Dave and Phil's Africa blog
Welcome to Dave Need and Phil Gendall's blog. This is a record of our 2008/9 journey from Cornwall to Timbuktu in a 15 year-old totally unmodified Pugeot 205, as part of the Plymouth-Timbuktu Challenge (http://www.plymouth-banjul.co.uk/). Phil is a director at Gendall Design (www.gendall.co.uk), and Dave is a carpenter and boat builder. We left on boxing day 2008 from Portsmouth - and traveled to Marrakesh for New Year's Eve - then on down through Western Sahara and Mauritania, turning left somewhere and on to Mali.... and thence to Timbuktu. If you want to get the best from this blog now it's finished, go to the end and work forwards. If you want to know more about the challenge or just to get in touch email me on phil.gendall@btinternet.com Phil x
On the cliff edge
| Tom and Jack's Frontera, rather inconveniently, decided to immobilise itself, 200km from anywhere. That gave some of us time to explore the incredible cliff edge. The surface is a mass of compacted and fossilised sea shells - some tiny and some as big as a salad bowl. Further along we see an abandoned fishing village, like a film set at the foot of the cliff. |
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Petrifiied sea shells
| Any boffs out there want to tell us how old they are? |
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Welcome to Western Sahara
| 200,000 Moroccan soldiers can't be wrong - that's about how many are posted here, making sure Rabat keeps control of the massive patch of dust that is Western Sahara. The Saharawi Arabic Democratic Republic, and Mauritania both disgree. From here we are to drive for five hours and see nothing, but nothing. |
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But out
Night stop on Saturday, at Camping Bedouin, 50km north of Laaoune. While Cornwall (and North Wales) parties, the desert sleeps... A quick shower in the morning and a goat-on-a-rope, and off we go again. Dalhla tonight.
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Offal to go
A stew of tasty sheep (?) bits and pieces in a chewy bap with chips on top. Looks like pasta but.... Mmmmm. And only a pound with soup on the side and orange juice served in an old glass jar. The man who serves us speaks no French, just Berber. Tomorrow is our last full day before Mauritania.
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The Edge of Africa
Eight hours of driving in a straight line with the sun ahead, the Atlantic on the right and nothing, but nothing on the left. The coastline is strewn with the usual detritus of modern living. Bleach bottles, cans, shredded rope, and plastic bags, and more plastic bags, and more plastic bags. Men are fishing off the clifftops with long home-made rods.
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The car in front...
... is a tank. Well, a couple of tanks, actually. Not the easiest thing for our little convoy to squeeze past. Heading for the disputed territory of Western Sahara. Reassuring to know the Morrocan army is there for you - depending on which side of the border you are on of course.
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Fort Bou Jerif, Guelmim
300 miles took us 12 hours. Ted insisted that we pushed on to a campsite his mate had been to, in the middle of nowhere. So we did our first bit of off-road in the setting sun and arrived... not to a peaceful desert solitude... but slap into the middle of a desert rally stage camp. The Marsailles to Dakar 'AfricaRace.com'. Some of our younger and more petrol-headed members of the team had to launder their smalls after seeing the monster desert-racing trucks, bikes, tonka-toy-style cars and miscellaneous support vehicles. Hell - there were even giro-copters for the press! Awoke at 5.30am to a cacophony of high-octane horse-power revving and testosterone on the wind. But we have further to go... and first Lee and Chris have to fix Sandship's deisel fuel return... and just 500 km's to Laayonne! Later. |
Posted by TimbukTwoOhFive
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'kin Ace. Carry on up the Atlas, 2nd Jan
| An early 6am start got us up over 2000m over the Tizi-n-Test pass in the Haut Atlas.That snakey line is our road down. And guess what we found at the bottom? Yep. A tortoise crossing the road. Nearly had crunchy pie for tea. After that it really starated to feel like Proper Africa - like, nothing but the horizon stretching to the sunset ahead. |
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