Hi all,
tomorrow we head back to Casablanca, hoping the taxi is still where we left it and in one piece not on 4 bricks! Then we will go back to Marrakech to meet up with Jamal. We are going to take him to the school and give them the last of the donations. Its not going to be accessible by road so we hope to arrange a donkey! We'll let you know how we get on....
Monday, 22 February 2010
Haircut
I'd like to share with you my experience of getting a haircut in the Sahara. When we were alone in Dakla in Wester Sahara, I decided it was time for a haircut. I left Trish in hotel and went in search of a barber's which I eventually found down a back street. It was a tiny hole in the wall shop marked outside by a pile of rubble, a bundle of rags and a dead dog. The rags turned out to be someone asleep on the rubble and when I went to step over the dead dog it raised it's head, snarled, farted and went back to sleep. (Trish said that's what she's had to put up with every morning for the last thirty odd years - Most unkind!)
Once inside the shop I was immediately pushed to the front of the queue. The guy then spent the next hour cutting my hair. This is a long time for a haircut. When I thought he had finally finished he started trimming my eyebrows. Then my nasil hair and then, before I could stop him, he whipped half a inch off my moustache. If he made a move for the trouser area I was ready to run.
He disappeared for a minute and when he returned he was carrying the biggest cut-throat razor I've ever seen in my life. continued ......
Once inside the shop I was immediately pushed to the front of the queue. The guy then spent the next hour cutting my hair. This is a long time for a haircut. When I thought he had finally finished he started trimming my eyebrows. Then my nasil hair and then, before I could stop him, he whipped half a inch off my moustache. If he made a move for the trouser area I was ready to run.
He disappeared for a minute and when he returned he was carrying the biggest cut-throat razor I've ever seen in my life. continued ......
A ps to the last post. I now know what the Hawk of The Desert is. I always thought it was a Bedouin or Toureg chief. - Wrong! It's what they do in Mali to clear their throats or chests about a hundred times a day. Even the gorgeous, lady concierge in La Maison sounded like a donkey being garotted in the mornings!
We are back in Bamako. Our flights there and back via Mopti were in a tiny, very ancient, twin prop aeroplane. Air Mali only have two planes and the other one is at the menders. Everything seemed to be held together by duct tape and I swear there was a garmin satnav glued to the dash. Never had a plastic garden chair as a seat on an aeroplane before.
Very sad to leave Timbukto - it really is a magical place. Whatever you do ignore the guide books that say it's an anticlimax. It's definitley not. The people are so friendly. You get the usual polite hassle at first - come and see the shop of my father, brother, uncle's second cousin twice removed etc. When you're face becomes more familiar after a day or so everyone leaves you alone except to say bonjour or bonsoir about a million times a day. The hotel La Maison where we stayed is fantastic. An oasis of cool calm in the desert. The chef must have at least one Michilin Star. Every meal was better than the last.
We still can't quite believe we've actually been to Timbukto. I can remember by mother saying to me when I was little and had taken a long time to fetch something from the shop "Where've you been, Timbuktu?" I never dreamed for a moment that one day I'd actually get there.
Very sad to leave Timbukto - it really is a magical place. Whatever you do ignore the guide books that say it's an anticlimax. It's definitley not. The people are so friendly. You get the usual polite hassle at first - come and see the shop of my father, brother, uncle's second cousin twice removed etc. When you're face becomes more familiar after a day or so everyone leaves you alone except to say bonjour or bonsoir about a million times a day. The hotel La Maison where we stayed is fantastic. An oasis of cool calm in the desert. The chef must have at least one Michilin Star. Every meal was better than the last.
We still can't quite believe we've actually been to Timbukto. I can remember by mother saying to me when I was little and had taken a long time to fetch something from the shop "Where've you been, Timbuktu?" I never dreamed for a moment that one day I'd actually get there.
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Timbuktu
We can hardly believe it but we have finally made it to Timbuktu. Arrived around 12.30pm today.
TB2 as we people with the tee shirt call it is much nicer and sandier than Bamako. A bit like Burnley with sand.
Very, very, very hot. Oh, and did we mention the sand?
Getting away may be a lot harder as they seem to change the time of flights or even cancel them completely without telling anyone.
Before coming here we spent a couple of days in Djiema with Pam Young - the lady who runs Village Ventures. She is one of the recipients of the donations from the rally.
We visited a couple of villages and met the people that benifit from the whole thing.
We'll post some pictures as soon as we can get a decent internet connection - this is the slowest in the world.
The visit was perhaps the best thing we have done since the rally ended but was also upsetting in a way. More later.
Tuesday, 16 February 2010
You dont come to Mali lightly, at dusk in Bamako you cant breathe with the pollution. Its dirty, incredibly smelly, dusty and poor but has the most wonderful people. The ladies look fantastic in wonderful, bright colours, carrying their wares on their heads and sometimes their babies on their backs.You love it and hate it alternativley and sometimes at the same time. Its bloody hot, you have to keep covered or you fry, at night it goes down to 24c! We sleep under mozzie nets with a fan and AC.
Saturday, 13 February 2010
Apology
I now realise that my saying (when introduced, on live television, to the two Hungarian beauty queens taking part in the rally) "Have them washed and brought to my tent" might have been a mistake.
Anglo-Hungarian beauty queen relations were more than a little frosty after that! Oops!
Anglo-Hungarian beauty queen relations were more than a little frosty after that! Oops!
Thursday, 11 February 2010
The Eagle has landed!
Well more like the budgie has perched. We have finally made it to Bamako.
The taxi is having a well earned rest in the long stay car park of Casablanca airport. We cheated by catching a plane.
Bamako is everything we expected it to be............ chaotic, noisy, dusty and very hot to our poor unacclimatised bodies.
We are staying in a small hotel called Hotel Tamana which we plucked from a recommendation in the Lonely Planet Guide. Booking it in advance over the phone from Casablanca it was a bit of a culture shock when we arrived at 2.00 am this morning. After a few hours sleep though it is amazing how perceptions change. Last night we were planning to switch asap to a 5 star Hotel but now it seems perfect here. Not speaking French is more then a little of a drawback but we are managing.
This morning at breakfast we met a charming couple from the USA who have taken pity on us. They are experienced travellers in Mali and are introducing us to a reliable travel company.
We will have explain that we have ambitious plans but very small pockets and see how far we can go. The mud mosque of Djenne, Dogon country and Timboctou are all on our wish list in the two weeks we have here but we will have to wait and see.
We are taking it easy today to try and acclimatise but have been invited to join Cathy and Jon (our new friends) for dinner tonight.
G & T
The taxi is having a well earned rest in the long stay car park of Casablanca airport. We cheated by catching a plane.
Bamako is everything we expected it to be............ chaotic, noisy, dusty and very hot to our poor unacclimatised bodies.
We are staying in a small hotel called Hotel Tamana which we plucked from a recommendation in the Lonely Planet Guide. Booking it in advance over the phone from Casablanca it was a bit of a culture shock when we arrived at 2.00 am this morning. After a few hours sleep though it is amazing how perceptions change. Last night we were planning to switch asap to a 5 star Hotel but now it seems perfect here. Not speaking French is more then a little of a drawback but we are managing.
This morning at breakfast we met a charming couple from the USA who have taken pity on us. They are experienced travellers in Mali and are introducing us to a reliable travel company.
We will have explain that we have ambitious plans but very small pockets and see how far we can go. The mud mosque of Djenne, Dogon country and Timboctou are all on our wish list in the two weeks we have here but we will have to wait and see.
We are taking it easy today to try and acclimatise but have been invited to join Cathy and Jon (our new friends) for dinner tonight.
G & T
Tuesday, 9 February 2010
Latest update - We are now in Marrakech and have finally found a decent internet cafe so its time to update the blog with some final impressions of the rally. I cant quite find my way around this arabic keyboard so please ignore the lack of punctuation
Some of the people we travelled with are completely unforgettable.
The Indian team were our main partners in crime. Their's was not so much a rally but more a tour of the garages and street mechanics of Morocco. They had terribly bad luck. The 4x4 they bought specially for the trip caught fire and was completely destroyed days before the start. They then went out and bought a Mercedes saloon thinking that at least they could get spares anywhere in Africa. A burst oil chamber, broken axle and countless punctures were the least of their problems. Most dramatic of all was hitting a hole in the side of the road at high speed. They sheared the suspension arm on the nearside and ripped two wheels off. They then careered gracefully down the road on two wheels, in a cloud of sparks. To say they were lucky not to turn over is an understatement. Someone must definitely have been watching over them.
Two Hungarians who incidentally had won Rally for last three years were not so lucky. They rolled their 4x4 in the desert and the driver seriously injured his spine.
Paul, the English guy driving alone in a 1956 volkwagon beetle was someone else with more than his fair share of bad luck. Having already destroyed one engine in Belgium on the way to the start he got stuck in soft sand in the desert. A couple of Skandanavian medical students spent two days towing him and another vehicle out. Completely cut off fromthe rest of the rally and unable to summon help these two Norwegians were absolute saints for their selfless rescue.
We narrowly avoided the same fate as Paul as we had agreed to go the same route. However we were delayed by the Hungarian TV crew who wanted to do yet another interview and film the taxi in the sand dunes near camp. By the time we had finished the others had left without us. By chance we got into conversation with a Bedouin who warned us of 20 kms of very soft sand on that route. He told us in no uncertain terms not to even try.
Paul's rescue was completed by a giant wagon carrying stone. The driver tipped half his load and they made a ramp with it. They then winched the beetle up the ramp and onto the back of the wagon. The guy then drove Paul back to the nearest village. We didn't see Paul again until Agadir, the day after the rally had ended. He was now on his third engine.
Our own exploits in the mountains which won us a silver trophy for endeavour and endurance was the result of another accident. I had missed the 6.00am briefing that morning ( they were mostly in Hungarian and I usually didn't have a clue what was going on anyway). We got the co-ordinates for the next overnight camp and looked at the map. The squiggly line over the mountain looked like a short cut so we decided to give it a try thinking we could always turn back. By the time we wanted to turn back it was impossible. The only way was onward and upward. I walked in front of the cab for long sections directing Trish over boulders and trying to judge just how close we could drive near the edge without falling off. The Hungarian TV crew who came across us thought all their Christmases had come at once. The route was actually the most difficult of the whole rally taking most 4x4's an average of five hours. It took us nearly eleven. We limped into a tiny hamlet at the foot of the mountain with our exhaust and most of the suspension remodelled by the track. It was another 200 kms to Zagora where' completely by chance' we found the best garage in the Sahara. Two hours of hammering and welding later we set off for the final 100 kms to our overnight desert bivouac. We arrived after midnight to a rousing welcome and forced drinks of gin.
All for now - next post in a few days (we're still trying to get to Bamako).
Some of the people we travelled with are completely unforgettable.
The Indian team were our main partners in crime. Their's was not so much a rally but more a tour of the garages and street mechanics of Morocco. They had terribly bad luck. The 4x4 they bought specially for the trip caught fire and was completely destroyed days before the start. They then went out and bought a Mercedes saloon thinking that at least they could get spares anywhere in Africa. A burst oil chamber, broken axle and countless punctures were the least of their problems. Most dramatic of all was hitting a hole in the side of the road at high speed. They sheared the suspension arm on the nearside and ripped two wheels off. They then careered gracefully down the road on two wheels, in a cloud of sparks. To say they were lucky not to turn over is an understatement. Someone must definitely have been watching over them.
Two Hungarians who incidentally had won Rally for last three years were not so lucky. They rolled their 4x4 in the desert and the driver seriously injured his spine.
Paul, the English guy driving alone in a 1956 volkwagon beetle was someone else with more than his fair share of bad luck. Having already destroyed one engine in Belgium on the way to the start he got stuck in soft sand in the desert. A couple of Skandanavian medical students spent two days towing him and another vehicle out. Completely cut off fromthe rest of the rally and unable to summon help these two Norwegians were absolute saints for their selfless rescue.
We narrowly avoided the same fate as Paul as we had agreed to go the same route. However we were delayed by the Hungarian TV crew who wanted to do yet another interview and film the taxi in the sand dunes near camp. By the time we had finished the others had left without us. By chance we got into conversation with a Bedouin who warned us of 20 kms of very soft sand on that route. He told us in no uncertain terms not to even try.
Paul's rescue was completed by a giant wagon carrying stone. The driver tipped half his load and they made a ramp with it. They then winched the beetle up the ramp and onto the back of the wagon. The guy then drove Paul back to the nearest village. We didn't see Paul again until Agadir, the day after the rally had ended. He was now on his third engine.
Our own exploits in the mountains which won us a silver trophy for endeavour and endurance was the result of another accident. I had missed the 6.00am briefing that morning ( they were mostly in Hungarian and I usually didn't have a clue what was going on anyway). We got the co-ordinates for the next overnight camp and looked at the map. The squiggly line over the mountain looked like a short cut so we decided to give it a try thinking we could always turn back. By the time we wanted to turn back it was impossible. The only way was onward and upward. I walked in front of the cab for long sections directing Trish over boulders and trying to judge just how close we could drive near the edge without falling off. The Hungarian TV crew who came across us thought all their Christmases had come at once. The route was actually the most difficult of the whole rally taking most 4x4's an average of five hours. It took us nearly eleven. We limped into a tiny hamlet at the foot of the mountain with our exhaust and most of the suspension remodelled by the track. It was another 200 kms to Zagora where' completely by chance' we found the best garage in the Sahara. Two hours of hammering and welding later we set off for the final 100 kms to our overnight desert bivouac. We arrived after midnight to a rousing welcome and forced drinks of gin.
All for now - next post in a few days (we're still trying to get to Bamako).
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