Moving on, shipping out

So, after 4 months and 12 days, we decided enough is enough and we finally left Morocco.

We had tried to work with a fixer to get us over the Mauritanian border but it wasnt to be and so shipping the truck was our only option.

The reason is, the Moroccon/Mauritanian border is closed over a dispute regarding the sovereignty of Western Sahara- a large area of no mans land between Morocco and Mauritania and a large troop presence has meant the borders closure.

As a result, we will ship to Senegal and, drive north to Mauritania and then head south again from there. Just a slight inconvenience and an additional several hundred miles to drive.

I have attached a small map to demonstrate this.

On our arrival to Casablanca, we checked into an apartment and the truck went to the port.

The customs guys went to town on our beautiful truck and we had 2 sniffer dog inspections, an X-Ray inspection and a physical check. I am glad to say nothing found so we got away with stashing our Drone, as drones are illegal in Morocco. (We hadn’t used it whilst there, but have it for future ventures).

So, as I write this, we are now parted from our truck for the first time in almost a year.

We spent 4 nights in a swanky apartment in Casablanca before flying to Dakar, Senegal where we are now in a not so swanky apartment, awaiting the ship whilst imagining all sorts of tragedies that might blight her arrival.

We call our truck, ‘her’ and we have not followed the tradition amongst other Overlander's who tend to give their vehicles names. We prefer to call our’s home.

The adventure in Senegal and beyond is yet to unfold and will be subject to future Blogs and instead, this is all about a round up of our amazing time in Morocco.

For me, our time in Casablanca allowed my mind to wander back to the days of black and white films and of course Humphrey Bogart “Of all the Gin joints in all of the world” (ask your mum). But, it is nothing like that. Instead, it’s a modern working city and very affluent to boot.

Casa - Blanca, that could be a good pub quiz question couldn’t it? Anyway, the city is actually modern and vibrant with many of the buildings still painted white, I like to think, in honour of the city’s name.

We arrived in Casablanca over a week before we were due to leave Morocco to ensure we had all our Ducks in a line. We couldn’t afford any issues with the truck going one way by boat and us flying another!

Our stay in the truck before we parted company was super easy, as we found a large car park on the sea front and made a deal with the unofficially appointed guard to make this our place of residence and so we could go about our business and prepare for our departure whilst looking out onto palm trees and the Atlantic Ocean without any issues.

Living in a car park isn’t glamorous but it worked on this occasion. Keen to ensure the process happened in a timely manner we even did several trial runs to the airport and the docks as we didn’t want any issues on the day.

The preparations included getting our air tickets, organising the shipping for our truck, getting permission to enter Senegal from the Senegalese Embassy as well as the now obligatory PCN test we have had so many times but we still hate the cotton bud stuck up your nose as you try and act all normal whilst it feels like half of your nose is being remove.

Any way, about Casablanca. It is as I said, athriving city full of contrasts of old and new where slums built from old bits of wood, plastic sheeting and corrugated sheets rub up against newly built, glass clad mega structures and designer shops are everywhere. Horse and carts still ply some of the lesser streets along with the selection of mega cars flying up and down.

It did seem a little strange seeing all this wealth after spending time in the desert and the poverty that runs throughout the country and then we paid for our shipping and it all fell into place - Ouch!

Our stay coincided with the start of Ramadan when eating, drinking, smoking and a ban on any sexual activity during daylight hours is forbidden, for Muslims at least.

The effects of Ramadan became most clear when we went to the airport to fly to Senegal and cleared security in record time and when I asked why it was so simple, the guard explained they needed to close the airport to break their Fast for the evening and as we filed out of the immigration hall, all the guards sat around a table and ate together. That doesn’t happen at Heathrow!

I am guessing it wasn’t Ramadan when Ingrid Bergman walked into Humphrey Bogarts Gin joint in 1941, it wouldn’t quite have the same ring to it, would it?

“Of all the Milk shake parlours in all of the world”

Ramadan also means shortened working hours, shortened tempers, and people even blacking out whilst driving we are told.

Day one we saw at least 7 minor car accidents, people shouting at each other in the street and scuffles breaking out for no apparent reason.Tempers are certainly shortened during this time.

Another incident we encountered whilst doing a beach walk, we were passed by a couple of guys on Quad bikes who passed us before diverting off the walking path and stopped near to a major Coast guard station. As the guys got off their bikes for a stretch of the legs and as we approached we heard a couple of uniformed coast guards shout to the guys in Arabic. The guys shouted back (I don’t think they were saying hello). And then in a flash, the cost guard raised their rifles and we heard them cock their guns ready for shooting. We retreated quickly as did the quad bike guys.

Another incident during Ramadan was after a full day out organising the shipping. We returned to our truck and started to prepare our food when one of the guys, who had spent his day washing cars in the car park for a few dirhams, came over to us and gestured us over to join him and his colleagues for a hearty dinner of Fried Fish and bread served on a rickety table covered by a piece of cardboard of questionable appearance? But we didn’t want to appear rude and so ate the delicious food offered and accepted the hospitality with gratitude.

Isn’t it often the way that those with the least, give the most?

We are told it’s good to experience a Fast as it helps develop your mind apparently and spiritual being, but seeing how it appears to affect the locals, we are out to lunch on that one … so to speak.

Just one strange observation, we passed a drive through McDonalds in Casablanca city and it was open and the cue of traffic was enormous?

All other restaurants and coffee shops are closed during the month of Ramadan.

Our final destination before arriving in Casablanca was the Western Sahara where we encountered 2 sand storms in 3 days. During the start of one of the sand storms we had taken refuge at a camp site for our safety and when the winds started we were the only people on the camp site and we soon had visitors. The local cats came visitingand spent the hours of the storm hunkering down with us until the storm passed.

The cats left with full bellies!

Animals have become a big part of our trip and we always make a habit of feeding anything we come across and we are becoming adept at Tick removal from the dogs and Ear Mite treatments for Cats.

I am pleased to say no food goes to waste (unless it has Chilli on it) and we now have a stock of Cat and Dog food to boot that we restock regularly.

The sand storm experience was quite surreal with high winds blowing the truck in all directions and a total black out (or actually an Orange out). Apparently some of the sand ended up in the UK? Although we were never scared, we did wonder what was going to happen to us.Both storms where quite an experience.

Trying to sum up our time in Morocco is challenging as it has involved so many places people and the most striking landscapes that have changed so drastically on a regular basis.

Green fields followed by the barren landscapes of the Sahara and everything in between. Climbing up through the High Atlas mountains and the snow covered tops, the baking heat in the Sahara and the occasional downpour, which gives the country the much needed rain.

Another striking part of our trip has been the people who always feature heavily in any visit but the kindness of these folk has been legendary. We have waved and smiled at almost everyone we have passed whilst driving. It almost becomes a job, but a nice job.

We have watched farmers plough their fields using Donkeys and a tractor is a rare beast and non-existent almost in the barren south.

Poverty is commonplace and yet not once have we heard anyone complain or question the cards they have been dealt. They just seem happy to be alive and living life no matter how hard it is and these people will always have time to chat or communicate whether they speak Berber, Arabic, French or English and many seek all those languages.

The locals would always smile and often offer us tea or food. That’s a hard one because we don’t want to appear rude or elitist by refusing but we don’t want to take from them when they have so little?

It’s a problem we will wrestle with throughout our journey I am sure.

When to give and to whom is always a dilemma and always has been on our previous travels. When so many need so much, you can only help so far. It does make me at least question the values of the Western world but that’s another question for another day.

As much as we are looking forward to Senegal and the rest of the western African countries, the country we are most looking forward to is our visit to Nigeria and our intended meet with the kind Gentleman that contacted us to tell us we had won the Nigerian lottery.

We can’t believe our luck!

He was so accommodating and so honest to make such a contact with us (he could have claimed the money and kept it himself) and best of all, he only charged us $2000 to act as our agents and we have a fortune to collect!

How good is that!

We hear others may have won similar gains to collect from Nigeria and we are now considering offering a broker service for anyone who needs it to claim their fortunes.

We will charge a similar $2000 fee and our bank details are below if you wish us to act on your behalf?

Did you look …. Really?

As we reflect on our 4+ months in Morocco we are now moving on to what we consider to be a much more edgy part of the continent. A part that offers many more challenges than Morocco and as our time in Dakar, the capital of Senegal starts, it feels like someone turned up the volume. Chaos and colour rule here. We can feel the increased heat, the hustle and bustle, the intense smells (not all good), the vibrant markets, touts shouting about their wares, the look in the eye of the locals much more intense and altogether a lot less organised and we have to be more aware of our personal surroundings although it still feels safe.

This is western Africa at its rawest and we are itching to get going and see what it has to offer

Travels through Morocco and Western Sahara.

Okay, I just want to say the camera does make you look like you gained weight!

Our appearance on the Channel 5 program, Million-pound motorhomes was a great bit of fun but am I really that fat?

Anyway, back to our Journey.

We are now into month 4 in Morocco and recently we were able to extend our Moroccan visa’s by a further 3 months as we await news of the border crossing to Mauritania opening.

Apparently, the issue is political rather than Covid related. Mr Trump added to the military standoff between Morocco and Mauritania by siding with Morocco over the sovereignty of Western Sahara and this caused an escalation of the military action in the area and the government of Morocco is fearful for the safety of anyone wanting to cross the border.

So we wait and 3 months in and many places visited throughout Morocco, we are becoming well versed in the routine of shopping daily for fruit, vegetables and bread.

The shopping experience is so different here in that most shops are open-fronted affairs with no real structure and often no counter even. Just a selection of goods piled up ready for purchase and almost should be called stalls rather than shops.

Red meat is usually hung outside the Shop (stall) on hooks as a Carcass, with no refrigeration and no screen against flies!

Chicken’s are kept in cages alive in the shop and the customer selects the given creature they want and the obvious act is done there and then in front of the customer.

Now, this being a Muslim country, that is quite barbaric to watch although I make no judgment on this, it's not my place to do that but, you sometimes can’t avoid seeing it.

The costs are interesting, Red meat is around £9.00 a Kilo (really just for special occasions for most Moroccans). Fish around £5.00 and Chicken around £3.00 a Kilo. Fruit and veg so cheap, it’s almost free.

For comparison, an entry-level job pays around £120.00 a month.

In the cities, there are more western options for shopping and I have to admit to using some of these when available.

One of the best options are the Carrefour French hypermarket chain, where all the meat and veg is wrapped in styrofoam trays as we all know, but I am sure is similarly as brutally dealt with before being nicely presented for sale. An option we pay a high premium for happily.

The Carrefour’s are also useful for another commodity that’s hard to buy, (openly at least) in Morocco.

When we arrived in Morocco, we went to the Carrefour in Tangier as I had researched they sold this much-revered commodity.

I trawled the shelves looking, but couldn’t find it anywhere? I eventually asked a store employee who explained I had to go out of the store and around the back to the loading bay. Alcohol was there.

I'm not sure the intent was there but, the asking made me feel as though I was asking for something I shouldn’t be asking for?

I left the immaculately clean and well-stocked store and made my way to the loading bay and to a much more shady part of town altogether. The entrance to the Alcohol store was through a dirty unmarked door which led into a seedy room that was poorly lit and was certainly not welcoming.

It reminded me of a sex shop in Soho, not that I have ever been to a sex shop in Soho mind.

I was visualizing old men in long macs with thick glasses looking at magazines.

It wasn’t a nice experience at all, but one we are now well versed with.

All this cloak and dagger stuff and yet, as we drive around the country we see endless beer bottles by the roadsides. They can’t all be from Tourists, can they?

Although we openly indulge in the alcohol guilty pleasure, we have evaded another locally produced commodity and that’s Cannabis. In the north, it's grown on an epic scale and Morocco is the biggest producer in the world I believe.

We saw people with huge bushes of the stuff strapped to the backs of Donkeys happily plodding down the road taking their newly harvested stash back home.

It was so available and offered so openly throughout the northern part of Morocco.

Another aspect of our daily lives here in a Muslim country is that we have become accustomed is the call to prayer.

5 times a day, the call can be heard in all residential areas with multiple Mosques trying to outshout each other to gain some sort of advantage we presume. This can become quite comical at times as the droll sounds of the Imam’s keep going up an octave over the usually tinny P.A. system’s as they try to attract worshippers to their particular mosque.

As we are not Muslim, we don’t join in the proceedings, but we do often raise our glass when the call to prayer coincides with our sun downer’s, trying to keep our end up as you do.

Our journey through Morocco has given us many opportunities and we have been lucky enough to meet some amazing people.

Our experiences are too many to mention, but some highlights include being invited to a Berber wedding and were able to witness the women pre-wedding, sat in a circle preparing food and occasionally all in unison, start a kind of warbling that was almost trance-like, followed by a deep-hearted belly laugh from them all before they continued with the food preparation.

Many locals invite us to their homes for tea including the lovely Sara from Taroudant who invited us into her home, introduced us to her aunty where we enjoyed the home cooking they provided for us so willingly. And all from a chance meeting in a shop. That's the way they roll here in Morocco. Maybe we could learn something from them?

The people of Morocco are extremely kind and warm. A good test if this for me is how they treat their animals and the street dogs and cats are fed endlessly by everyone, no matter of ownership.

One of the towns we spent a few weeks in was Tiznit. About 50 km south of Agadir. This is a town with little if any tourism and not speaking French is defiantly a disadvantage for us.

This was where we extended our visa’s which involved carrying out several duties we would do at home without thinking, but in a foreign country, getting our bank statements, passports and other documents, verified at the council offices and then attending the police station to get everything authorised was a challenging but interesting experience.

Tiznit is a regular small work-a-day town and it wasn’t long before we gained some level of recognition in the local shops being virtually the only white faces in town.

It has become the norm to see men dressed in Arabic robes and the women in there brightly coloured Abaya’s whilst they are completely understanding of us in our western clothes and we are careful to be modest in our dress so as not to offend anyone.

Another aspect of our new life is spending many of our days in the small lorry cab and we share duties of driving and navigating.

Charlotte drives the wide-open roads and I drive in the towns and on the single track and unmade roads that are many here were driving a large vehicle is challenging.

I am assured this is a fair distribution of our duties?

One great job I enjoy about navigating that the person not driving undertakes though is marking the paper map with a highlight pen. It's really satisfying to watch our journey progress across this enormous and ever-changing country and watching the pink line of the highlight pen extend as we go. Maybe that’s a man thing?

This week we moved south into disputed Western Sahara.

We left Agadir and headed south and watched the people and the towns disappear and the sand become more prominent.

This part of Morocco is a huge expanse of desert with very little of anything other than sand and camels for hundreds of miles.

Very quickly we were alone in this desert environment and having ensured we had filled our truck with freshwater, Fuel and food we drove for 4 days on a journey of over1000 kilometres. Stopping only to eat and sleep.

Progress is slow as the roads are often little more than dirt tracks that means driving at not much above walking pace and sand storms are commonplace adding further to the issues to be overcome.

Sleeping in the desert with zero light pollution was an amazingly empowering experience. The feeling of there being no other humankind was the best.

We are now in the most southerly and almost only town in Western Sahara before the Mauritania borders which is still an incredible 500km away still. The distances are huge here and its all sand and the wind is brutal blowing off the Atlantic, the sand gets into everything despite keeping windows and doors tightly shut.

We are parked now on the beach looking at the Atlantic awaiting any news about a potential border opening to Mauritania, or do we double back and drive to Casablanca and ship the truck to Senegal if the borders don’t open?

That's a huge drive and a lot of work as we would have to ship the truck and then find flights for Charlotte and I. Not an option we will take lightly.

We are happy for now, walking in the desert and looking at the Ocean and as we contemplate our future, I leave you with a few facts about our truck.

We carry -

400 liters of Freshwater for showering and cooking.

Can hold 400 liters of grey water (shower and washing up etc).

The fuel tank holds 280 liters of Gas Oil (Diesel) and we can cover around 600 miles (1000km) between fills.

We average around 10 miles to the gallon or 2.2km per liter.

We have a tail lift to carry our motorbike with two hydraulic rams capable of lifting 10 tonnes.

We weigh 13.6 tones fully loaded.

We are left-hand drive as this is more useful for the countries we hope to visit.

But the most important fact is that Charlotte and I are in love with our truck and grow more attached to her every day and we look forward to many years of emerging our selves in our travels.

Please send us your thoughts/questions. We would be delighted to hear from you.

Made it to Morocco and 15 minutes of fame.

It was a Sunday morning when we finally left Doncaster for the final time. All the checks complete and we where off, driving south to Harwich for the night ferry to the hook of Holland. We played David Bowie’s ‘We can be Heroes’ loudly as the emotion of what we were about to undertake kicked in.A trip driving around the world, with very little chance of us ever returning to the UK to live again, this was life changing for us both. It was about this time I realised for me to honour my pledge to write this blog about the places we see and the people we meet would leave out a whole dimension of what Charlotte and I where undertaking, this adventure that will shape the remainder of our lives and so if I did write about how this adventure is effecting us, it would render the writing one dimensional when it should be about the whole picture.

Once onboard the ferry, we threw our bags in our cabin and scampered to the stern of the ship to wave goodbye to our home, the UK had served us well for so many years. There was no fan fare to play us off, no fireworks, no waves goodbye even, just a few stragglers smoking a cigarette or making a last call home before they lost the signal to their mobile phones.

On our arrival into the Netherlands the next day, we looked forward to meeting our friends and a few days of partying and celebrations commenced, taking our minds off what really lay ahead that was both scary and exciting equally.

From the Netherlands we headed for Belgium and more friends and celebrations. This was turning out to be my type of trip!

From Belgium we headed for France via Luxembourg (because we had never been) where we managed to buy exceptionally inexpensive Diesel (Gas Oil) and little else. Does it really count as visiting a country, if you just drive through and buy fuel?

A few days later and we were enjoying the delights of Normandy, as well as visiting the war graves that was a must do whilst in the area.

All was going well until the night we sat eating our dinner in the truck and the news flash came over the phone's, informing us France was closing its borders in 24 hours and no one would be allowed to leave for a month.

France is very lovely, but we didn’t want a months delay so it was a quick wash of the dishes and then an all night and day drive to reach the border with Spain.We made it with 4 hours to spare!

The loose plan was to saunter through Spain and Portugal and wait for the ferries to start up again to Morocco. Im not sure when we accepted the fact that we would be in for a long wait if we wanted to take the Spain/Morocco ferries, they were not for opening any time soon, nor have they moved on that decision since. A change of plan was needed and that took us to the port of Genoa in Italy to catch the weekly ferry from Genoa to the port of Tangier Med in northern Morocco. This involved getting a Covid test 72 hours before we boarded and an awful lot of money for the 53 hour crossing.

Once in Morocco we headed for an Aire for the first nights sleep and bought SIM cards for the phones and our modem. We where winning and on our way finally.

Now an Air hostess friend of mine told me once, she wanted to write a book entitled “the first night in” to assist travellers when they first arrive in a new destination to orientate them selves with their new surroundings. As experienced travellers we understood her desire to write such a book as it always seems when you are fresh into a country, you hustle through the airport often dazed due to the ordeal of customs, the time differences and looking for luggage etc.You then pour out of the airport building and stand out and almost have a beam of light shinning around you and a halo above you with the word MUG emblazoned into it - AKA easy pray for the touts.

In a previous life, when I smoked cigarettes, I always used smoking a cigarette as a ploy when leaving the airport building to give me time to asses my surroundings before being bombarded by touts trying to hustle you into an overpriced Taxi or taking you to their brothers overpriced hotel.Smoking a cigarette at the exit of the airport building gave me about 6 minutes before falling for the local scam anyway and vowing to never get caught again as the expensive taxi drives off leaving me in the middle of nowhere outside the taxi drivers brothers expensive hotel! And once again, we where those travellers that night although the scams have moved on since my smoking days. We bought SIM cards from the local petrol station (the first petrol station after the ferry) where we now guess all tourists go to get their SIM cards and the maximum data we could purchase for all our devices. The guy at the petrol station knows you are passing by and will probably never return or recognise him anyway, so he took the maximum value and gave us the least amount of data on the SIM cards. An easy scam and quite a lucrative one I guess. Lesson learnt, we topped up the SIM cards the following day and vowed to never get caught again…… until the next time.

Morocco we thought was much of the same as we had seen on numerous visits to Marrakech and the Atlas Mountains, but how wrong we where. This country opened up in front of us and we have been amazed. Lush green pastures in the northern part of the country gives way to the Riff Mountains and then the Atlas Mountains with their snow covered peaks.After the Atlas we had the moonscape of the Anti-Atlas where farmers plough there fields using Donkeys and the houses in the villages are built of mud and straw. Next comes the start of the Sahara desert. An area I had really looked forward to getting to, so I could play out one of my fantasies of driving in the in the sand dunes in our monster truck.

I had seen on You-tube any number of videos of 4x4’s gliding along the side of sand dunes at jaunty angles, looking amazing and so when we arrived at a camp site right in the middle of the Dunes, my heart skipped a beat but Charlotte insisted we rested that night before and the following day we would enquire of the best approach to take our truck out to play from the local campsite owner whom would have local knowledge obviously.

The next morning came and Charlotte went to talk to the campsite owner in the office as agreed to ensure we kept safe whilst playing in the sand. I agreed this was a good idea as I had already hatched a plan to get a little practice in before we left the campsite and said I would drive the truck the few hundred meters to the office and meet Charlotte there.

My cunning plan was to drive the wrong way out of the carpark and so encounter some minor dunes on the way. I mean, really, what could go wrong?

After half an hours digging and a small gift for the two guys that helped us, or whom actually did most of the digging really, we got our truck out of the deep sand and I realised at this point this wasn’t going to be as easy as I had originally thought.

Charlotte did a lot of driving on that leg of the trip but that’s for another day.

I hope you enjoy this blog and as we are in Morocco for the foreseeable future awaiting the land border to Mauritania, there is plenty of scope to tell of some of the wonderful people and places we have been lucky enough to visit so far and how humbled we have been by the happiness of the people whom probably have the least but smile on and offer us tea at regular intervals although they have nothing other than love in their hearts.

Morocco, an amazing destination.

I also want to let you know Charlotte and I are to be featured on a Channel 5 Documentary next Sunday (21st of February) at 8pm called Million pound mega motorhomes.

We are also on Jorvik Radio doing a monthly update and writing an article for an American 4x4 Magazine due out this spring.

I thought we had retired?