coastline we pass a few more forlorn shipwrecks that I am sure many an insurance company wondered just how they managed to hit the largest continent in the world. Cutting inshore we hit our first Sahara traffic pacification dune sign. It sends a bottle of cooking oil into the bilges, coating all of our tinned food in a fine smear of sand and sunflower oil.

“You didn’t read that one did you”?

A small mound of yellow sand that is smooth, solid and silky has sent Williwaw into a sideways skid. “The desert waves are certainly different from them there Atlantic rollers,” Is met by a silence of a non-sharable bananas being peeled.

Pitch number twenty-three. With a long days drive under our belts we are at long last in sight of some real size dunes. Not quite the dunes you find in coffee table magazines that advertise the latest 4X4, or deodorant.

That night I read that large grain sand moves in short hopping movements and smaller grains by air.

Seif Dunes  –  ridges run parallel to the wind and at right angles.

Barchan Dunes – that can go up to fifty meters high and ten kilometres long.

Crest Dunes  –   move from one location to another.

“It must have been a crest dune that nobbled us today.”   If it was it did not matter as I was now paying the price, another repack was under way.   I reminded the girls that there were ninety-five armed conflicts going on in the world and we did not need to add another over some god dam cans – I lost.

Before hitting the sack the two fish purchased in Tan Tan are consigned to the quicksand – the depths of the Sahara. A tin of baked beans is washed down with the last of our wonderful French brandy and a slice of birthday cake. Three a.m. Fanny is outside battling the wind in search of one of her noises. I refuse to leave my sleeping bag to go and look for something that goes bump in the night; Revenge for the repack.

After two months it is high time she learns to relax with the sounds of camping. To be able to identify rustling leaves as against leaves rustling, mice scurrying or rats gnawing, or Bob piddling. It’s far too late now for leaves but what will it be like when the paddy paws arrive, the bark of a hyena, the laugh of a Baboon, the buzz of a mosquito. Only god knows!

I assure her that no one has seen us leave the road and the nearest village is miles away and there are no marauding animals or Bushmen to worry about and   that the chances of being run over by a camel are as remote as winning the lotto.

Seven a.m. Our Fanny is not a happy bunny this morning. “Anyone, seen a camel?” I try. How was I to know that just around the corner from our campsite a camel train was in motion with eighty-five, no sixty-five of the buggers according to Florence coming our way. Fanny is not counting she is pointing. I take a photo of Williwaw framed between the legs of a fine specimen a Tuareg Dromedarie one hump model favoured in these parts. (Photo No   )

With 136-litre water fill capacity, nostril flaps, heat vents and an average steady speed of two miles an hour for fourteen to eighteen hours day it is great value for money.   Alas the Tuareg Dromedarie model is on the way out to be replaced by power assisted steering; air-conditioned, stereo, 26 litres to the hour, Toyotas, Nissans, Cherokee, and Jeep.   (Not a Land Rover to be seen)

We break camp in an atmosphere of – first up the hill gets the middle cross.   Fanny has taken the hump. Her humour threshold for the rest of the day mirrors the gravel covered plains, the bare rock surface, the depressions, mountains, sandy wastes of our landscape. Thank god we not are taking the long route to Timbuktu: A sense of distance at long last with time.

Back on to main drag.   We have not gone more than seventy clicks and its encore your profession? Your father’s names, your mother name, your wife’s name, don’t tempt me; have you any wine? Three more police stops we arrive in Laâyoune.   A small modern town, with a lavish road gate entrance. It consists of a big square, a football stadium, a Mosque, a Catholic Church, and Hotel Al Massira full of UN fat cats. Otherwise known as El Aaiún, Laâyoune the capital missing from our map.

Pulling up alongside a dozen UN four by four vehicles I reckon it might be safer to stay under UN protection tonight rather than camp. A cold beer, a swim, England v Spain in the European cup, a large bed in an air-conditioned room has no difficulty in winning some brownie points with Fanny.

I swear I must avoid repacks, and as a result inflicting the girls with my temper.

It has not been possible up to now to get them to allocate a stable living place for each and every item in the back of Williwaw. Fanny insists in putting things into unmarked plastic bags. It drives me to distraction when looking for something in the dark never mind in the searing heat. My fingers are crossed that it will improve with time. There is also still no awareness of the tent pegs, guy ropes, the danger of lighting the stove too near, in, or up wind of the tent. A little attention to detail is required if we are to avoid an accident.   If any stitches are required I will need sedation first if they are as a result of a needless accident.

Sitting in the hotel lounge, watching the match suddenly a singing River Lee voice from Cork is ordering pints, while a flat Molly Malone accent from Dublin is asking me the score.   Where else would you expect to meet a retiring Dublin Cop, and an Irish Naval captain from Cork harbour? In Laâyoune of course, living proof that the Sahara with all its daunting features is unable to form a barrier to cultural movement.

Before I could order another drink I am taken under the wing of the UN, and given the whole low down on the Western Sahara. “You know that at one time there were over three thousand of our people here and two thousand troops approx in this area and all because King …….   II flagrantly violated a UN resolution.”

“Thank Christ for that.”

From 1975 – 1988, Morocco tried to control this part of the Sahara.   Why?   A goal for England, no reply.

“Phosphate deposits”! – “Sorry what did you say”?   “Morocco already had the world’s largest deposits of phosphate” It’s a free kick.   “The UN proposed a cease-fire to be followed by a referendum”.   Missed – a corner.   “King II ran out of bread. (Money) The electrical bills got on top of him.   That fence keeps blowing fuses”.

“Algeria dumped the Polisario Front for similar reasons too expensive.” “How long are you staying?”   “Just passing through on our way to Cape Town” Yeah! “Not much rain around here.” The final whistle. “You should have been up in Spain a month or so ago, it rained nonstop.” “How long have you fellows been here?” No answer.

By dinner time I have a new rocket gasket fitted in the UN service station by a qualified mechanic.   Received two bottles of pure alcohol from the medics to dilute our mosquito deterrent neat Deeth and made radio contact with Dakla to confirm convoy times to the Mauritania border.

I have also learned from one of their American ‘comrades in (peace keeping) arms’, that the cost of desertification in lost production to the world is estimated to be $28 billion dollars a year.   While rehabilitating, cutting the spread of the deserts in half is estimated to be $4.5 billion a year, a ratio of loss to cost of 6: I. I am none the wiser. ” What more buddy I get x amount of US Dollars for searching for voters, while this Bangladeshi trooper sitting beside us is being paid in toilet paper for the same job.”

“How much is that Dad?” “Not enough to buy a packet of crisps Honey”.   Florence is suitably blasé.

We all breakfast together. After over a month of eerie tongue warbler morning call to prayer the sound of blunt church bells notes is totally out-of-place. Our American friend is more worried about getting enough turkeys flown in for thanks giving than going to church. To boost the congregation to nine we accompany my two country men to church. Standing in church beside them I wonder if in this contrasting world of ours it might not be a good idea if we, its people, shouldn’t start look for a new safety military net other than UN resolutions. Military power can be no longer be a well thought-out intimidation in a world where armies are confronted by enemies that operate without any loyalty to a country, have no base, communicate in a cyber world. Wars are out of date( If you don’t believe me take a peek at the Chronicle of Wars listed on the CD) as is the Western Sahara problem now over twenty years old and still going nowhere fast.

Outside the church I ask two dark blue UN peace keepers where they hail from. Ghana. “We will be passing through Ghana in a month or so.” “Before the rains start I hope” replies a large smile.   Not quite one of our considerations, at the moment. We are in the Sahara, for crying out loud with an average rain fall of less than three hundred and fifty millimetres per year.

Later in the morning we are waved good-bye by the owners of two brand new Audis. Tax perks up on blocks: Destination the Emerald Isle. Shake hands with the Chief of Police of Ghana son with a promise to give his dad a shout on our arrival in Ghana.

Our next pitch number twenty-four is in a small sandy wadi surrounded by some desert thorn-bush, more than a match for any Swiss penknife. “This place is obviously used by camels,” says Florence correctly identifying her first African spore. A small sandy brown coloured bird about the size of a hamster remains unidentified due to the lack of a bird book. Florence takes a photo for later investigation. Ad Dakhla is three hundred odd kilometres further down the coast.

We awake in morning coastal cloud cover that has turned the landscape to our left into a quivering, hovering, flat, shimmering, silent, non pastoral world : A world in which distance is challenging to judge. This is not a concern at the moment as we hug the coast cliff face which bears witness to a great deal of erosion. The Canaries islands are only a short swim on our left. (Not far off from quarter the distance to Ad Dakhla)   The cooked rock cliffs surface overhangs the coast in large slabs that look ready to crack off at any moment. Stopping for a drink we spot, far below us, a group of shanty huts crouching against the foot of the cliff face. The huts bask in peak cap shadows created by the overhanging rocks.   They also solve yesterday’s mystery as to where a truck that passes us was going with a new fishing boat. From our bird’s eye view the fleet is returning from the nights fishing. “Let’s go down and have a look”.

The smell of rotten fish hits us half way down the cliffs of Cap Bojador.   We park Williwaw on top of fish bones that litter a soft sandy strip of beach. The returning fleet is lining up to ride the surf into a small gully.   Not much notice is taken of us.   All hands are required to direct the incoming surging boats onto waiting logs so as to roll them with the minimal amount of effort up the steep beach above the high water mark in one fluid movement.

One by one like Titanic lifeboats out on the waves they await their turn to come ashore with their white hulled, fat beams, high freeboards and open benched interiors, their broad bows sliding backwards down the incoming waves.   Unlike Currach’s that dance an Irish jig on the surf these boats are built for strength. Like fat seagulls sitting just beyond the breaking wave they appear and disappear.   Their deep bows waves on their headlong surge to shore promises many a broken leg or arm if anyone is caught waiting or standing in the wrong spot. (All are long line fishing boats. Individually baited hooks paid out on a line)

A few small-sized tuna, horse mackerel and the odd small dog shark confirming that the fishing is as hard and unforgiving as the land above us. A tough place to earn one’s living either as a group or as a lone landlubber fisherman fishing from the lofty cliffs.

Returning to the cliff top every now and then we pass a stone shelter with a few plastic blue barrels of fresh water standing outside. They mark the landlubber high cliff fisherman’s spot. Whatever about the fishing village these shelters which have no signs of drying racks, cool rooms, pickling jars. They are a total mystery to us with regard to how their occupants actually make a living. Not even Moby Dick would stay fresh for more than a few minutes in the heat, never mind a sardine waiting for the next passing car.

Closing in on Dakhla, we descend down to sea level. Here sea water is trapped in large salt farms > forming large squares of different shades of white they looks like a giant chess board that have plummeted out of the blue sky and landed right in front of us. Dakhla is still thirty-nine kilometres out on the end of a peninsula.

The land locked side of the peninsula clings to still blue water that acts as a cosmic mirror for the sky. The impression is that there is no sky or blue water, both ostensible integrating into one and the same. The sand running out to meet up with the water’s edge is smooth and flat: Mile after mile of it. Totally and utterly unmarked and undisturbed it is begging to be walked upon.

Small islands give the illogical hint of hovering in the air just above the water’s surface. It is hard to resist turning the wheel and heading straight for the still blue glass.

Two more check points outside the town. A quick visit to the town’s only hotel. An expensive dump has us pitched for the twenty-fifth time back along the two kilometers of tar road leading into town, in a pink walled compound guarded by a very pale skinny white dog that befriends Fanny on the spot. Light rain in the night and the smell of rubber for a change, has Fanny on her toes for the night. Where or what the rubber smell is no-one will ever know as for the rain it is all the more frightening for being incalculable.

Driving back into town in the morning we pass Dakhla’s military. Red flags with a green star hang lifelessly all over the place.   Dakhal itself is a town at the end of a cul-de-sac. A complete dead-end. Lacking any heart its drab buildings are painted white with blue doors. The only reason we are here is to join the compulsory convoy to cross the Western Sahara.

All of the next day is taken up with ever-increasing circles of reporting to the police, reporting to the customs, reporting to the army: Buying a shovel, two blankets, a bag of imported spuds and replacement cooking oil. Departure is tomorrow morning, hopefully, with general assembly at seven am outside police station.

Dinner that night to Florence’s horror is a Senegalese woman with dangling breasts. She serves us from a large pot in one of the many shanty restaurants. The spices rings alarm bells. It would not do to be caught short in the middle of the convoy tomorrow. Avoiding the water over dinner we stop for a beer on the way back to our compound.   England is beaten on penalties by the Krauts – not a good omen for tomorrow. Three days later, a motley looking lot assemble in the early morning on the street outside of the police station, for the ‘Once a Week’ convoy.

The group consists of a rust bucket of a Peugeot with a large fridge strapped to its roof, driven by a hard looking French sleaze. A Toyota Hatchback with a mobile home unit welded onto its chassis, driven by a French couple in their late seventies accompanied by two dogs. A clapped out, Merc truck with half a bus hitched behind it, driven by Spanish gypsy type in the company of two young wild ones. (One is a girl younger than Florence with sprouting knockers the other unidentifiable.) The rest is an assortment of spanking new 4X4’s, sporting Rock of Gib number plates, driven by wealthy Arabs, all with large plastic twenty-five litres containers strapped to their roofs. Not forgetting three hitchhikers > One German with no visa >Two French students desperate for a lift after a week in Dakhla. We are packed to the doors so cannot help.

An antiquated Land Rover with twenty odd black table-cloth wrapped heads sitting in the back > A taxi, paying passengers. Plus > an odd assortment of clapped out lorries, which are also carry paying passengers.

“All non-nationals to report to the Army compound with four photos each in the morning.” > Where no doubt the usual Raybans of importance, will be waiting in the morning. .

Surrounded by wanted posters it is the usual form filling > Room to room > desk to desk> Passports. After a lot of finger rat a tat tatting one hour later we are back outside non-the wiser as to when the convoy is going to leave or from where.

Over to the customs to get the carnet (Williwaws Passport) stamped. “Is this your car, where is the registration number, open this box that box”.

Five hours later we are requested to line up outside the town just beyond the UN compound across from our pink walled camping compound.

There we wait in the heat until three thirty p.m.   Our escort arrives, papers are produced again with feeling > then > without any warning we off at one hundred and twenty kilometres per hour. It does not take long for the convoy to be strung out over thirty kilometres. Our armed escort has disappeared down the road and is out of sight within the first hour. We the following bunch immersed in a cloud of fine dust and diesel fumes are left to fend for ourselves.

Not to worry girl there is only one turn to be taken and that is right over the Tropic Cancer just outside El’ Argoub. There is also no need to fear getting lost as there are no sign posts.   The only real worry is being blown up by the odd landmine.

Positioned somewhere in the top six vehicles that are now spread from Dakhla to Nouâdhibou, at the mercy of any heat seeking Polisario missile. Convoy my arse says Fanny. “At least they have to stop at La Gouira, it’s the end of the red line on the map.”

El’ Argoub the right turn turns out to be one building, selling fags and tea. We receive an invitation to join the Spanish Gypsy Eugene inside his bus for some pasta. Over lunch the group bunches up once more. Our Spaniard is going down to Senegal to meet his girlfriend who is to join him at Nouâdhibou. The bus interior consists of large sleeping platforms at both ends with a table in the middle.

Without warning the show is on the road again.

What we thought would be a piece of cake formation driving is turning out to be an endurance test. The rising heat of the day brings a stillness of the mind that is intensely personal. Reinforced by the tortured look of our desert landscape, it makes all of us fractious. The straightness of the sand covered road is broken by the odd road traffic sign. Totally out-of-place they are a repugnant pollutant to our shapeless passage.

By the time darkness is falling we all have grown tired of playing with the sky jigsaw of the earth and the desert twilight and we have come to realising just how vital the road signs are. A warning of what is real sand and what is not.

The sun is now setting beyond the reach of man.   It merges with the sand to form a quicksilver of light that is blinding with an overall effect of causing the land to intertwine with the sky, in a 3D image. One minute you are on the beaten track the next you’re off. We passed a wrecked Land Rover. Some poor Italians travellers lost their lives to a land mine.   The stark remains remind us of the importance of staying on the track for a pee.

Nine p.m. and we are just about to pull over and spend the night as best we can when a flash light penetrates the darkness. Our papers are requested once more. There is no sign of our escort.   Another flashing light waves us off the road to the right where we find our Mauritanian friends in their brand new 4×4.

They have set up camp and have long gone to sleep. We learn that our Moroccan escort have disappeared over the ridge into a large army post. We also learn that just down the way is the Mauritania border and that Nouâdhibou is only sixty kilometres further.

Tired and in strong dry wind that bombards very orifices with sand I set up camp.

Pitch No 26. Eugene feeds us once again inside his bus. According to Eugene who has done the trip a few times in the morning, before we leave the hollow, all have to present themselves to the Mauritania border in a group. If one is missing of the list we all have to wait till he or she shows up. With the sand stinging our legs we struggle back to our tent to sleep.

By the time the last of the stragglers pulls in the morning we are in no rush to get up. Oblivious to the possibilities of land mines I wander over the crest of the sand hollow for a leisurely dump. Great minds think alike for I find a few hitched up expensive gold-embroidered Djellabah already hard at it. Squatting down I, wonder just how many gun barrels are pointing at us.

Returning, I find that even out here in the middle of nowhere with all the time in the world Airport fever has taken hold. By this I mean to be first in the queue at all costs > all around us frantic refuelling brakes out. The 4X4 chuck their empty fuel containers willy- nilly to be snatched up by the “less than rich” watching on hollow squatters.

Williwaw attracts some attention as to her possible of sale.   However, before I could get the thirty thousand asking price the time had come to see if my doctored visa will stand up to scrutiny under the polished blue sky.

All donations Appreciated.

R Dillon. Account no 62259189. Ulster Bank 33 College Green Dublin 2.

Sorting Code: 98-50-10.

To be continued.

(You will not be surprised to hear that the Donation bucket like the western Sahara remains full of sand.)

 

 

 

( Continuation)

Stage One.

Firstly, the chair must to be adjusted height wise. Then its swivel ability tested, and its headrest position set all in order to show off the quality of the chair. Once seated, it’s run the hand throughout your hair to test for authenticity. This is a habit common to all hairdressers, developed over years of clipping. All accompanied by a mirror smile that any North American scalping Indian would be proud of. Before you can respond to the smile with a look of scepticism the drawer fumbling starts. One pair of scissors after another then appears from a drawer or a pocket snipping with increasing anticipation. All to no avail as the one on the basin in front of your mirror is always selected.

Strong fingers from years of snipping are now stuffing a not so clean seen better day’s towel down the back of your neck to the discomfort of your Adam’s apple.

Your hand by this time as if in a puppet show had popped out from under the cover that has got a quick flapping to remove any clingons. Your index finger is waving from side to side while your other hand strokes your chin to point out that a shave is all that is required not a scalping.   This move is met by a lifting of the shoulders.

The favourite scissors are pocketed, and the cutthroat opened with a flick that makes you wonder if a haircut is not such a bad idea after all.

Stage two.

The fact that only a shave is on the cards, puts you at the mercy of whether it is a good day’s business or a bad day’s business. Don’t fear, hold your nerve, what happens next tells you whether it is time to run or stay. After the face preparation and a detailed examination of chin bristle strength if you are still sitting by this stage I doubt if a free trip to Mecca can save you. Standing directly behind you with his face imagery held out of mirror visualization the elasticity of your face muscles are now tested for slackness. In an upward motion using both hands and anything up to six fingers, your face goes through an audition for Coco the clown. The smoothness or harshness of the finger pressure tells you whether it’s a skin graft or not.

Too Late,

Depending on the bristle intensity the first lathering is sometimes preceded by a smearing of Nivea Cream usually worked into the face while he looks out the door.   A blob of Palmolive shaving cream is then squeezed from its tube in equal length straight on each cheekbone. This is then worked into lather with a shaving brush last seen on the back pages of Life Magazine when Palmolive and Brylcream were all the rage. You are well advised to keep your trap shut during this stage and your mind off your Adam’s apple.

Now is the time to close your eyes and enjoy the ballet of the blade that glides in time to a set of skidding fingers. Travelling to a formation known only to the shaver in seven to five gliding sweeps with one or two times out for a quick wipe on the back of the non cutting hand the performance halts. Three further smaller blobs on any bristling that escaped the blade ballet and it’s all but over. Some alcohol: a quick wet and dry rub, and its out with that scissors again.   Before you have had time to get a wink/blink in there is a snip up each nostril. If you don’t want your ears to produce African bush in a few years time now is time to stand up.

Returning to the hotel I could feel the breath of a camel in Timbuktu on my face.

After thirty kilometres in the wrong direction, a goal on the radio by Gascoigne in the world cup, we arrive in the white town of Essaouira. Set behind its grey ramparts and blue window shutters   Essaouira a tourist trap full of wooden carved boxes welcome us.

No camping to be had, so we check into Hôtel du Tourisme: a large old building, with enormous bed rooms that vibrate to the throbbing of a central wobbling overhead fan. The hotel has a flat roof looking south down Essaouira beach. At sixty five dirham, it is cheap and cheerful, providing for an extra five dirham a night guard for Williwaw: We check in.

Taking a walk down the main drag we stop at a café for a beer. Low and behold who turns up but our American professor from Marrakesh? She is on honeymoon with her hardnosed daughter and Abdul who is still smitten by the prospects of a USA visa. The poor bastard tells us he has never seen the sea or ridden a bus. Boy is he going to like the US of A.

Over saunters Kev: who else. After dinner we leave Kev with mother America. If mother America is confused, wait until Kev gets a leg over and turns up in the USA in a few months time. True to form Kevin does not take long to announce that his travelling companion Jez is in bed with some new lover in Essaouira. We decide to retire between our musty sheets, glad to escape any further injections of the soap opera which I am sure we will get blow by blow in the morning.

A grey morning mist rolls up over the ramparts: a grey looking Kev surfaces.   Mrs Idaho got the best out of him after all.   We are spared any grizzly details by Florence’s insistence that he had promised her that he would bring her to the beach to build an Arabian sandcastle.

Kev is the remnants of the classical independent traveller from the early sixties. He could never be described as a modern day backpacker, no six inch laced up rubber soled walking shoes, no maps, no shorts, no sunglasses, no backpack. His G.P.S. is housed between his eyes and ears. No sun block, no high energy bars, no hat, no camera, no pen, no address book, no address, no inhibitions, no been there done that. He is a thinker, a taker, a giver, a talker, a lover, a wrecker, a smoker, a drinker, a song writer, a loner, a musicologist, a man, a boy, a friend for life on his terms.

Watching him in his faded blue wrap around and his new toe crunching Moroccan leather slippers cross over Othello’s park with Florence skipping beside him with   bucket and spade in hand I wonder if he is my umbilical cord to Europe; once cut the trap door to Africa will open.

Some hours later just before the sandcastle walls are surrounded by the ripples of the incoming tide, I join them. Kev has built a version of the Bastion of Essaouira in classical Portuguese architecture. He is fully recovered and is now Florence’s hero.

A Bay Watch charge into the surf leaves me limping badly so I pop back to the Hotel with a promise that we will meet up at the beach bar for a lunchtime G and T.   By the time I return Fanny and Florence are in siesta mode so they return to the hotel. I had forgotten that Kev had arranged for the local kif merchant to pay us a visit in the bar with a view to sampling some of the local wacky tobacco.

The bar is a rundown sea front shelter with a box freezer. According to Kev (who has played with the best of them) along this beach which is over ten km long Jimi Hendrix wrote Castles in the Sand.   Out one of the bars open air windows on a pitch under pressure of the encroaching sea a barefooted football match is in progress with ball control on display that any football coach would die for.

Kev’s Jim Hendrix shows up. I don’t get good vibes. Admiring Kev’s new babouches he picks one up to sing its praises: the genuine article and all that stuff. The quickness of the hand deceives the eye. Kev’s contact who has being scrutinizing the shoes with more than a passing interest introduces himself with a hand shake. Picking up the shoe I spot him palming a small packet into the toe. It’s a set up: A plant. Caught in the act he takes flight with a torrent of choice f…   words. Colliding with his incoming partner, he receives a kick that would have sent him into outer space if Kev had being wearing a set of Michelin X hiking shoes.

That night for the locals on top of the town centres turned off water fount, an unrehearsed version of the human clock written by Kevin is performed to mark our departure.

Fanny drives around cape Rhir to Agadir; a dump even in Moroccan terms.   We push on, past a recommended campsite to Tiznit where we check into Hôtel de Atlas. Here in small barbershop I get the best cutthroat shave to date from a twelve-year-old blind boy. An act of faith.

Williwaw greets me in the morning with yet another flat. The girls go shopping as I change the wheel and go in search of a puncture repair outfit. Puncture repairs, as in other parts of the world, is an art form in Africa involving beating with various iron bars and lump hammers the Bejeysus out of the tyre, and the hub.

Normally done by a bloke with bulging, shining, rippling shoulders and Swartzeneger arm muscles how somehow or other avoids belting his toes, or getting hit on the head by the odd rebound.   His assistant is usually a youth of slender build that has evolved hands and arms capable of taking surges of tingle shocks beyond the imagination of any pneumatic drill operator. The most popular technique is for the iron bar to be held in position by Mr Frail while Mr Atlas pounds around the rim of the hub to break the tyre seal. Once achieved usually in ten to minutes Master Frail is handed the tube to Mr Frail to locate the puncture at which point Mr Atlas settles down for a smoke.

At this point you become a divided man.

There is a need to keep a watchful eye on your tube, which is disappearing indoors and also on your tools which have a habit of going walk about. The temptation to swap the tube for a look alike or remove its valve for a made in Korea valve or create a second incision is very strong.

One way or the other you can rest assured that Mr Atlas will make shit out of the tube and he will tighten the wheel bolts to the point of re-threading. If you have by any chance rubbed him up the wrong way you will wait till the cows come home for the job to be done.

Checking out of Hôtel de Atlas, we make it as far as Sidi Ifni. This is where the green stops on the map.   Even Fanny realises from the yellowish colour (which covers from here to Egypt and down to Sénégal without a speck of blueto be seen other than the Med/Atlantic)) is where the rain evaporates before it hits the ground. She is reassured, however, by a red line on the map down the coast to La Gouira.

We stop in Sidi Ifni because it has a modern pharmaceutical institution called a Chemist.   Three small dark spots on the sole of Florence’s foot are causing some concern. They are quickly identified by a set of quicksilver Arab eyes as Irish verucas.

Next store to the chemist over a mint tea Fanny develops spots in front of her eyes.   Looking into the whirlpool of her sunglass, she is in a daze of bottomless after burn. Stirring the mountain of sugar in the bottom of her glass to ever-increasing high’s of sweetness she is entranced and entrapped by the sapphire quality of the Chemist penetrating eyes. By the time she rejoins us we have rejoined the red route at Guelmin, squashed a silent snake, and stopped for lunch.

Pitch: number twenty one is in a cornfield that has no difficulty in complying with our map colour of waterless yellow. It’s time to start our malaria tablets, to wear strong impregnable shoes, and to get into the habit of shaking out our sleeping bags in case there is a visiting scorpion other than Fanny. In the morning it will be the Western Sahara, but not before a going over by the Morocco police.

Who is your mother? What is your Father’s name? Where have you come from? The womb: Where are you going to? Mars. How many people are you? It is for your own security. Have you any whisky? A Taxi arrives, out get two Belgians; they have had all their money stolen in Laâyoune, and can’t wait to get home.

You’re; Irish, your wife English. I will take your photo is front of our welcoming camel sign, says our policeman who is embarrassed by our Belgian friends predicament. Click, “you are free to enter the Sahara,” he says. The photo has an unnerving effect leaving us with a “Terra Deserta never to be seen again” feeling. A feeling powerfully enforced by fact the neither of our Bibles mention this part of the world, and the red line has come to a sudden stop.

( To be continued in the Western Sahara which is just as dry as the donations.)

R Dillon. Account no 62259189. Ulster Bank 33 College Green Dublin 2.

Sorting Code: 98-50-10

 

 

 

 

( SO WHERE WERE WE, STILL ZERO DONATIONS)

Home: from home.

Leaving Fez we start the climb to Sefrou. Florence suffers from a bout of the tajine stomach, thanks to cumin in water it is cured.   — Pitching camp that night I half expect to hear, from behind the distant slopes, the heart beat of Fez the Kairouyine mosque: never to be visited by us ‘The Unclean’ only to be heard. It has howled from deep within Fez walls since AD 857. Instead a shy shepherd spots our camp fire. He circles at a safe distance under the stars, the stars, the stars.   We have found the High Atlas at long last.

Leaving early morning long before our shepherd could muster enough courage to come and visit, we relish the sharp crispness of the early morning dry air.   Passing through Midelt, by late afternoon we have once again opted for a lunar surface camp site. It is so windswept every stone stands proud on its own pillar of earthenware red soil. Tufts of yellow-brown grass forming island after island as far as the eye can see.   Pitch: number seventeen.

The town of Rich is some ten kilometres down the road, so tomorrow we should be entering the Gorges du Ziz. This time our nomadic night neighbour disappears in the darkness with his flock of sheep and goats. A camp fire away in the distance marks his rest spot. Across the mile or so that separates our fires I can feel him looking in our direction. Not for long. Our fire attracts the magnificent seven from the nearest village.

A well-mannered bunch of kids all introduced themselves and as quick as they could, sit next to Florence for a game of dominoes.

Each dominoes game of the journey is allocated a name. Tonight’s game, ‘At Last the mountains’ is named by Florence. We are utterly disarmed by Florence’s ease with the new arrivals in the passion of the game. There is something utterly captivating in watching the circled of happiness, the banter, the smiles and frowns. We are beaten hands down. By the time we hit the sack it is late.

6.30 am the first of Florence’s’ new found friends is silhouetted against the rising dawn.   He is standing on the bank of a dry river into which Fanny has just disappeared to appease the call of nature.   Fanny gives him ‘the bums rush’ to no avail. Florence’s turn at mooning has the rest of the gang arriving rubbing the sleep from their eyes to get a better look. All are given a ride back on the bonnet’s spare tyre, on the doors steps, on the rear ladder, to their village Tehj : after braking camp.   Two twenty litre water cans are filling from the deep village well with some directions we miss the Ziz Gorge by miles, circumnavigating Er-Rachidia and end up doing the Todra Gorges back to front.

We do not have GPS.   It is worthless without the co-related maps. Without the way points, there is little point in knowing that you are in a canyon some eleven thousand feet up in the Atlas Haut. Rest assured, it is much simpler and a lot more fun to use, ‘Excuse me, is this the way to Paris?   Naam, iyeh, Naam, iyeh, yes, yes, come and have dinner, tea, Burbon.

Engaging differential, we leave the real road, eventually arriving in Amellago which is not marked on Michelin 953.

Is this the way to? Get’s a sorry, a Berber Whiskey perhaps. No thanks, we must push on. Can we get through?   ( Photo no   )   Frantic nodding confirms it’s a yes.

Nosing Williwaw into the waters of a healthy shrinking riverbed, we tack up the canyon floor. Smooth high-water marks on the rock banks confirm according to Fanny, (who is tracing a blue line on the map that denotes the Doura river,) that any downpour will see us disappearing into the sands of the Sahara. Happily there are no clouds to be seen. I am enjoying the power of Williwaw which is pushing a small bow wave up river in search of a single dirt track. Its unwieldy form can be seen hugging the course of the river cut into the canyon side.

Reaching the track the waters of the canyon are now compressed between its high rock walls far below us. In soda fountains of splashing, bubbling, jumping white water the reddish rock walls reflect in our wing mirrors. A shimmering pool looks too inviting to pass.   We stop for a High Atlas Jacuzzi.

Our next village is announced by welcoming kids, and Fanny’s shouting ‘get off ‘get the fuck off ‘.   This time the wing mirror divulges a collection of dust-covered faces all in keen competition for the back ladder of Williwaw. Around a sharp steep corner, the village emerges from its rocky landscape.   Gradually revealed against the backdrop of rock in a vale of green from its surrounding fields with the odd tree all is tucked into a small valley.   Red cactus flowers from the ramparts to the village. We stop for a mint tea. “Please come and have tea in our home.” “Thanks we will.” Down between mud baked walls, we enter a long room. Sitting Apache style we meet Moha Ousri and all his family.

Some hours later after a genuine home cooked couscous, we have put the wrongs of the world right, in English, Berber, Irish, French, Arabic, Sign Language, Body Language, with the odd Holl’a, from Moha.

Moha has a degree in history and geography. He is twenty-nine years of age, but cannot marry until he gets work. We are presented with a pair of leather sandals. Exchanging addresses we depart with a glowing feeling of goodwill, and their reassurance that Williwaw will have no trouble in getting up over the mountain pass.

What a drive –   blue ribbon stuff with every now and then just enough roof clearance to pass under rock overhangs we cross and drive up riverbeds,. (See DVD Photo no )   Passing villages named Amellago, Imiter, that have not been seen by many Moroccans never mind us the lost intrepid adventurer we eventually arrive in Assoul a mud-baked town nestling deep in the fold of the high Atlas.

A few bottles of, “it get’s everywhere in the world” Coke which is drunk in full admiration for Williwaws abilities, we arrive at a wonderful site for pitch: number eighteen. A naturally eroded quarry cut out by a river during some of its more violent times now a gently meandering stream. Across the river, a square mud farm-house is set into the hill-side in contradiction to all that ensnared it.

In the fading light, our dirt road rises to a hilltop concealing the bare uninhabited swelling landscape beyond.   Perhaps the deep silent wonders of the Sahara are on the other side.

Pulling into the protection of the cliff walls of the quarry its floor is sandy and smooth visibly used by the farmer across the water to thrash his wheat upon. The first sunset croak warned me not to pitch too near the stream. I walk across the river to check if we are welcome to stay the night.

Following a small path up to the house I cross another gurgling spring. Taking a mental note to fill our water cans, I approach the house from the rear.

It is a flat roof one-storey square structure encircling an open middle courtyard into which the farmer’s animals are placed for the night.

There are no windows visible other than a small solitary window on the entrance side indicating the living room quarters.

Berber architecture is simple and functional and somewhat different from the mainstream architecture of Islam. It concretes on the use of the materials that are to hand – mud, earth, stone, and wood beams without the over the extravagance of symbolising and arches which adorn the Gateways, Minarets, Mosques, Medersat.

I speak to a young woman who is tending a small fire on the floor just inside the main door. There is no hope of any communication.   On leaving, I spot on the opposite side of the river, a mule approaching with two bundles of wheat balanced across its back in a pannier. By the time I arrive back we are invited to partake in tea/dinner and to meet the wife the woman I had just endeavoured to communicate with.

An hour later sitting cross-legged on the only piece of carpet it is tricky in the murky light to make out our host’s features.   There is also no sign of his wife in the flickering light shadows of his gaslight. Conversation is limited and I get the strong feeling that our host is not the most trustworthy of Arabs. Fanny has also picked up on the same feeling.   Etiquette requires that we stay at least for the tea which he is preparing beside us. Saturated in sweetness it is served in nauseating small chipped glasses. Florence is visibly turning a whiter shade of pale, with her glass of warm goat’s milk.

Half an hour passes. Etiquette or no etiquette the girls flee under the cloak of putting Florence to bed. With both of them assuring me that the river crossing is no bother to either of them.   They disappear into the night.   Through the small window, I watch their progress by the yellow beam of their torches: Picking out every sound, movement and shadow until it reaches the inner glow of the tent.

While thinking about which hand I should be using, the right or the left dinner arrives. Everything is fine until I swallow some unknown gristle which is followed by some hot unleavened bread dipped in some unseen vegetable sweet- and- sour mixture. A polite Adam’s apple swallow on my part signals course two brought in by his wife.

She does not join us to eat only entering the room on being summoned by a call from the husband. Her female aroma marks her attendance. She moves with a silence to match the darkness from which she emerges. Covered from head to toe, her headdress dowses her eyes too small silver discs that dance in the light of the gas lamp every time she bends down to take a dish away.

Some hours after the girls, I finally make my escape, Shoukran -Shoukran, thank you, thank you, ciggretts, cigarettes, tomorrow.   Stepping out into Mother Nature the last sweet-and-sour dish has me by the short and hairies. Sitting at the door a suckling sound reveals a young woman’s firm breast hard at work. The old sod has a child. There is no point in trying to express any thanks for the meal, as she does not look up from her child completely ignoring my existence.

A river douching to the laughter of the High Atlas toads and frogs brigade cleans my pallet.   Sleep is a blessing from high.

We decide to stay put for another day. Some maintenance to Williwaw is required. It is also time to fix our outside Jerry can brackets under our back windows. Two cans on either side which will remove eighty litres of fuel off the roof rack.

(Top Tip: The idea of the brackets is good as it redistributes the weight off the roof making the vehicle a lot more stable.)

Changing yet another slow puncture I curse my stupidity for not having invested in a good set of tyres. It is one of the mistakes I could have avoided.   Williwaw has her original six Avon Rangers which I should have cashed in for six Michelin xxx, or six Bridgestone.   (Top TIP: Invest in a good set of Tyres.)

Every move is watched from afar by our host who is getting his mule ready for the day’s works. All the activity leads to a complete repack one of my pet hates.   Even thought Williwaws interior space is not vast you would be surprised at the amount of gear, the equipment it contains. Re-packs can take up to two hours with the inevitable arguments as to where to put the shampoo.

It is not long before our host ventures over to have a look. Our initial feelings of the need to keep a weather eye on him are not wrong. I watched him note every item that is waiting to be repacked.   I am now more than certain that the thieving little bastard could not be trusted.   In some strange way, he seemed to be standing outside himself. Sleazy, untrustworthy, slit your throat, smiling gold teeth, with a set of shifty eyes, and a grasshopper brain, our Arab is straight out of a Dan Dare comic. Not a Sister Concepta, and that’s for sure.

He helps himself to a packet of fags and disappears in the direction of the gurgling water. With the sun barely over the yard-arm – he is back with his brother, an accountant who has come up to help him with the harvest. The brother is a soft-spoken gentleman.

I am winding down from the repack when all of a sudden there is explosion of sound. Sleaze has put Florence on the back of his mule.   In a nightmare flash of a paralysed child sitting in a wheelchair brain-dead, I am frozen to the ground. The mule has bolted. All that is stopping it from doing a Houdini is a shoddy piece of rope.   Sleaze bucket is holding onto it for his dear life.   Florence God bless her cotton socks is also holding on for dear life.

Fortune smiles on us. I unfreeze, charge over I manage to grab her free of the mule.   She is stunned and badly bruised up her back from one of the metal baskets. Dazed but unharmed Florence takes an instant dislike of mules which I think will last her for the rest of her life. Even sleaze-bucket looks relieved.

That evening a distant rumble promises rain. Rain it did.

Morning arrives with tea at eleven; fresh-baked level bread, a bag of sugar cones in retribution for the mule antics, and a few photos. Fanny takes the wheel of Williwaw for some off-piste driving. We slowly leave behind rippled majestic mountains that begin to show off their lower slopes dressed in a hue of late spring colours of browns and reds.   Bathing in splashes of gold and green the river is now necklace by intense farming of wheat, corn, mint, scallions and fruit. The small fields forming a patchwork quilt, locked within their Ancestral masters, the High Atlas.

The skies darken. Every outstretched hand for a stilo, bon-bon, or dirham is not satisfied.

We arrive at Tidrine which sports two buildings totally out of character with the rest of the village. In amongst the flat mud baked roofs that stand in tiers of pale flecked browns, a wailing tower in the process of being built – it sticks out like fresh icing on a cake. The other building is a small hotel. Built-in cement and painted white and green with large Bedouin tents attached to its sides it looks like something that has forced itself out of the ground.

We stop for tea. To Fanny’s disappointment and later rage I turned down an offer from the owner of the café to camp in the car park. Fanny from her side of the sexual fence is still suffering from the need for security.   She has not yet quite settled mind wise into the beauty of camping in the wild. God knows how she is going to handle deeper dark Africa where there is no need for car parks. For me, the mountains win every time against a car park.   Four kilometres further down the road, she is sitting in the cab of Williwaw blowing up our air beds.   The skies have opened and all those children that did not get a stilo, pen, or bon-bon, are crying.

Pitch: number nineteen is very wet, windy and cold. It is not a night to remember with me digging trenches around the tent during the night to keep us from being swept away.

Five am: Florence has wet her sleeping bag. Can’t blame her, the storm is extremely violent.   A major swap around for sleeping positions is undertaken.     Florence is once more secure and warm and sound asleep.   Early morning, the extent of the downpour is visible for all to see. Thank God we had not camped near the river. Looking down from our high pitch, serious grey roller coasters of water are rushing down the river in a headlong mad rush to get to the Sahara.   Our campsite has been turned into a smooth mud quagmire. The night trenches are now deep wounds full of water hammering their way down to join the roaring waters below us. I have the twitters, and according to Fanny, Florence a slight touch of cystitis.   We dry out in a gentle warming breeze.

Another attack of the twitters brought on by hot toast and tea has me observing a colony of ants repairing the night’s damage to their nest. My high open-air loo looks out over the valley floor into a set of folding mountains out of which a black moving speck start to grow bigger, and bigger.   Passing in silence away below me he (the speck) is swallowed by the folds of the landscape for the fifth time to the cry from Florence in the tent,   ‘I found Wally.’

All is dry as we pass through Tamtattouchte. The track is littered with rocks where the river has burst its banks. There are sections of the track/road washed away together with the odd mud house returned to the soil.   We are having some trepidation as to what lies in front of us – The Gorge of Todra.   The river water changes colour as if caught in a kaleidoscope of soils.   We have been told that road through the Gorge is narrow and dangerous especially after a downpour.

The gorge follows the river Todra between walls over nine hundred and eighty feet high (300 meters) and sixty odd feet wide in places, (10 meters).

Fanny earmarks Marrakesh on the map, but the S bends have other destinations on their mind, some of which take your breath away. A meeting with a truck that sideswipes us while trying to squeezing past gives us a heart- stopping adrenalin moment – otherwise, it causes little damage.   We finally pull in safely at the point of tourist bus penetration into the Gorge Hotel – Yasmina, and Hotel Les Roches.

From here on in it is downhill all the way to Tinerhir, and then on to Boulemane du Dadès, El Kelaa M’ Gouna in the Dadès Valley. The skies have once again opened but even as the mountains bleed into the rivers we don’t care. The road is asphalt.

Around and before every turn and twist of the road the Geology or as it is now called the earth science of Morocco is on sale in all colours of the rainbow mile and miles of it. The Atlas Mountains are made from sweets says Florence. With only one investigation of a sound that turned out to be a zipper flapping in the wind, we eventually reach pitch: number twenty. We all put in a rock solid restful night.

After a good breakfast, on we go to Ouarzazate. Here we stop outside the five-star Berber Hotel called the Berber.   On entering, I enquired as to the rate of a double room. The receptionist looks at me in disbelief, an unshaven, oil-smeared, porcelain mud statue smelling like a polecat I am far from her ideal potential resident.   We settled for a coffee a handful of soft toilet rolls, and a long rest in the lobby.

Ouarzazate is on the way to Aït Benhaddou that has one of the best preserved kasbahs in the whole of the Atlas region. Footage of Lawrence of Arabia and Jesus of Nazareth was shot here. Whether UNESCO classified it as one more cultural treasures of the world before or after Hollywood had finished with it, I don’t know.

What I do know is that it was Hollywood who built the main gate to the town. Set on a hill with high fortified walls fronting onto a river called Mellah (salt) it is a David Lean setting well worth a visit.

The river is normally dry as a bone, but today after the rains it requires a camel crossing much to Florence’s horror. In her eyes after her narrow escape, all camels are Berber mules, whether they are buff coloured or just plain brown, one hump or two.   With large quantities of TLC, I get her aboard the ship of the desert. Lurching forwards and backwards and upwards, I swear to Flo that it is not in bucking mode and that it is only getting to its feet. Arriving on the opposite bank I hold her tight for the slow-motion whiplash dismount.

Looking up at Aït Benhaddou with its mud granaries standing at different heights behind its large theatrical entrance gate, is what can only be called a surreal experience, perhaps the more so because of its contamination with Hollywood. I cannot stop myself from looking for a sign pointing to Timbuktu, or a kneeling Charles Atlas holding the world on this back.

The Atlas Mountains themselves are named by the ancient Greeks, after a legendary Giant who did much the same as Charles Atlas.

Before facing the camel ride back which required a promise of a necklace from one of the many hard tourist hassle shops that eagerly awaiting our return we spend some time reliving Lawrence of Arabia, with the village’s five inhabitants.

Arriving back safe and sound Florence puts her new-found trading skills to the test. The necklace procured a young Lawrence hitches a lift back to Ouarzazate on Williwaws doorstep. (Thirty odd kilometres back up the dusty road) Why he preferred to hang on outside in the dust I can only put down to his desire to be in ‘Lawrence Rides Again’. Outside Ouarzazate, we turn right to continue our descent of the Lower Atlas to Marrakesh. He dismounts looking just right for the part.

Williwaw has other ideas about reaching Marrakesh. On one the many glorious scenic windswept bends the handbrake seizes. She screeches to a halt. It’s out with the breakdown triangles, stick a rock or two under the wheels and wait.   The first car to arrive is a group of young tourists who agree to bring Fanny and Flo down to the nearest town to look for a mechanic. By the time the next car stops, I am no mood for Arab humour. He has a good look, makes a gesture towards Allah and leaves.

I try driving Williwaw to see if the drum would release itself, no way Josephine.   Now it is scalding hot, but hey presto a flash of genius. I fill a pot with our kitchen basket with cold water, pour it onto the drum, and hit it a whack of a hammer. It springs clear.   In no time, having disconnected the cable I am trundling downhill after my brood. Luckily I spot them. An hour later we arrive with our new-found friends in the outskirts of Marrakesh.

What a wonderful sounding name: Marrakesh. It was once described by a Moroccan Sociologist named Fatima Mornissi, as a city where black and white legends met, where languages are melted down. Where religions stumbled, testing their permanence against the undisturbed silence of the dancing sands.

It is the most southerly Arabian garrison town in North Africa, positioned at the doorway to the Sahara. It still has the same magical draw it had for me back in the sixties. In those times it shattered the silent void of the desert each evening with a circus of life, so varied that it could rival any show on earth. It will be interesting to see the changes. If the large open square, its pulse named Djemaa el Fnawithin (Congregation of the Departed) has departed from within its walls.

In the rain, I have no hope of finding the square never mind the stopover spot recommended by Kev of Fez. Changed it sure has visually.   Fanny at once comes to the rescue.   Hopping out of Williwaw into the lashing rain she stops a Taxi, “follow me.”   Marrakesh swallows us whole.

It is not possible to get Williwaw up the small street to Hotel Essaouira. It is a walk, carry and lug the bags job. Our newly found affluent friends who had given the girls a lift have long fled to a hotel for the better-heeled called the Mamounia Hotel where Churchill, Richard Nixon, and Orson Welles had stayed. We never meet again.

I am looking forward to dining at one of the many stalls in the square. First, it’s the hassle, the battle, to get to our Hotel in one piece. Then to find Williwaw a parking place for the night. Armed with just the bare essentials, passports, cameras, handbag and Barbie doll we struggle up the street to the hotel.   It is as Kev said a little gem hidden down a foul-smelling alleyway with a roof bar, clean rooms, a small courtyard and a welcoming owner.

Leaving the ladies to settle in, I return to find Williwaw now surrounded by a whirlpool of hopefuls.   The luck of the Irish comes to my rescue – there is a lock-up garage just behind where I am parked. Reversing, I make it in by the skin of my patients and the paint of the roof rack.

Returning to the hotel rather than being presented with a menu in French, which to me would be like going to New York and not having a hot dog from a hot dog stand I haul the girls downstairs. It’s the Square for dinner.

Marrakesh has indeed changed.   Less red earth more tarmac. The call of the Djemaa el Fna water carriers “Lmaa, Lmaa” Water, Water, lacks the dust cloud to make you stop and have a small golden or silver cup full. He has turned into a tourist illusion. Back in the sixties, the square’s nightlife exuded the unknown, the unexpected, the strange, and fear. It left you with the euphoria of growing up without time passing. Now the tourists sit or walk among the numbered and licensed stalls (most of which are beyond the pocket of the ordinary hippies daily allowance) looking like they have just left London a few hours ago. They have tamed Marrakesh with their credit cards and have taken away the menace and mystery of the cooking pots. The absence of rising dust has changed its chemistry – cobras hustlers looked leaner/ meaner the bread seller sitting on their warm flat loafs have disappeared – I am older. Fanny in a state of near panic overwhelmed by the Marrakesh barbarity to earn a dollar at any cost.

(Top Tip: Have the road Signe STOP in Arabic put on to the palm of your hand in Henna. When you’re being hassled too much all you have to do is extend your hand in good old fashion traffic cop style. It worked a treat.)

Surfacing from the square I am sent to get three wash bags and two large kit bags from Williwaw. I shove and battle my way back to a welcome drink on the Hotel roof. By Marrakesh standards, we crash out very early.

Next day our hotel Essaouira (the name of which I had thought up to now to be a town on the coast), is buzzing with the comings and goings of a normal morning check in check out: Backpackers of all shapes and sizes. Every one them wearing shoes with soles thick enough to squash every known breed of scorpion are either struggling to untangle or re winch up their backpacks. A multitude of zips, straps, and bungees are made up, opened, and redone up with most of the female owners revealing different levels of thigh watermarks – burnt skin.   Gone are the days of moderate dress to visit Islam Morocco.   Tantalising knickers lines promising what most witchdoctors’ potions dream of achieving and what most marabouts (Holy men) pray about.

By the time my lot surface, a horde of plaits, nose rings, belly buttons, faces of all shapes, are passing through the door, and up the courtyard. Exhausted from puffing Kev turns up – he has overnighted it by train from Fez.   According to him a short distance away there is Hotel named Menara with a swimming pool.   Buy a beer and you can swim all day.   Just what the doctor ordered.

That night on a puff of hashish through Kev’s carved carrot pipe, a few beers, a lesson on my harmonica, we are all set to purchase some new yellow slippers: A pair of babouches, in the souk, tomorrow evening – Another early night.

We awake to an early morning chat over breakfast on the hotel roof with an American professor of cultural social and Urban Anthropology.   Her daughter, a Peace Corps volunteer has, against her wishes, just married a square trader.

Perhaps after all Marrakesh sitting on top of a massive system of underground aqueducts has not changed that much. Her animal forces remain intact. She remains the songbird of her desert surrounds: Her inhabitants a whirlwind of commerce.

Only her visitors have changed while her soul its people remains intact with the odd renegade one escaping now and again by way of a credit card, or a visa that belongs to Peace Corps virgin.   We can only hope for her future that she is wise enough to keep her throbbing Arabian style of inner city life undamaged.

Inshallah. In the end, it will be Allah’s will or be fucked by hardcore tourism. One way or the other Inshallah covers it all.   Let’s hope it does not find itself turning into a politically correct city like so many of our European cities which are now, for all intuitive purposes open-air prisons under twenty-four-hour camera surveillance.

After an extensive discussion on all mirrors of capitalism, we all come to the conclusion that we are not much bothered that our newly married Berber has found his ticket to the USA. With the evening call to prayer escaping to distant planets it is time for this group of capitalists to buy slippers.

Walking between stalls of spices, jewellery, fabric the colour of the rainbow, carvings, silver, leather, musical instruments, Africa, Black Africa, Tarzan Africa is remote and forgotten. I stop to commence trading only to hear Florence in an adjacent stall making her first solo purchase. A small necklace is under the hammer. The shop owner is on a beating to nothing. Her blue eyes, blond hair and Irish charm are all concentrating on the necklace. We watch in awe as the necklace is examined in minute detail. With the expertise of a seasoned Berber shopper, she cuts the asking price of twenty dirhams to ten dirham. We are sure a refusal will leave a far greater psychological scar than our poor Americans Professor’s daughter is exposing herself too. To our relief a beaming face confirmed victory. Allah be praised. Kev and I find an old cobbler.   Hidden in the back of his shop are two old pairs of babouches, just as we remembered them – hand stitched in soft yellow leather. We don’t do as well as the daughter.

Next day our first African king Hassen II turns up to see us off. Not in time to stop intrepid Kev securing a lift for himself and fellow traveller named Jez to Essaouira tomorrow. Essaouira, as I thought, is, after all, a coastal town with its real claim to fame dating back to 1949 when its ramparts featured in the filming of Othello.

Like a woodworms marks on timber, we watch along cortège of black Volvos arrive into the square.   Disgorging a bunch gentleman in badly cut grey suits and loud neckties. They stand constricted in their white stained collars in the evening setting sun like lighthouses. Slowly twisting their heads one way and then the other they habitual readjust their collar rigidity with an index finger while their dark reflecting shades draw circles around their temples. Security Guard. King Hassan is the one in the Roller.

We learn that occasion masks the opening of another restaurant confirming that Marrakesh wonderments are on a short fuse. Competing with the moon Macdonald’s neon sign lights up. God and Allah have mercy. Later that night the weather vents it’s disapproval against such a thing happening, fingering Marrakesh with tongs of lighting that would incinerate every Big Mac this side of Texas.

Before departure I decided a cutthroat shave is a must. I am fast learning that there are two types of shave. The bottom of the market shave: Ten dirhams. Good for one day. The top of the range: Twenty dirhams. A skin graft. Good for three days.   What makes the difference is not the price but the age of the shaver, the age of the chair, and the number of clients waiting for attention.   If you are the only client it’s a skin graft, with a nose and ears job free.   If you are not the only client it’s spare the water, the shaving cream, with no time for the nose or ears. A first-class Moroccan cutthroat shave has two stages and can take up to an hour to complete.

To be continued.

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Robert Dilllon. Account no 62259189. Ulster Bank 33 College Green Dublin 2.

Sorting code: 98-50-10 )

 

 

 

(Welcome once more. This is a somewhat long section 8861 words of the Unpublished Book so it is split into two halves. But don’t worry keep those donations rolling in. Zero so far. It must be the spelling mistakes.)

CEUTA

What we know:

Military.   Spain. Morocco.

Before In sha’allah some last-minute dash shopping, biros, lighters, small toys, and best of all disposable reading glasses.   Fully fuelled, 260 litres, we approached the frontier cloaked by our roof tent platform tarpaulin with a driving range of over 600 kilometres.

(Top Tip: Extra Fuel Storage: Four Jerry cans housed in specially designed steel racks are bolted to the side of the Jeep under our back windows. Two cans on either side. With an additional 25 litre tank fitted under the driver’s seat.   Carrying fuel in outside racks is illegal in Europe so if you decide on this method of storage only use them when in Africa. Their advantage a part from easy accessibility is the removal unwanted top-heavy weight from the roof.)

A bungee stretched across the back of our seats over which we draped some cloth that blocks off any unwanted views into the interior of the Jeep. Side window curtains with the back windows and rear door windows covered in silver antiglare one way filament keep any other prying eyes at bay.

(Top Tip: A three sectioned roof – platform allowed our six man tent to be pitched on the roof. See Photo No 2 on DVD)

Away back in the sixties in order to avoid the compulsory haircut handed out to all long-haired unclean flower power visitors to Morocco en route to the mañana kif cloud in Marrakech they passed through Ceuta. Then, as now, the Koran was pro cannabis and somewhat intolerant of alcohol a fact that was investigated at length by many a petal in the fumes of the medina cooking pots of Marrakech.

I tell the girls that even I can remember Mohammed’s tolerance being blurred over many long haggling sessions when I first visited Morocco – they are not impressed. It is nonetheless fair to say that this time I am ready for the “Do you want to sleep with my mother – she is still a virgin” introduction to Morocco.

I am also ready for the inevitable Hustling! In Morocco is an art form that has been perfected by years of hard tourism with the Never Say Die World Hustlers Festival Feeding Frenzy is an all year round event. The hope of a hassle-free border crossing into Morocco, I can assure you, is zero. It is as likely, (and I don’t need to presumed) as meeting up with Dr David Livingston.

Ceuta is however still to this day by a long run the less exasperating, frontier crossing into Morocco.

Williwaw is no more parked than she starts to attract her share of hustlers like flies to a fresh turd. A fee of $100 green backs negotiated down to $25 secured me my man. He is the only one of the mob not wearing sunglasses, a big plus point when it comes to barging: Park here. Follow me. The pack scattered.

Following my man I leave the girls sitting in Williwaw in the noon day sun. We enter a long corridor, a human beehive. In front of ten unattended window hatches, bundles of every shape and size litter the floor.  Each hatch opening has a green signs bearing witness to the fact that Arabic is much more beautiful in its written form than spoken. The gentle curves and wiggles over each hatch are nonetheless completely ignored by the great unwashed, in their search for that jewel of all jewels a lethargic official.

My man somehow or other appears all of a sudden behind the counter. “Sign here.”, before I could say ‘Allah be praised’ I sign both Fanny’s and my immigration papers and in a flash of a second I am outside once more, with both passports stamped.

A large Mercedes and two Japanese backpackers on foot have arrived. Our slant-eyed friends are surrounded by the greenback hustlers, all touting for their favour with the same passion as one would witness on the trading floor of the New York stock exchange on a black Friday. The passengers in the Mercedes attracting less attention: returning Arabs.

Passing the scrum surrounding our Japanese friends I half expected to see one of those visa credit cards machines being whipped out from under a Djellabah.

My man leads me back to Williwaw, points out the Customs and Excise building with one hand, while the other hand receives a ten spot tip for a job well done, hassle-free and very much appreciated.

Armed with my car papers I scale the few steps into an insignificant office where once again thanks to a further fifty bucks, the noonday sun, the call to prayer, and a packet of tampons that has cleverly fallen out of the back door of the jeep I am dealt with consideration, and efficiency.  Williwaw gets a quick inspection to confirm that we are not carrying any scud missiles. The Mercedes has long gone.

Rolling down the windows, hot and sticky we pass under the lifted frontier barrier.

 MOROCCO.   (Spanish corruption for the name of Marrakesh)

 What we know:

Harem.   Carpets. Henna.   Koran.   Islam. Tangiers.   Say it again Sam.   Atlas.     Mosque. Berber.   Fez. Camel.   Donkey.   Sheep.   Spices.   Prickly Pear.   Dates. Oases. Desert.   Goats.   Rocks.   Dunes.   Marrakech.   Casablanca.   Dirhams.   Tea. Souk.   Medinas.   Minarets. Ceramics. Djellaba.   Cushions.   Cous Cous. Bazaar.   Secret Gardens. Olives. Fortress Walls.   Sultans. Cobras.   Dye.   Beggars. Gateways.   Cactus. Veiled Woman. Leather.   Figs. Tents. Caravans.   Red Earthenware. Bedouin. Turban. Bracelets.

With fifty odd kilometres under our belt, Williwaw’s electromagnet field attracts an outrider: Lawrence of Arabia on a Suzuki.   In perfect English, at one hundred and twenty kilometres per hour we are invited, to visit the town of Tétouen. “Just up the road.” “There is a market in the souks.”   “I am a teacher, an excellent guide if you wish I will show you around my hometown.”   Fanny consults the Bible which confirms Tétouen is not to be missed.   “I can show you a secure place to leave your car,” ”   It’s a festival day for the children,” ” No money,” ” No Money ” ” No Money ” O! ye,   Lead on Mac Duff. Be-gob if he is not a hustler that has kissed the Blarney stone, I ‘m his mother.

Long before Lawrence of Suzuki homes in on us, disguised as a deprived, underprivileged Berber teacher that could do justice on the Isle of Man TT circuit while looking over his shoulder, Fanny had decided to purchase a carpet and ship it home. The trick now is to enjoy the purchase and not to get ripped off so it hurts in Tétouen.

Deep in the souk maze, Florence is seated cross legged, cross faced on an ever-increasing pile of carpets. Our salesman Mohammed as all salesmen in Morocco are named is invoking Allah with such expertise that I feel Fanny is in danger of converting to Islam.

Mohammed like his father before him, with a flash of white gold tarnished teeth, has spotted his sale an hour or so back. He shows no sign of weakening on price no matter what mix, of carpets, pile, tea, or payment we suggested. Price is totally ignored along with the outside summons to prayer. Our horrifications spurs his humour which knows no bounds. I am having a ball, Florence a lesson in boredom, Fanny, is having doubts about haggling Arab style. Mohammed has seen it all before. Surprise is the only tactic left. It is said that sudden prayers make God fart, so why not Allah.

Downing our mint teas, a mass walkout have us back in Aladdin’s cave before the genie can escape from the deal. A guarantee of delivery made on the souls of all his children and his children’s children has the teacher, the carpet lay outer, the carpet re-roller, the tea boys, and Mohammed all smiling as we leave.

Arab smiles always give one a sense of what the deal you have done could have been done better. No matter how well you think you have done, the bigger the smile the bigger the profit you have left behind.   (The carpets did arrive back in the UK, and we did get ripped off, but not so that it hurt.)

Haggling is all about compromise and body language. There are many tricks of the trade, techniques that can be brought to bear.   The value of anything boils down too personal choice. However, one piece of advice that might come in useful is.

(Top Tip: If your purchase is of some monetary value, let on that you are an Airline pilot. That you fly in and out of the country on a regular basis.   Before leaving take a photo of yourself, Mohammed, and the item purchased for prosperity and in celebration of being ripped off. A photo can be quite an effective insurance that whatever you purchase will turn up when you arrive home.)

In Morocco, especially in the Souks you will swear on many occasion that your feet were definitely walking down the narrow passageway and not into a shop. One minute you are on the street and the next in the shop without knowing how you got there. It is as if the shop materialise around your feet all on its own accord.

With his Djellabah flapping and his commission secured we followed bare heels on the Suzuki back to the main road.

Pitch: number fourteen is set up with the last of the evening sun beside a small river, on rock hard ground. Sleep arrives as the Atlas toads come to life burbling in soft Berber to the chatter of the river.

After breakfast: Hard boiled eggs, coffee, with sour milk, the last of our widow’s memories, (sausages), we leave our campsite with every good intention of penetrating further into the Atlas mountain range, four thousand meters high and over seven hundred kilometres long.   Our progress is not beholden to anytime, plans, maps, or sponsorship, so the enjoyment of the present can only be disturbed by our emotions, our health, or our safety.   We have left our problems behind.   Our unknown whereabouts other than we are in Africa is for all intents and purposes a blessing in kindness to those we loved at home: Out of sight out of mind.

The sun rises, the air becomes dry, and the distant mountains in a wash of blue seemed to rise and retreat before us.   The sight of a camel now for some hours has been consigned by Florence to her diary. Watching the only cotton wool cloud break up into Indian smoke signals we bump along longingly for relief from the heat. “Look, Look, it’s a swarm of donkeys,” says Florence.

In the sweltering heat, they all have nostrils that look like mini versions of the entrance to the channel tunnel. A tailback of jackasses, jennies, horses, donkeys, burdened down with loads endangering to split the animals in half are heading in the same direction as us.

This time without the aid of our bible (Lonely Planet) or a Djellabah flapping biker, we arrived using the old and tested Tonto/ Kimosabi tracking method. If the turd is steaming you are hot on the trail into a small village that had no use for parking meters.

Every tree has a circle of animals tied to it.   There is not a spot to be had that does not have a herd of Jesus hobbled carriers standing mutely in the shade looking like they could drink the Nile. The only free parking is right in front of the police station.

Reining in Williwaw, we dismounted at the feet of law. You could read their minds as they watched me lock up.   “Tell me, fellows, what going down there, how come Allah never rode a donkey? Can I park? I know your mother,” a warm handshake dispels their urge to demand papers. I move Williwaw into the field beside the police station.

Avoiding many an irritated hoof on the way back out of the field I join the girls to cross the road into our first real tourist free market. Here we remain for some hours trapped by our curiosity and fascination. Surrounded by passing colours that would put an artist’s palette to shame the market is for us to pollute along with the junk made in China. Our senses are hit with a casserole of sound and smell that has us in a state of careless anticipation of what we might see, except for Florence who is in a state of near panic and has long taken to my shoulders.

Our first find is a bunch of small white upside down ice cream cone-shaped tents.   They turn out to be Trumpers of Morocco. To Florence’s horror and to the obvious surprise of the young resident Berber barber hairdresser, I enter.   Before he can recover I am sitting on his three and a three-quarter legged chair, looking into a small cracked mirror, rubbing my three-day red growth. In the cracked mirror, Fanny’s face appears at the entrance. “I’ll be about ten minutes love “The appearance of the cutthroat razor puts Florence to flight and my Adam’s apple, into bungee mode.

The heat inside the tent has a stream of perspiration running down the back of my neck never mind my face.   There is no need for water to get lather up. In true Trumpers tradition, the spoken word is kept to the bare minimum.   I in some way or other have managed to add to the atmosphere by adding an ingredient of intensity and intrepidity, when I demand that the blade be sterilised by running it over my lighter.

Squeezing shaving cream from a green Palmolive tube into the palm of his quivering shaking hand, his eyes don’t leave the mirror,   The razor edge looks like it could slice effortlessly through flesh, bone and muscle. I never thought it would end this way. A man should not die at the hands of Berber Barber.

“Hold it there, not another inch.” Holding his wrist we have a cultural exchange.   “One cut my friend and you will feel the wrath of Cuchulain the hounds of Ulster”

His fingers, which are lathering up the two squirts of Palmolive shaving soap instantly developed Parkinson’s disease. A rich mixed smell of Arab/Celtic body odours drifted out the tent flap to join the rest of the market scents, and odours. From the strength of his hand, I sense his indignity at my suggestion of a cut. I also get a strong feeling that he has misunderstood the myth of Cuchulian, that he is swearing vengeance on the hound and the unclean dog that is now sitting on his seat.

An enamelled cup of water is placed firmly in my hands. Ten strokes: Re lathering. Ten more strokes. Followed by thumb pressure equivalent to opening of one’s mouth in the dentist chair for a backfilling a lifting of each nostril. A few minutes later I walk into the daylight free of nostril hair, cut free, several kilos lighter.   We both shake hands.

Catching up with Flo and Fanny I find them surrounded by a fan club of six to seven years old, all demanding dirhams.   A threatened boot brings smiles all around with renewed squeals of laughter. My best new get lost baby face look is met with renewed hilarious laughter.

We take refuge in an eating hut, with an open fire on the ground surrounded by a long table and benches.   Roasted sardines, bread, are the only choice, picked at by all of us under the ever watchful eyes of our new-found fan club. Nothing goes to waste. The word has spread. The fan club now outnumbering the parked animals by a considerable quantity makes the retreat to Williwaw an event to behold.

A few hours later after a couple of mint tea stops in the cooling part of the day, we find ourselves higher up into the Atlas. Pitch: number fifteen is beside a crystal clear small watercourse. A quick look at our map confirms that we are still a long way off the high Atlas.   Florence and I find a deep sandy pool the size of a large bathtub.   We divert the course of the flowing water into our bathtub. Returning after dinner, we are treated to a wonderful bath in a tub decorated with the jewellery of nature all under a cosmic star canopy frozen on a black blue Moroccan sky.   The sounds of the toads, frogs, crickets and running water gets rid of any urban feelings that Fanny or I might have. A few glasses of French cognac around our campfire with the sound of our daughter deep sleep re-enforces that in a world of infinite beauty we are indeed zilch.

Morning is announced by a sharp whistle.   Looking across the tent from the inside of my sleeping bag Fanny face in the early morning sunshine looks at ease but far from rested. I discover one of our stabilising pegs has worked its way loose in the night, causing tent wobble on her side during the night. This is our first pitch on the roof of Williwaw and with all new designs, there is some fine-tuning to be done.

With the aroma of coffee in the early morning mountain air, the intense shrill whistle is once more repeated. High above us three small waving figures are the source of the piercing bush twitter.   Before I could say ‘no’, a returned wave from the girls sees a dust trail descend down through the rocks.   Locked like a heat-seeking missile on to the breakfast table the cloud of dust sweeps down at rate of knots.

Blessed with the agility of their flock of goats, five young ones suddenly across the river become visible like little genies out of a bottle. Two so small they did not warrant a silhouette on the mountaintop. ‘Berbers’! Say’s Fanny.

At a safe distance, all five under their raven black hair smile a dazzling Morse code in white ivory. “What’s that”? “Look at that”   “Look at her, did you ever”

“Should we” is written all over their faces.

One small little smasher that you would kill for with dyed red hands encourages the eldest one to approach.   A few slices of bread and cheese and we are friends for life. After a lineup farewell photo, we break camp with more helping hands than one can keep an eye on. The intensity of Florence’s blond hair in the photo in contrast to theirs is startling. (Photo no DVD)

The cool fresh air of the Atlas Mountains is such a magnet of immense draw there are no arguments as to which way we turn. Left or Right, we are heading for High Atlas as quick as possible.

Hot, Hot, Hot, Stop in Chefchaouen for beer. We have mint tea and 7up. Hello you are English, this is how we play Ludo, would you like some Hash, don’t go to Ketama because – has us leaving the dope pusher to meet a more hopeful dope who has appointed himself our parking attendant while we were having our 7ups.

He is now demanding payment for services rendered.   Unfortunately, I still have not learned to suppress my western hate of parking attendants so he is lucky I did not stuff his turban and armbands where the sun does not shine. On the grounds of good relations, I resist the urge to do so.

It’s Ouazzane for lunch, and on to Rabat to renew our Mauritania visa which is due to expire at the end of the month. We check into Hotel Central on rue de Mohammed V with parking at your own risk in the garage some blocks away.

We dined that night in Mac Donald’s. What a contrast from earlier in the day at Restaurant No 3 where our fan club of hopefuls watched every bit. Here in Mac Donald’s every Arab in our eyes is totally out-of-place. “Not so,” says Florence’s. “A Big Mac is a big Mac.” She’s right of course. The Big Mac has the power to annexe all cultural divides. The girls retire early. I go for a wander in the Medina which confirms why Arabs are the touts and traders I have come to adore in small doses.

After a flawless night’s sleep, I set off by taxi to the Embassy.  My taxi driver knows every blade of grass in town. He has driven horses around Rabat in the nineteen fifties. I am half tempted, having spent the last few days under the illusion that we were in the high Atlas to ask him which direction one might find the Sahara, just in case we turn out to be the first Overlanders to miss it all together.

He is full of chat, “did I know that Mons, René Caillié passed through Rabat on his way back from Timbuktu around about 2.30 p.m. in 1829 to collect his prize from the French Geographical Society?” “That the town acquires its name from Ribat Arabic for a fortification disguised as a monastery.” “That the media is big, and so was Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdullah by all accounts?”   If he was not, who cares, I like the sound of the name as it emerges in deep echoes from his mouth that would put the fear of Allah in any man’s heart.   “As the capital of Morocco, Rabat had aspirations at one time of housing the second biggest mosque in the Muslim world.” “If it had being completed,” said Mohammed “a full house would have seen over forty thousand bums in the air all at once.” Then with a gold gleaming glitter of his front tooth reflected in his rear view mirror, he says. “Think how many prayer mats I could have sold,”   For some reason, I think it is the thought of all the bums, not the dirham’s that are grieving him. Not a question to ask.

“Mohammed V is also buried here; the present king’s dad.” We arrive with the comment, “No matter how poor a country is, its ambassador, chargé d’affairs, envoy, residence ends up in the best part of town.”

“Good morning,” “Bonjour, do you speak English, no French, English good.” Producing our passports I explain that we are travelling overland to Cape Town.

The visas I had got in London are due to expire in a few days, and I would be grateful if they could be extended or renewed for one or two months. Prior to us leaving England I had spent some energy in identifying which country had what embassies and in which towns in an effort to plan a routing: all to no avail. Here I am in the first embassy being asked to produce an air ticket in order to have our visa renewed/extended.

“I am driving a Land Rover not a Jumbo Jet to Mauritania.”  The bible says stay calm don’t blow your aft burners.  “May I see the Ambassador, or make an appointment to see him.”   No!   “His name please,”   I write down the phone number of his residence. “Mr Mesl Yalyq, but you will have to speak to me first.”   Thanks.

(TOP Tip: Visa and visa extensions or renewals are a major headache to any overland passage. You are well advised to draw up a list of cities where it is possible to obtain them with the least hassle. Africa is no exception.)  

Returning in my taxi I am unable to consider our options as Mohammed is determined to continue his guided tour.

[Before leaving Ireland I had taken the precaution of printing up some official looking Government headed notepaper – quality paper with a gold shamrock printed on the top. On the bottom, a succession of Gaelic meaning nothing but looking every bit a mouthful – Innamonanahar, agus an vic, agus an spirit nave, I also had a round rubber date brand made up with some more Gaelic garbage written on it.]

A one hundred and fifty dirham’s ride around the airline offices of Rabat confirms that a little doctoring of the expiring visa is going to be a much cheaper option than an air ticket costing £706.96 sterling. That settled, I return for lunch recommended by the bible, in some seafood restaurant across from the Majestic Hotel on the Medina side of Building Hassan II. On this occasion, we were not had by the price or the fish stew, which is left undamaged.

(Top Tip: Our bibles are the publication called The Lonely Planet and The Rough Guide, both valuable source of knowledge although somewhat biased towards an American pitch on their description.) 

The second recommendation Restaurant Bahia turns out to be better, a haven of shade, where we pass the afternoon siesta in traditional Arab style stretched out on pillows. I tell Fanny of our problem with the visas – a bad move.

Fanny, awake from 5 a.m. gets the jump on me next morning. “I told you so!   It’s too late to continue, too hot, we won’t get across the Mauritania border.”

My knee-jerk reaction is not good at that hour of the morning.  She could be right about the heat, and the frontier crossing, but now that we have a whole month in Morocco due to self-renewal of our Mauritania visas my reaction is that we have come this far so lets at least go and see if we can get across.   Not a good start to the day. I will have to win her around over the next few weeks.

Check out of Hotel Central. Williwaw, who has been parked in the street for the night looks intact, but her little security light on the dash is not on.   Not another faulty Fox security system I moan. There is no sign of a break in.   It is the Colman’s cold box/car fridge this time. It has run the batteries flat overnight.

(Top Tip: There are – much better German Army car fridge to be had that will produce an ice cold beer in the middle of the Kalahari) 

Unpack the jump leads from the toolbox. Remove the spare tyre from the bonnet. Open bonnet. Silly ass I am, I still have got a lot to learn. The batteries are under the passenger’s seat where they have been since we bought Williwaw in Brooklyn Motors for seven thousand pounds. This price included a one-week Mechanical Course under their chief Mechanic who turned out to be carrying a chip on his shoulder when it came to the Irish. So much so that it had left him with an attitude problem, that no spanner could move, or fix. So it is no wonder I am still on a learning curve.

Try flagging down some assistance. No good. In the end, I resort to the dash. Not the dashboard, the wallet, a bribe.

(Top Tip: Always keep a twenty-dollar bill in your passport)

Two blue coated parking officials. One hundred dirham’s each gets us a positive and negative dose of kindness and battery power.

Leavening Rabat for Fez we cross a river to Salé.   This is where the Long John Silver, swashbuckling, with a parrot on the shoulder, sword in the mouth, mother’s scarf tied in a knot at the back of the head, pirates use to hang out.   They were known as the Salé Rovers and I am told they made a visit to the Emerald Isle and came back singing, ‘ No Nay never no more will I play the wild rover no nay never no more.’ It would make you wonder where they got their name.

We end up in Meknés a city of some size between Rabat and Fez that we omitted to see on our map. Out with the Bible, Hôtel Maroc on rue Rouamzine is described and I quote, “It’s quiet, clean, pleasantly decorated and furnished, all the rooms have a hand basin and most face onto a well-kept courtyard. The (cold) showers and toilets are also clean and well maintained.”

OK, let’s give it a try. It’s in the old part of the city just at the back of the Medina. With a rendering of vernacular (Irish) that had us classified as Russians we shaking off the unwanted guides, water sellers and hustlers.   Arrive at the Hotel.

Fanny comes out with a face that says ’s stay here and I will be on the first plane home tomorrow morning.

(The Bibles would benefit their readers greatly if they were to date their “factual information.”)

Return to Williwaw. We three star it at the aptly named Hotel, the Palace in the new town.   Nearly all Moroccan towns have split personalities one new and one old. The old Arab town of Meknés is set in behind twenty-five miles of triple wall ramparts, while the new French-built town is outside in the dust.

After dinner, we take a taxi back between one of the many gates into the old town. A hassle-free walkabout brings us out with some considerable luck to where we had started out having passed through the

Souk Sekkarine —     Cutlers and ironmongers.

Souk Bezzazaine —-   Baskets and materials.

Souk Nejjarine       ——   Carpenter.

Souk es Sabbat     —–       Cobblers.

Souk el Herir        —–       Silk.

Souk el Ghezara   —-     Butchers.

Sulk of Florence     —–     Purchase of a Djellaba

Wandering back to the gates a full Arabian moon hangs low over Molay Ismaïl Mausoleum. The needle is placed on Morocco’s’ number one ‘ Allah be praised. ‘     From the top of minarets, the wail of evening’s call to prayer starts to drift around the city. It seems that the city stands bewildered in the late evening haze as if it is spooked by the sudden eerily disruption to it daily life.

The promise of a soak in a Turkish bathtub in our hotel room has rekindled Fanny’s sense of adventure. Or perhaps the wailing has brought on a shiver of fear of losing her man in the Sahara to a harem of throat warbling Berber woman.   Or it could be a vision of herself ending her days in a harem out in the middle of the shifting sands. Either way, it gets me a squeeze of the hand.

On our way again to Fez, we pass under the main entrance gate to Meknés.   The inscription over the gate reads “I am the gate which is open to all races, whether from the West or the East.”   “You see,” says Fanny, “Our man Moulay Ismaïl who built the gate was expecting us after all.”

This time hotel-wise, the Bible gets it right and we forgive its American spelling Fès for this ancient city Fez. Up an alleyway on our right just before the gate to the largest Medina in Morocco, which is under UNESCO protection we book into the Hótel du Jardin Publique. So we all knew where to find the hotel, we rename the gate’s Big Bad Bob’s loud fart gate, after its true Arabic name, Bab Bou Jeloud.

I park Williwaw outside the city walls that look like they have just been sprayed by gunfire for a week. Thousands of swifts or house martins have turned the wall into a block of Emerdale Cheese. (TIP: a bird book is a must for Africa)

Locking Williwaw up, I look around for a suitable night guard. That is one that can be trusted not to nod off   I also decide that any contender must be known to the hotel, so I return to the Hotel with Ali security to have him checked out for dependability.   On the way back to Williwaw we stop for a mint tea and a game of pool in the local cafe.   It becomes quite obvious that Ali is well-known for his staying power. Exchanging a few dollars in the cafe I pay Ali half his negotiated fee, and agree on a full car wash in the morning for an extra thirty Dirham’s.

In the morning it’s a day in the Souk.

Fez souks are a chaotic splotch of African Arabian living culture that has survived for God knows how many centuries without any protection. They present us with Africa’s first real mask, Living Islam.

Islam for some inexplicable reason seems to rest easier than other religious beliefs within the dark narrow alleyways of souks. The Mosques hidden deep inside promote a concept of worship founded on five principles of belief, a way of life, that regulate human life on all levels, individual, social, political, spiritual, and economically.

Shahada           Profession of faith

Salah                Prayer

Siyam               Feast of Ramadan

Zakah             Charity

Al-Hajj           Pilgrimage to Mecca

A religion with a billion adherents worldwide which seems these days to brashly impart an atmosphere of mystery and menace to the non-believers. I can remember my first encounter with Islam which took place here in Morocco back in the sixties. Walking down a narrow sulk alleyway with large chains hanging from walls I was suddenly physical ejected as unworthy to use what was obviously a shortcut between one mosque and another. Then and now I came to the conclusion what religious belief is not the root of all ugliness in our world.

Mr bin Laden ensured Islam ugliness by staining Muslims with his desire to murder his way to salvation: Jihad.   Fight the holy war against the infidel.   Some century’s earlier Pope Urban ІІ stained Christendom by offering to get out of Purgatory points. Fight the holy wars against the Islam. Get your sins forgiven and go to heaven: The Crusades. Take your pick. Both said that their mission was to make God’s word victorious, but the real question is surely is whether Jesus or Allah or Buda, or Ra, or whoever you like is divine or human.

Anyway considering that a great deal of Fez souks heritage is its Mosques which lie behind closed doors to non-Muslims one could not be blamed for thinking that it is somewhat tongue in cheek that their restoration is funded by UNESCO which rely to a great extent on voluntary funding from all religions for its restoration programmes.

Money has no God other than itself. The great unwashed I suppose will have to wait on a World based on collective will and reciprocated understanding rather than the power and profit before we get an understanding of a true God from a true God; such a world is a long way off.   With the arrival of the internet, we are now somehow or other less connected to each other. It could be said that we are living in malevolent times.

Less disposed to accountable justice, less interested in disarmament, in the removal of trade barriers, in multilateral aid free of political relationships, in curtailment the mass-produced culture, in the unequal currency exchange that lead to dependency relationships, in gashing western media soap operas that promote false developed world values, in Religious tolerance, to mention but a few of the current worlds non climatic problems.

We are all aware that we are fast heading for an antithetical world, where the UN will not survive if the present day gunboat politics of USA, Nato, and Britain have their way. There is little doubt that the United Nations Gobble Shop in need of core reform with a crying need for it to redefine itself in regard to its relationship with International Governmental Organisations, the EU:OAU:OPEC.:COM:ECON. ASEAN: OECD: NATO, and the G7. With its present-day membership of one hundred and eighty-four member states, managed by two thousand four hundred and thirty-eight full-time staff, together with international and regional networks, it is no wonder that the chances of achieving peace and security in the world are zilch.

These two aspirations are supposed to be promoting by collaboration through education, science, culture, and communications.   Has not its soul being sold to economic institutions and has it not long-lost the meaning of its parent’s aspiration of Peace and Security for the World.   Another word the cultural importance of a worldview of Peace and Security is no longer reflected by the UN.   It has become a puppet organisation carrying out the wishes of its major financiers.

Struggling to recover from high-level corruption it is too bulky, too slow, too vetoed, too poor and a very bad world beggar. It’s no wonder that the AK- 47 and the Kalashivikov have been immortalised in the national flag of Mozambique, and that Sovernity Funds are as you read buying up the world without any allegiance other than profit.

The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s primary objective was adopted in the year it came into being in London under its constitution in 1945.   In December 1994 out of the one hundred and eight four-member states, only 75 had paid their assessments for the regular budget in full.

The remaining 109 had failed to meet their statutory financial obligations to the Organisation.

An example:   On a UN budget of US $518,445,000 – 1995 Allocation for 1996 – 1997 (Source United Nations Year Book)   Unpaid assessed contributions totalled almost $1.8billion. This is apart from the cost of Peacekeeping, which also has a shortfall of $1.3billion to 31 Dec 1994.   (Website: http://www.un.org.)

In some ways, recent events are offering Africa a chance to take off its mask of mimicry of the west, to shed its interdependence (a media word to mask the hard realities) and go it alone. Our journey I hope will reveal if such a possibility exists.

Africans second mask is UNESCO. Is UNESCO a United Nations mask for western style constitutions?   Constitutions that have little or no foundations in African Culture, in African Heritage, in African Religions, in Africa’s Peace and Security, in fifty-three independent African countries, not to mention it’s richness of over one thousand odd languages/ dialects.

UNESCO is a partnership with,

UNISPAR (University – Industry – Science – Partnership)

UNIDO (United Nations Industrial Development Organisation)

UNESCO (Biotechnology Action Council)

Plus its support,

The International Institute for Theoretical and Applied Physics.

The International Organisation for Chemical Sciences in Development.

The International Centre of Pure and Applied Chemistry

Just like Sovernity Funds, UNESCO is harness to aspirations of the business. Worldwide greed rather than world need.

How can it not place the centre of its values and controls either in the individual nor in the collective but in the reality that transcends both, when, in point of fact would it not be a better aspiration for peace and security of the world if the UN were to promote more RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE.

At the heart of religious beliefs, we find fear, the true enemy of man. The modern secular world claims to solve religious pluralism by reducing religion to private life whereas it is an infinitely more complicated problem. Practice shows that religions are cultures which, consciously or not shape attitudes and induce unshakable reflexes in everyday life.

One can say ‘so what’ – it is of no importance as all cultures cannot be handed down to a people, the people must rise to them. However, the strength of any culture is not measured by the extent of its protection, rather by its ongoing development and growth.   There is one thing for sure globalization requires corporate responsibility. No amount of international law will turn the tide of world greed. Individual projects taken on by large multinational corporations are seen only as a means to mollify their world image of profit at all costs.

The UN would be well advised to harness the power of every Stock exchange in the world by getting them to agree to a minimal commission payable to a United Nations Fund on every stock exchange transaction.

We all know that Multinational corporations and world Sovereign funds have no real responsibility to country, governments, or to the world as a whole so why not tap the source of world greed to contribute to world need.

It should also invite all multinationals to contribute to a fund to enable it to set up its own independent internet-based world television channel. Here it could at least broadcast its transparency, its willingness to listen and to adapt and to show the world what it is doing with the funds.

There can be no living culture, no sense of time, no heritage, without a people’s language, or languages. Communication not cloak-and-dagger would enhance its world image a thousandfold.   If there is no change we ARE GOING TO FIND THAT THE WORLD, its recourses, its people, its future will be owned and controlled by Sovereign Funds.

Ok, Ok an enough is enough.

Where was I? O yes, Fez! – Back to the real world. As I have already said it is my contention that the very soul of Fez’s its souk is now in danger as a result of its World Heritage Listing. (It being one of four hundred such sites listed in the world in one hundred different countries by UNESCO’s Heritage list)

Rather than upholding the managed development of the souk its listing is attracting short-term (who gives a shit) profit. Western Money grabbing values. Recoup the costs, at any cost.

Having a coffee we watch the flow of human traffic mixed with mules laden with goods evaporate down the souk alleyways. All seems to go in and down never to rematerialize.   Movement is ceaseless. Florence is warned by Fanny to hold on as we step into the river of colour, to be swept without further ado down over the well-polished cobbles and flagstones. Merchants squat like waiting for spiders on the riverbanks to pounce on every movement. “I think, a Guide is a good idea after all”.

Our path into the Souk slants downward summoning the mind to descend into the innermost recess of the bazaar, where light penetrates in fleeting flickers.

We are entering a world where fat robed Arabs sit on large sequined pillows stuffing the odd date with short gold-ringed fingers into golden-capped teeth. A world where one can find wobbling belly buttons undulated in ever tightening circles.   Where long eyelashes flutter behind veil covered faces. Where castanets finger clicks in rhythm to some strange-sounding string instruments, where all fulfilments are achieved in a haze of curling smoke.   “A guide is a good idea,” says Fanny again. OK, we get one tomorrow.

Florence sitting high up on my shoulders out of harm’s way is not in the least affected by any fantasy of the mind; her only concerned is getting a Djellabah. Small glasses of tea follow us everywhere. By the time some cloth is chosen for the Djellabah which will be ready tomorrow, if we can find it again I am bursting for a pump ship.   Returning up a parallel passage, Palais des Merinides now a Restaurant is discovered. Earmarked it for tomorrow’s evening meal I make use of its excellent heads before we reemerge at the start of the alleyway.

Later that night the full of moon Arabian sky has a milky way that stretches without end. Nights call to prayer echoes and bounces from wall to wall. Swaying in volume it has no definite direction.   Suddenly, total silence; just long enough to nod off but not for long. Our hotel window rattles at 6 am with the vibrations of a holler that penetrates the innermost corner of each and every souk alleyway of the mind. Seven am, our souk guide ‘Admin’ is biting at the bit.   Firstly I check Williwaw who has already got an early morning wash and is now once more covered in a fine film of red-brown dust.   I am assured of a re-wash tomorrow morning.

A quick visit to the Bank, all of which hang out in the poxy modern part of Fez, and it’s back to check on Admins command of English. Not bad, but not good.   Next a clear understanding of what we want to see, not what he wants to show us is agreed. Also, an agreement that all purchases will be done without him hanging around so as to avoid any markups.   His guide fee, time, and bonus are agreed.

Off we set at a cracking Medina pace well over the speed limit. Our guide is five feet three, dressed in denims from top to bottom.   He disappears almost a once.   “Don’t worry he’ll reappear a quick as a flash if we slip into here.”   “Deal or no deal, commission is commission.”   It is obvious our guide’s nose is still out of joint with the agreement for he is still in a headlong rush downwards so we leave the shop and cross the alleyway for our first tea of the day.

Like a wagging terrier, Admin reappears.   “Listen, Admin, we are not interested in seeing the Souk in ten minutes; at our pace – we are not your everyday tourist.”

Everyday tourist: our first European mask. It will take us quite some time to realise that this mask, no matter how hard you might try to get rid of it, remains in place. You might perceive yourself to be different from the common Traveller. In as much that you are more eco-friendly, more assessable, more exposed, more at one, more knowledgeable, more understanding, whatever.

The fact remains no matter how hard you might try you are viewed as a tourist. A blow in even when a friendship is created.

Admin earns his living, or supplements his income, or pays his educational fees, or helps his family, by being a Tourist Guide. He has seen it, done it all a thousand times over. The trick for us is to make it a bit unconventional for him, less boring.   Then with a little good luck perhaps he might give us a little extra glimpse of his culture that remains hidden behind the studded doorways.

So it was. Over our syrup hot tea Admin decided that we are not his everyday run of the mill tourists.

Following him up a white-walled alleyway, we enter a courtyard, housing a small fountain gossiping to itself and its captive plants. It is a cool and peaceful setting. The sound of water gives the courtyards surrounded tiled walkway a freshness that the sole of your feet wants to experience.   Taking a broad open stair we arrive in an empty room where a frail unveiled woman is sitting on the floor.   On noticing our presence she freezes like a rabbit caught in the head lights of a car. “My mother,” says, Admin. There is no greeting we are an unwanted intrusion. An unmasking embarrassment: Tourists.

Admid satisfied that he can now return us to the real world. To his maze of hidden homes, blind alleys, doors closed to prying eyes, T junctions in the form of small squares, says his goodbye to mum and we follow him to our first requested port of call:   The tanneries of Guerniz built-in the seventeenth century. (Photo No   DVD)

He waves us in and with good reason, utters that he will wait for us outside. The stench has me instantly retching my guts up alongside a large vat of dye. The dye receiving an added ingredient called the insides of my stomach.

Florence comes to my rescue with a handful of mint.   This is a medieval place, with working practices to match. Skiving, Bating/Pickling, Graining/Fleshing.

Walking the gangways between the vats one has to be extremely careful not to slip and end up in the evil-looking liquid that ranges in colour from blood-red to crap orange, to white, to ash grey, to black, to yellow. It’s like walking down the middle or crisscrossing a Bill Boa board with each cup big enough and deep enough to drown any misfortune that happened to slip in any sauce colour he or she wishes to gulp down.

Across this minefield the source of my urge to techniq colour yawn with each step is a large washing drum. Avoiding its revolving drum full of skins in different stages of gut ridding wash, I take refuge up a ladder on to the roof of the Tannery.   Urged on by my need to get a lung full of fresh air I venture further up another small ladder to disturb in true tourist style (camera dangling from my neck), two of the incarcerated workers who are having a late morning sleep in.

An immediate demand for dirhams by one of the awakened occupants is met by

a rebuke from his mate. I am unable to reverse so I point my camera out of their

Bedroom window, before either of them could pull their leather shorts on, I snap the tannery from on high.   To show that the early bird does not always get the worm I pay the non-greedy one a few dirhams.   With Admin attempting to earn extra commission at every opportunity we leave the Tannery. His inability to stop doing so eventually sees us Part Company. He is far from content.

We are all exhausted by the time we crash out for the midday snooze. After a few hours kip, we petit taxi it over to Hótel Palais Jamais for a G and T. This top of the range Féz Hotel is set in Jardin Andalous or Andalusian Style Gardens. We are not sure which, but I do know it once was a pleasure Pavilion for the Jamai Family, built-in 1296. There is one thing for sure it has not forgotten how to charge for pleasure with the cost of our three drinks regurgitating the same price as three nights in our posh hotel.   Nevertheless, the view over Féz is worth it.

This is where the wealthy dip their toes into “Morocan Cultural a la Western Tourist.” Credit cards style. It’s air-conditioning and opulence all piggybacking on the interwoven carpet of Arabic magic.   The sharp taste of gin combined with the smell of fresh lemon wafting up from my glass, make a vain attempt to heighten and in some bizarre way to suppress the very essences of Féz.

On the ritual notes of warbling Arabic prayer, the lifeblood of the souk floats up to us. Each note locking the towers of the medina far below us into one unit engendering a believer or non-believer.

Féz leaves every one of its visitors, wealthy or otherwise, imprinted with a sense of Aladdin Magic Carpet and the night of a thousand veils.

The last call to prayer is our dinner call so we return to the roof-top terraces of Féz el Bali. Our intention is to pick up Florence’s Djellabah before dinner a true test of any culture. Like a black man playing rugby for South Africa in the snow, we are spotted by a set of angled eyes named Simon. All best-unveiled plans never go according to plan. Under the influence of Simon soft-spoken voice, we change our match play and visit a Restaurant – Au Palais Mnebhi. Why? I don’t know. In fact, that’s not quite true. I wanted to give Florence and Fanny that below the horizon nervous feeling of eating a tajine of mutton with one’s fingers while seated on leather cushions, watching some sumptuous veiled dancer smile behind her silk veil as the snake charmer waves his flute to and fro in front of cobra basket. Daft I know.

What we got was five hundred and seventy dirham’s more expensive than I had bargained for. Fire eaters, acrobats, belly dancing, long knives, drums, flutes and a free dinner for Simon. Florence had a ball; Fanny had difficulty remembering which hand to use and I had no qualms in turning down Simon demands for a sweetener.

Next morning Florence and I miss the early morning tower shrill and the one after. Fanny, moved by last nights tajine is downstairs locked on the loo. She returns somewhat flushed with a leftover from the original Marrakesh hash cake – Kevin.

He is an English drop out from 1964; with a smile that has seen many a Charlie Watts in its day. Whether it was her fifth cup of tea or a puff of wacky tobacco compliments of Kev she has sourced a Turkish style bath house not far from our hotel.   Armed with a bottle of baby oil she leaves us to our sleep. I am sure from behind one of those dark heavy doors in the hallowed depths of Féz an hour later I hear her shattering blue sky-high pitched wail. The decision to move on had come. The spell of Féz is broken. On her silent knackered return before returning to the land of the nomadic Berber we made a weak effort to explore Fez’s outside walls.

The town of Rich is our next target. Pitch: number sixteen.   What a contrast to Fez. Mountains at every point of the compass there is not a sound to be heard. (Photo no see DVD) Like the Irish, every Berber family has its blood feuds. But it’s the women that jingle the silver and pick their man. Once you have broken bread together you are friends for life or death.   Home: from home.

(To be Continued)

Donations Details: R Dillon. Account no 62259189. Ulster Bank 33 College Green Dublin 2. Sorting Code 98-50-10.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

( On we go, readers, spelling mistakes and all.  It is more than likely these days you could not follow other than on the written pages)

AFRICA.   (Arabic. Afira, to be dusty.)

 

What we know:

Black.   Animals. Dictators. Famine.   Tarzan.   Nelson Mandela.     Aids. IMF. World Bank. Rains. Sahara.   The Nile. Mt. Kilimanjaro. Ngorongoro Crater.   Victoria Falls. Tribes. Corruption. Massacres. War.   Aid.     Freedom. Slavery.   Colonialists.   Zulu’s.   Fever.   Red Sunsets. Acacias.   Snakes.   Ebony.   Ivory. Red Dust. Poverty.   Malaria. Tsetse Fly. Serengeti.   Grass. Burton. Livingston.

Disturbing some of its feathered friends Transmediterranier drops her shore ropes and shudders to life. According to Greek Mythology, we head out under Hercules’ legs for this is where the strong chap separated Africa from Europe with one foot on the rock of Gib and the other in Ceuta.

Resting on the ship’s rails that have seen more white gull splat than white paint, it is not long before the sparkling blue seas have me in its raptures and I begin to ponder on the land voyage ahead.

Will Africa test the mental characteristics of one’s nature, the same way as a long sea passage does? Will the land, unlike the sea that reveals no passage of time, impart a self-understanding of just how insignificant we are in the hands of nature?   Will the deserts with their whispering moving sands be the same as the stillness of the deep?   Will the mountains, the vast grasslands, the rivers, the lakes and canyons, leave us with a sense of sentimentality?   Does the African bush respond to the pull of the moon? Does it sounds, its darkness, its light, its density, its temperature, it rains, its colour, offer shelter, as the layers of water are shelterless?   Are animals the true stars of the land? Was Macbeth right when he said “that man strut’s and frets his hour upon the stage, screams and cries and is heard no more.”?   Will it teach us that Democracy is a universal remedy to the problems of the world?

Who better to have a chat with on the rail other than the lads who not only found most of the land signposts of Africa but helped turn Africa into a product for the sake of profit?   Brave men one and all.

Dr David Livingston     (1813 – 1873)       Religious Minister       60 years     Scottish          

  

Sir Richard Burton       (1821 – 1890)       Soldier                           69 years   English

  

Sir John Hanning Speke   (1827 – 1864)       Soldier                      37 years   English

  

Mary Kingsley                 (1862 – 1900)       Spinster                         38 years   English

Sir Henry Morton Stanley (1841 – 1904)       Newspaper reporter     37 years   Welsh

Well, Dave, there is no need for any introductions here.   It is quite obvious that I am Irish. Let’s say I am one hundred and eighty-two years younger or older than you blokes, take your pick. I don’t have the gift of the gab like your friend Burt, or his fascination with sexuality. Let me ask you David have you forgiven Stanley for turning up that time in Ujiji without some haemorrhoid ointment?   Has Stanley forgiven Speke for slipping off to find the source of the Nile? What about Mary who defended polygamy, domestic slavery, cannibalism as appropriate social activities in West Africa. Along with searching for Fetish and fish she augured that Anthropology was a tool of imperialist expansion.

I know you will all be glad to hear that by the Millennium, they were a few more famous Explorers. Most of them for some reason went north, except Thomson who had a gazelle named after him in Africa.  

Robert Peary                     1856 – 1920               36 years

Joseph Thomson             1858 – 1895                37 years

Fridtjot Nansen                 1861 – 1930                 31 years

Scott Robert                     1868 – 1921                 53 years

Ernest Shackleton           1874 – 1922                 48 years

Villjalmur Stefansson     1879 – 1962                 43 years

By the way, while you and your friends were wandering around Africa the rest of us invented the,  

Ice Machine                   1865

Torpedo                         1866

Tennis                             1873

Bingo                            1880

The Machine gun         1881

The Zip                           1891

But who cares, not much has really changed other than they are now solving the bigger questions by nine-dimensional maths, and man is still selfish as himself.   Other words the, ‘ I am all right Jack’ syndrome,’ if you get what I mean, is still flourishing, even more so than in your days. Believe it or not, as in your time, a global mind change is still to this day the biggest challenge to man on earth.

Anyway putting all that aside it is my turn to set foot in the land of burnt faces.

I know Richard that the wife burnt all your works, and God in your eyes David is white.   That the New York Stock exchange collapsed some considerable time after you blokes had packed your bags.  

I also know that now there is now a different type of slavery in Africa called Aids. That the death grip legacy of colonialism is Third World Aid packages that contradicts the hard task of wealth creation.  

Wealth is replaced by the superficial and irrelevant glitz of imported advice from the UN, ECA, OAU, WHO, FAO, UNICEF, UNESCO, GNP, SADCC, ECOWAS, ACP, EC, OPEC, UNCTAD, CESI, IMF, WB.UNDP. PSDS.   All of which are contaminated by the most dangerous mask of all Multinational Conglomerate’s loyalty to profit. The whole package is called Globalisation (the spread of free-market capitalism,) It can reduce the loyalty of a country to a bottle of Coke. There were no boundaries’ or countries before colonisation.  

With a click of a mouse, Futures, Hedge Funds, Pension Fund, Sovernity funds the true destroyers of earth with no responsibility to nature, science culture, history, the future, the past, or the present, plunder the world in the name of profit while we, its custodians, look on in ignorance of the damage.  

Anyway, enough of that; here is my question.   Man has always tried to sublimate his nature, to hide his fear and to focus his questions in art.   As in your days, our cultures masks still represent questioning. Earth is four billion years old.   Man has visited the moon, but evolution is still an embryo.   The Hubble telescope has seen the demise of the earth. Reality is being turned into virtual reality. Time is borne out of death.   People’s future has no limit. DNA is all the rage. Food is Microprojectile bombarded. Mass consumption is throwing away the earth’s resources.   Modern politics are turning a blind eye to corruption, criminality. Countries are clients of banks. Religion is censorship. Science cannot talk to Science. Power is nuclear. National debt is a powder keg.   Freshwater is disappearing.   Supremacy is technology. Co2 poisoning of the atmosphere is tradable.

Does HH Africa put all of the above into their true dimensions by taking the colour out of other kinds of living?

Are all images of Africa to this day based on imperfect knowledge and are

found to be either worthless or wanting. Is it being forced to put on the masks of West, to the cost of its future, its past, its present, its people’s, its cultures,

its animals, and its environment. Or is the penetration of the African mind

forest not yet achieved.

There is of course no answer. Africa can only be understood from inside out. The image of Africa in the 19^th century was a place of exotic savage with the white man leaving a lot of cultural baggage. It now embraces all that is white on secondhand bases without the African social customs with the white educated African becoming the curse of Africa.

On the horizon I watch and smell the land of the earth second largest landmass 30,365,700 sq. km, with one eighth of the world’s population 900 000 000 embracing fifty-three independent countries, with over one thousand languages, rise into view. I know that this spring of our shared ancestors will change the way I perceive the world. A world strongly influenced by my own unconsciously held beliefs.

For the unvarnished answer to my question to my friends on the rail I must rely on Florence’s’ mask of innocence, which is all but untouched by time, perceive concepts, or by any of my long departed ship rail friends achievements that have entered the silent world of recorded history.

Our arrival under the mythical symbols of all manhood in Ceuta does not cause a hiccup. Sun stillness and heat are all at one.

(To be continued)

If you have got this far without making a donation here is the details of how to do so)   R Dillon. Account no 62259189. Ulster Bank 33 College Green Dublin 2. Sorting Code 98-50-10.  Many thanks.