Location: Nouakchott, Mauritania

Date: July 31, 2008 (around 9:00 am)

Local Temperature: 90 degrees Fahrenheit

Total Journey Mileage: 3,214 miles

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As we back track over the past week or so, I’d like to take a minute to pay respect to Mauritania. We had a horrible time crossing from Western Sahara into Mauritania, but instead of blogging about those 8 hours of hell in the heat of the desert at the border, I’d like to give a quick mention about the rest of our time there.

Mauritania has a small population of just over 3 million people, but it is the world’s 29th-largest country. Because the majority of the population lives in Nouakchott, Nouadhibou and Kiffa the vast distance between towns was really noticable as was the poverty and isolation.

Because of how long the border crossing took we ended up our first night sleeping in a large room adjacent to a petrol station between Nouadhibou and Nouakchott. The following day was spent in Nouakchott taking care of car repairs and enjoying a little rest at the lovely Auberge Sahara. Our friend Kirin got some chocolate ice cream on his way back from the Malian embassy. He was nice enough to give me a bite and to this day I wish I had gone and gotten myself some! Sigh. So, we took care of some business and then enjoyed the company of our convoy. It was a nice break before heading towards Kiffa, a city not far from the Malian border.

We were really struck by the heat as we headed east from Nouakchott towards Mali, the weather and lack of resources clearly have had an impact on the agriculture and livestock. As we drove, we noticed that the countryside was littered with dead cows, donkeys, camels and goats. All were at various stages of decay, but many had recently died.

Back in Nouakchott we ate delicious Senegalese fish, grilled up whole and spiced just right. Outside Nouakchott the food options were limited. Another thing we noticed was how expensive goods were. It seems it was a combination of us being overcharged as foreigners,  combined with the difficulty and expense of importing goods. Local food away from the fresh fish on the coast was limited and we ended up eating lots of eggs, bread and cheese (when it was available).

Thanks to kindess of strangers and our awesome convoy we made it through Mauritania. It was not a wowing experience, but it was memorable because of our crazy experiences and the nice people who helped us in Nouakchott and the beautiful mountains in the east. 

Dealing with the corrupt police and some persistent and aggressive people was not fun, but we made it through to Mali and everything worked out! Someday I’d like to trek in the mountains here, and enjoy tea with locals who could better help me find reasons to like Mauritania. This time through was a bit of a bust, so until next time …

More to come on Mali soon ….

Location: Dakhla, Western Sahara

Date: July 29, 2008 (around 7:30 am)

Local Temperature: 68 degrees Fahrenheit

Total Journey Mileage: 2785

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Hello all from lovely Ougadougou, Burkina Faso.  Since arriving in Africa, we drove through Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania and Mali to get here, and yet we’ve only so far managed to tell you about our first few days in Morocco!  Egads!

This is me trying to catch us up just a little bit - 5 days in one post.  Are you ready?

25 July - We left Marrakech in the late afternoon, deciding to head out to Essaouira and then as far south as possible before finding a place to stay.   The road south was beautiful, and we caught an amazing sunset after almost running over a pack of dogs and a camel who all burst onto the road as if out of thin air.   

We stayed at a lovely beachside camground, where we experienced only a small misfortune.  But we don’t have time to dawdle over small misfortunes on this journey, and we soldier on.

26 July - After eating breakfast with some of the Berbers who worked at the campgrounds, which involved some bread and incredibly tasty almond oil laced with honey, we drove down to Agadir.  It was all work and no play for us in Agadir, as we had to find a replacement gas cap (that story will come soon) and find someone to patch up our tent.  Luckily for us, we met Goudachi Abderrafia, an absolute sweetheart of a mechanic/car parts salesman, who managed to modify an existing gas cap to fit our car and get our tent patched up by a friend of his in under two hours.  He also donated two wooden planks to the cause, just in case we beached ourselves in the Sahara. As I’ve mentioned before in my emails, we have been meeting some really great people on the road and they’ve made our trip that much better.

Later that day we meet up with a bunch of other ralliers, and everyone makes camp at a campsite outside Guelmim.

27 July - We crossed into Western Sahara!  This is markedly different from Morocco, and we felt a little bit like pioneers entering a new frontier.  The scenery was amazing, as we drove through a lot of mountains and desert.  There wasn’t much along the way, but the towns we did see were all very pretty beach towns catering to adventure sport tourists. 

Our destination was Laayoune, but on the way we stopped in Tarfaya and had lunch with Team Deathwish, where I ate fish that had been fried whole.  Yes, you read that right. I, Aparna, ate from a fish that still had its head and eyeballs (granted, they were fried) while I was eating it.

[PICS TO COME]

We made it to Laayoune that night, an incredibly windy coastal town that also hosts a number of UN offices, where we camped with Deathwish, the Sandbox Warriors (from this point forward, known as Kirin) and If It Don’t Work, Hit It (Tom and Steve).

28 July - Next stop, Dakhla, a veritable treasure chest for the windsurfing enthusiasts out there.  This was another beautiful beach town we reached only after driving through what appeared to be endless sand.  We manage to get into town early enough to have a relaxing dinner while we look out on the water, and later bond while having a few beers (which are not easy to find in this highly regulated region) before going to bed.

29 July - We hit the road at 7:30 AM.  Next stop, Mauritania!  That one is coming soon.

Just in case you were wondering what a day in the life driving behind the wheel of our Sam is like, here is a quick list of things we have had ample chance to run over during the past few weeks:

•  
  • Donkeys
  • Horses
  • Cows
  • Cats
  • Birds
  • Bats (we actually hit a few of these at dusk one day)
  • Landmines
  • Dogs
  • Rodents
  • Snakes (we ran one over today)
  • Small Children
  • Local Cars and Vans
  • Other Rally Cars
  • Men on bicycles, converted to mopeds

Donkeys, camels and cows have been our biggest and most often encountered road hazard. So far, we have made it 4,500 miles without denting the bumper. Here is to a few more thousand miles of safe, collision free driving!!

Anyone interested in taking the wheel?

Travelling in a convoy has lots of benefits.  We love the people we are traveling with (shout out toTeam Deathwish, Sandbox Warriors and “If it doesnt work,  hit it”as well as a few other teams we meet up with on occasion), we do a great job of taking care of eachother and there is an added sense of security when there are four cars driving through police checkpoints on the network of African highways instead of just one.

However, one of the disadvantages of travelling in a group is that our schedules are dictated by a variety if priorities. This usually is not an issue, but when otherswant to drive, drive, drive it makes getting to the internet difficult!

That being said, we plan to step it up with the blog and get caught up on posts. We hope to post about Western Sahara and Mauritania within the next 24 hours, so check back soon for more updates and pictures from the Sandbox Savants!!!

Love from beautiful Bamako ….

Location: Marrakech, Morocco
Date: July 24 - 25, 2008

Local Temperature: Ranged from 74 to 110 degrees Fahrenheit

Total Journey Mileage: 1812

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Late last week we enjoyed a wonderful day and a half in Marrakech. It is located further inland than the rest of our Morocco route and while wandering the lively souks in the medina part of the city (old part) we got our first real taste of heat. Luckily for us, the heat was cut by the wonderful fresh and cold, orange, lime and grapefruit juices being sold at stand after stand in the center of the medina.

The souks were colorful and loud, full of men trying to sell us jewelry and inquiring about our marital status. Another topic of conversation throughout Morocco has been Aparna’s Indianess. Let’s just say, her ethnicity has made our frequent police checkpoint stops much easier, and Moroccan men are very keen on welcoming her to this country! I’ll let her tell you more about that later. Also noteworthy, Doug tried to negotiate a trade with one shopkeeper;  me in exchange for 3,000 camels and half of Morocco. The transaction occured much to my protest, but luckily after some tugging, Aparna was able to steal me back.

We ate at the food booths in the medina, trying tagines, mint tea, dates, nuts and snails.

Marrakech is beautiful at night, but we enjoyed wandering both during the day and evening, getting a feel for the people and the place.

On our last day in Marakkech we enjoyed some wandering and a few hours relaxing at a hammam. Once you do your research on what a hammam is, you will understand why there is no photographic evidence.

I’m off to set-up our campsite here in Dakhla, Western Sahara. More pictures and stories soon!

Location: Bouznika, Morocco
Date: July 23, 2008

Local Temperature: 78 degrees Fahrenheit

Total Journey Mileage: 1,700

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We are back online (sort of) and are trying to catch up on posts. These events took place a few days ago on July 23, but we hope to get you all up to speed on a few of our adventures shortly!

So, now about our first day in Africa!

Arriving in Tanger we are whisked through customs with Aparna’s masterful use of French and the ingenious placement of passport control on the boat! Anxious to get on our way further down the coast, we quickly drive through this Moroccan Tijuana, stopping in the outskirts only to get a bite to eat, some mint tea and a new SIM card for our cellphone.  We make what is supposed to be a brief stop at a Meditel booth, hoping to add minutes to our Moroccan SIM card.  The people we meet there turn out to be a good indicator of the interesting and generous people we have been meeting along the way.  The Meditel employees speak several languages, and a long conversation that flows through Jessie and Aparna speaking French, Spanish and Arabic with the odd confusion in English with the Meditel employees results in lots of smiles, a new SIM card, new friends and new Sandbox Savants fans. 

Hoping to have time to spend in Marrakech, we decide to make for “campsites” along the coast between Rabat and Casablanca. As night falls we pull into a roadside restaurant serving meals cut directly from the fresh whole goats hanging from the wall behind the counter, this time for dinner, mint tea and directions to the nearest campsite.  We ask the waitress for some help, and she tells us that another restaurant patron sitting nearby is willing to guide us there.   However, because there are only three seats in the car, Aparna and Jessie have to wait at the restaurant while I and the man who only speaks Arabic venture out into the night to find the site.
 
Two windy dirt roads later we pull up to the back yard of a nice beach rental home, where I meet the proprietor of the house, who also only speaks Arabic, two of the current vacationers, who only speak French and Arabic.  After a long, difficult conversation with the man from the restaurant, his friend and the two current vacationers, again spanning many languages and accompanied by lots of pointing, we have secured a small square of this yard that is being rented to vacationers.
 
When I go back to pick up Jessie and Aparna, they are delighted to meet our “host family”, who has not only agreed to let us set up a tent in their back yard, but also provide us with great conversation over some delicious food  (I tried camel for the first time) and mint tea.  We had a great time with Jiad and Faty and their wonderful family, and hope to see them all again sometime soon.

We lost our photos of them in the tent incident, but hope they send us a copy that we can post soon so you can see our generous hosts!

More posts coming soon! This one coming to you from an internet cafe in Dakhla, Western Sahara. Mauritania tomorrow!

Sorry for the lack of posts everyone.  We were ready to upload a few posts yesterday about some of the great times we have had so far in Morocco, but hit an unfortunate snag.  Two nights ago we left Marrakech and headed toward Agadir, deciding to stay at a campground we found at a beach outside of Essaouira.  There were a number of other campers and tents on the grounds, and an easy, relaxed atmosphere: the other campers seemed to have been to this campground before and felt very comfortable there.

We pitched our tent, secured our car and fell asleep pretty quickly after enjoying an incredible night sky and listening to the beautiful call to prayer.  Essaouira is a very windy city and our sleep was accompanied by the sound of wind whipping around, which nearly drowned out every other sound.

At around 2:30 AM, we were awakened by three men outside our tent, asking us if we were missing anything and pointing to our tent.  We saw that our tent had been slashed near the base and that the items laying around the perimeter of the tent were missing.  We are fine.  We still have our passports and money. Unfortunately, we did lose our small, USD400 minilaptop (there went all our posts and quite a few of our photos), and Doug lost his manpurse; luckily, there wasn’t much in it other than his ipod and toothbrush. 

Yesterday morning, we spoke to some other French campers, who also had their tents slashed last night. They told us they have been frequenting this campsite for years, and they were completely shocked by this incident.  The guardians, who did not see the thieves until it was too late, also said that this was not a common occurrence and they were very upset.

The upside is that nothing irreplaceable is lost and we are all ok.  We have picked up a few more precautionary measures, and our spirits have improved since we’ve been on the road.  We consider this a one off incident.  Our time in Morocco has otherwise been wonderful and the people here have been hospitable and very helpful.  We are thankful to have had this time to spend here.

The downside is we now need to write all our posts on an Arabic/French keyboard.  Oh how we will miss our computer. 

Right now we are in Tan Tan. We met up with a few other rally teams last night and camped out with them just outside Goulmim.  We will be crossing the next two borders with some of these teams, which will provide added company and support during those long, remote stretches through the Sahara. 

As we continue South, please continue thinking positive thoughts and sending good mojo our way.  This experience thus far has been amazing and there is not a moment we regret.  We look forward to sharing more as we continue. 

On a lighter note, we did hear some interesting gossip last night.  It seems that the Great Balls of Fur never made it past Tunisia, having been deported without their furry vans, which were confiscated.  We’ll keep you updated on any other interesting news we hear.

Some Spain Stats 

Location: Caleta de Velez

Local Temperature: 85 degrees Fahrenheit

Total Journey Mileage: 1,333

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From the moment we loaded our Suzuki off the train and drove it onto the RIGHT side of the road we have been moving. Stopping only at gas stations and rest areas to refuel and to stretch, the journey south was grueling. To break up France and Spain we stopped in the surfing town of Hossegor (just north of Biarritz). We enjoyed a large beach reminiscent of Malibu, CA; napping in the sun and catching a refreshing dip in the Atlantic from the other side. Within just a few hours we were refreshed and ready to continue on.

I feel I was misinformed about the stick shift abilities of Jessie and Aparna. They “ran out of time” to practice their manual driving capabilities in the US and as acting driving instructor in Europe, I took them through the riggers of no power steering and a knobby stick. First Jessie in the French countryside, then Aparna on a dirt road in an olive grove in Spain. With all three of us taking in the road and taking on the wheels, we shot down to the south of Spain where we meet Jessie’s friend’s parents Jo and Richard.

With help from our hosts, we spent the next two days hopping between Chinese bazaars, the the local shopping center, to the Suzuki mechanic in town. We savored a quick break at a beach cafe one  afternoon, enjoying mussels, fresh calamari and some of the best gazpacho ever. 

Again, thank you to Richard and Jo, the amazingly generous couple who put us up in their wonderful flat on the coast of the Mediterranean. We are forever grateful for the food, the laughter and the guidance they provided during our last stop before the African leg of our journey. Our thanks are extended to the rest of their family in town, Richard’s sister-in-law Anne and her partner Reg, for the company and kindness.

We miss Caleta de Velez, but are thankful for the time we spent there mentally and mechanically preparing for the rest of our journey! And soon, more about our first day in Morocco …

We love our car. Really, we do. However, it is important to mention that he is a bit tempermental and doesn´t always like to start. He always -eventually- starts so, you know, that´s a plus! In a moment I will bring you to our present (improved!) situation, but for now let´s hear the back story.

Incident #1

Not more than an hour after leaving London we stopped to get some gas before heading to France via the Chunnel. We were so excited to finally be on the road and happy at the thought of putting our car on a train that would take us (by under water tunnel!) to the next country on our list.

We jump back in the car, still a little shocked at the price of gas, but ready to hit the road again.

Doug puts the key in the ignition and turns.

Silence.

He tries again.

Silence.

Hmmm.

At this point we begin to think we must have left our ipod charging while we were waiting for the rally start. Perhaps we drained the battery? Perhaps our charging system caused a short? We don´t really know what to think, because it hadn´t happened before and we have only had possession of the car for 48 hours. A few mechanics had seen it, and so we were generally confident in the vehicle. Anyway, we decide to buy jumper cables at the gas station, and ask a man for a jump. After rolling our car off to the side of the station, we try to start it one more time.

Doug puts the key in the ignition and turns.

Vvvvrrooom.

We shrug at the man who offered the jump and decide since we have the jumper cables we should keep going, and if we need a jump in the future we will be fine.

We take the awesome ride in the Chunnel, and drive off in France without a hitch. We drive for hours, stop for a gas and food a few times … we are fine, the car is fine. The starting problem must have been a fluke.

Or not.

Incident #2

Around 10:00pm Doug taught me how to drive stick on a small road in the French countryside. It really only took about 10 minutes to get the hang of it, but like most learners I have the occasional trouble getting the car into first gear.

I stall at a stop sign.

I turn the ignition.

The car won´t start.

Luckily within minutes the car decides to start up again. Off we go.

I drive for hours, getting the hang of down shifting on hills and generally learning how to drive in a british right-hand drive vehicle with left hand drive French vehicles all around. All is well.

Incident #3 - more of the same attitude from the car.

Incident #4

Around 5:30 am the next day we stop for gas again and Doug and I decide to switch off on the driving, I need a nap. We clambor back into the vehicle.

Doug puts the key in the ignition and turns.

Silence.

He tries again.

Silence.

We wait 20 minutes and still no luck. We decide to take a nap and figure out what to do once we have had some shut eye. I wake up around 8:00 am to the engine roaring. Doug has turned the key and our little devil of a car has decided it is time to hit the road. At this point, we know we need to see a mechanic but decide to try to make it to Spain for the repairs.

Incident #5
What more to add? The car chooses not to start at some point in the mountains on our way to Caleta de Velez, but we give it a few tries, it starts, and we finally make it to Caleta de Velez to meet our hosts, only a few hours late.

Luckily, when we reached Caleta de Velez, our host Richard guided us to the Suzuki hospital, where our car was diagnosed with a failing starter. In addition to replacing the starter, the mechanic made a few other gratis adjustments, including repositioning our modified engine to help with some of the wholly unnatural sounds which came from our car in second gear. Thanks to your donations, we were just able to pay the nice mechanic and get back on the road! 

Our Suzuki Sam seems to be feeling better than ever and is ready to take the Sahara and subsaharan West Africa. Be thinking happy car thoughts … In the mean time, I´m off to look for a car therapist.

Launch Details

Location: Hyde Park, Central London
Local Temperature: 61 degrees Fahrenheit
Total Journey Mileage: 0

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Three days since we launched, and it all seems a blur. But before I get into the meat of things I’ll get to the first order of business: where are we at this very moment? Doug, Jessie and I are currently sitting under the shade of a beachside bar in Caleta de Velez, Spain, looking out at the Mediterranean. We are being hosted in a nearby flat for a couple of days by a very kind and gracious couple, Jo and Richard, who are the awesome parents of Jessie’s English friend Cath.

So, here we are recovering from 2 full days of hard driving, resting up before we head across the sea in two days. Those 48 hours driving from London to southern Spain were certainly exhausting, eventful and story-worthy, but there will be more on that in later posts. For the moment I am going to tell you of how we launched out of London, which seems to have set the tone of our adventure so far.

Launch day was on July 18, 2008, at Hyde Park in Central London. We rolled in at around 9:30 a.m. to register and meet our compatriots. We love our Suzi/Sammy/whatevs, but he was certainly not dressed for the occasion as were some of the other rally cars. Parked next to us were the Sandbox Warriors, whose lovely little steed was sporting a new paint job as Spiderman (click thumbnail for bigger image).

We were all prepared to treat the Sandbox Warriors as our nemeses – who did they think they were with that name? – unfortunately they were really nice guys and we’re thinking of traversing Western Sahara with them in the coming week.

Some other noteworthy vehicles belonged to the Great Balls of Fur, whose team of five will drive two VW buses, one covered (completely) in zebra print fur and the other in leopard/cheetah/some-sort-of-spotted-animal-print fur. We are very interested to see the shape of those vans after traveling through Saharan heat and sand followed by Subsaharan torrential rain.  Matted fur…yummy.

Of course, our own vehicle had a pretty snazzy decoration itself:

What’s that, you ask? Why, that’s our first place rosette – with your awesome assistance, we are currently the top fundraisers for charity in the Africa Rally! We were very nervous that the prize would be a position as the starting car in the rally. We in no way wanted that honor, given that we had no knowledge of London and the rally was scheduled to begin with a caravan of all the Africa Rally cars through London before we each set out on our individual routes to Cameroon. The paper rosette was a reassuring substitute. Unfortunately, our car was parked closest to the starting line, so we ended up heading up the caravan anyway.

Disaster.

We managed to get out of Hyde Park alright, but immediately took a wrong turn. Or so we thought. After making an impossible u-turn, we noted several of the rally cars going in the direction in which we had just been going. Making another impossible u-turn involving some sidewalk driving of which you will never see evidence, we pulled up to the first rally car we saw, rolled down the window, and yelled “is this where we’re supposed to be going?” The response? “No idea!” Hmm. Let’s pull up to that rally car up there. Lean out the window to ask, see the passenger in the car staring at the map while the driver looks over with very lost eyes, and realize they don’t know anything either. Great. We’ll just figure out how to get to the chunnel. Somehow.

And off we went.