No driving today!

Marrakech is a fun place - friendly and surprisingly little hassle. The medina is really characterful, you can spend hours getting lost in the souks (we did) and the salmon-terracotta colour is gorgeous.

 

I was highly tempted to buy lots of souveniers, but managed to temper my enthusiasm by reminding myself about my baggage allowance.  However I couldn't pass up the obligatory snake photograh - fortunately my snake seemed very chilled out - a true Moroccan!  Apparently the monkeys are the ones to avoid, as they tend to nick your glasses.

 

Going out now to see what Marrakech has to offer for New Year's Eve...

1300 miles - into Marrakech...

...we'd assumed that since the road was good, and the animals few and far between, we'd be OK driving the last hour or two in the dark, but we hadn't accounted for the human factors!

 

The road was indeed reasonable, but the drivers were just as bad as anywhere else, and the biggest hazard was unlit vehicles (cyclists, motorbikes, donkey carts trotting down the road).  We did see one cyclist who'd come off rather badly.

 

However once we'd arrived, driving around the city was actually quite easy.  Contrary to my expectations, the Patrol seems to be the perfect Morrocan city car.  It's big, so it has presence, and it has lots of dents in the bodywork and massive bits of steel girder hanging off it, so all the other drivers stay out of your way! 

 

Parking was also fun - as the photo hopefully shows!  You can't really drive far into the medina, so we took a guarded parking where the cars are layered four deep and you have to park with the handbrake off so the parking guys can push the cars around to free the ones at the back!

 

We found our riad without "much" difficulty (and without the help of the local kids), it's lovely and very welcoming.  Getting used to Morrocan tea.

1200 miles - El Kebab

Small villages, twisty roads, fantastic scenery, and sheep (I was expecting goats! but I think there are more further south...)

 

The driving is interesting - there are four speeds here, "Heavy Vehicle", "Tourist", "Local", and "Taxi", in increasing order.  The best fun is to watch - from a distance - the locals and taxis fighting it out on the corners of the higher passes, both in beaten-up Mercedes, and both overloaded with passengers!  Alternatively you can get your kicks from trying to overtake trucks safely - you have to develop an art of "blocking", a la Lewis Hamilton, otherwise you are stuck forever behind the truck while local drivers overtake you and the truck and four other cars at the same time...!

 

We decided not to go to the waterfalls after all, because the journey had taken a little longer than expected (we'd been relaxing on the road, which seems to be the only way to drive here if you want to live) - instead we headed on to Marrakech.

Es el último día del año

Después de de un par de días en la carretera que resumiré de esta manera: verdísimas montañas en el Rif y preciosos paisajes en el Atlas medio, hemos llegado a Marrakech.

 

No hemos tenido tiempo de hacer demasiado turismo porque íbamos un poco justos de tiempo. Hemos pasado muchas horas al volante y eso cansa. Pero el último día del año estamos en Marrakech y va a ser un historia totalmente diferente. Relajación, turismo y un poco de fiesta...

 

Feliz año nuevo a tod@s!!!  No os atrangantéis con las uvas.

 

Ana

1100 miles - into the Atlas mountains!

We left Meknes in the late morning, in a "loose convoy" with Teams Fat Blokes and Nomad'er, headed for the waterfalls on the road from Fez.

 

We'd all decided to wimp out and take the mid-Atlas road, rather than the high-Atlas route - mainly due to time constraints (we'd have needed at least an extra day, maybe two, for the longer and higher road).

 

The mid-Atlas road is still spectacular!  And the Patrol is coping very well, even with Ana trying to find reverse gear at 50mph.  :)

Hotel de Nice...

...and the Restaurant Antibes with Piano Bar!  Sighted in Meknes.  We didn't go in.

1000 miles - on the road to Meknes

It's been a long day of driving - not many miles, but the roads are very twisty and the surfaces uneven (though tarmaced).

 

We left three teams to explore Chefchaouen and pressed on with Teams Nomad'er (Ford Transit - your mates, James, if you're reading this) and Fat Blokes In A Car (Landy Defender) to Meknes.  A really beautiful drive with some scary overtaking in evidence, mainly by the locals!  :-)

900 miles - Chefchaouen

Almost exactly 900 (road) miles from home!

 

Crossed into Morroco this morning from Ceuta with surprisingly little hassle, cleared the border in about an hour, along with 5 other teams.  We're headed to Meknes tonight.  Scenery is stunning, will try to post more photos...

A proper car

(Saw this on the ferry, just found the photo - it was heading for the Lisbon - Dakar rally.  Quite fancy one myself!)

Gibraltar at sunrise

Made the ferry, pretty simple with a Spanish-speaker to arrange things! There are about 4 other teams on board, the rest are staying the day in Tarifa We'll convoy to Fez, route to be determined while we wait to cross from Ceuta to Morroco...

Arrived

We made it to the meeting point - hotel in Al Jazeera (or at least, that's how it's pronounced) - and we weren't the last! Met some of the other teams including the owners of this spectacular Merc! Off tomorrow 0700 to Morroco...

800 miles - tunnels past Marbella

The only thing missing is the exhaust note :-)

700 miles - much like 600

So much so that no photo required!

600 miles - in the hills, in the dark

This bit's quite dull, really... At least it's colder now so no problems running too hot uphill :)

500 miles - Sunset

The photo doesn't really do it justice!

 

What's not working:  as before, plus the USB hub, and occasionally my mobile phone (bad sign!)

 

Everything is going to plan, except rather slower...

400 miles - A giant bull

And more hills.  Had to stop at the top of a particularly big one after the Patrol started spewing thick black smoke... running slightly hot!  Everything OK once it had cooled down a bit.  Stuart suggested maybe not driving everywhere with my foot on the floor.

 

Met Team Lavvies on the ferry (forgot to mention earlier).  They seem really nice - bought me beer - and are now way ahead of us in their "stealth" dark green 1994 Hyundai Accent...

Pickup at Madrid Barajas

Ana was waiting underneath what appeared to be a giant McDonalds advert...

200 miles - Spain...

Hills and fog.

300 miles - more Spain...

Hills and no fog! Three people have waved at me so far and they've all been French... Hmm... :-)

Found it!

It took a few attempts, but I'm here now :) New tyres at last, should see up safely over both the Pyrennees and Rif mountains before I start wishing we had sand tyres fitted! Kept one of the old ones for the inevitable puncture...