African Adventure Part 2: Tangiers to Zagora

Welcome back! Now, when we left off, I'd just arrived at port in Tangiers. It wasn't too onerous a task getting through as the Moroccan authorities had completed most of the paperwork and formalities with us onboard the ferry, so just a case of showing completed paperwork, passports and changing some money into Dirhams. A good job really as it had been a long haul and it was getting later on in the evening. Fortunately, we only had 80km to cover over tarmac to reach our first campsite of the adventure. A note on tarmac (no, seriously), there has been a noticable investment into the Moroccan road system (a result for good or ill of the increasing tourism into the country), so many of the roads, especially around the cities, are of a good quality to drive on. Of course, that's less of an advantage when you are offroading most of the time!

The first camp was at Assilah, and I would certainly commend the campsite to the subset 'basic'. There was water for washing, magic electricity trees that sprung from the ground and executed your electrical goods and, for added excitement, two types of toilet. The first was the kind that we are used to, the second a toilet from the darkside, a bizarre invention of both brilliance and cruelty. for the remainder of the blog, these shall be referred to as Btoilets. To describe to those unused to such horrors, imagine a hole large enough to take your waste with two raised footrests in front and either side of the hole. Now squat. you get the picture. Then you throw half a bucket of water down to flush and throw your paper into a waste paper bin. Genius.

Having thoroughly exhausted my interest in the Btoilet, I set up my tent for the first night. I had invested in a pop up tent, so it was easy to get myself sorted (see further on for the inverse difficulty of decamping). The organisation (who whilst they may sound like a James Bond villain group are really not) had arrived with the support vehicles - catering truck, Mankat, 4x4s and the like, and were able to get dinner sorted out for not too late in the evening, so after a couple of beers in the surprisingly cold Moroccan darkness I retired for the night. Nights didnt really get warm until Southern Mauritania, the clear skies really do lead to some dramatic temperature diurnal ranges.

OK, decamping for the first full day of African fun and games! Pop up tents are magnificent on the way up, they are literally a 2 second job. However, reading the instructions for taking them down was not very helpful. It might as well have read 'take the obverse side of the front end and retreat whilst folding paralell to the inverted doorway with both sides clear of the tents equator'. I am not proud, I'm smart, I asked a girl for help! Specifically Kell who has experience of these things. It would take a week and a half for me to master taking my own tent down.

The first day took us from Assilah to camp at Boujad Forest, a fairly hefty 403km. Erik was content to do most of the African driving which left me free to enjoy the views and ask pointless questions to which I probably already knew the answer. The first part of the journey was more tarmac as we ploughed through some 'numbers' (got some mileage under our belts). The highlight was stopping at a fairly large town (the name of which regrettably escapes me at the moment) where we shopped for lunch. Handily enough a chap cycled past with a baguette in his basket, so we enquired as to where they were on sale, baguettes being lighter than the rather doughy/cakey Moroccan loaves. He pointed us off to the opposite side of the street. Before that though there was time for looking round the town. I caught, from the corner of my beady eye, a shop selling some electrical goods and the like and, proudly on display in a cabinet, some Beats by Dr Dre headphones (rrp in the UK £150 -£250). I was informed they were on sale for 80 dirhams (7 and a half euro, £6). They were, on that basis, obviously the genuine article! OK, maybe not, but at £6 who's arguing? I snapped them up and am happy to report they are not at all bad for the money invested. Beats by Dr Dre they ain't however!

Anyway, back to lunch! We couldn't find the bakers. Then, as if by magic, the same guy on a bicycle came past. Now, he's either a magician, or a very cunning mobile advertisement, as he agreed to take us directly to the bakers where baguettes were on sale. We were actually treated to a tour of the bakery where we saw them preparing Moroccan loaves before exscaping with many a farewell and a bag of baguettes. Lunch was taken under a shady tree by the roadside (most days we had bread and tuna or cream cheese or sardines etc for our lunch)

The second half of the day was a little more frenetic as we took our first off road route, a slaloming piste of not too difficult driving. However we did encounter, shortly before reaching camp, a very rickety and dangerous bridge which was full of holes. It involved me having to guide Erik across to miss the holes and stick to solid bridge. A task that proved beyond me, so I coopted some further assistance who, unlike me apparantly, were not happy to let the 2CV disappear down a hole (I still maintain you could have taken a bus over it no problems). I'll put some pictures below, but, suffice to say, the 2CVs and Vespas managed to get over the bridge, the motorbikes took a 1KM detour around it (which earned them opprobrium that lasted to the end of the jaunt, not that we dared tell them, to their BMW faces ;-))

Camp was a bivouac - where there are no camping facilities, just a village made up of the vehicles, support vehicles and our tents etc. It did feature a very beautiful sunset however.

Day 2 took us to the Gorges De Todra. The first part of the drive was very scenic and took us for the first time into the Middle Atlas mountains. We climbed up to approximately 9000 feet for some stunning views, although the 2CVs were finding the mix a little rich at that altitude and struggled a little without entrirely giving up the ghost. The descent was an interesting test for the brakes (pump those buggers!) and took us to the spectacular Gorges De Todra, a beautiful canyon which we drove through, and again I link to in pictures below, although they fail to do it justice. Camp was at Le Soeil campsite where WiFi allowed me to dose up on Facebook and the like. I was also extremely tired, and took the opportunity to rent a room for the night rather than my tent. At 30 Euros I think he probably diddled me out of some cash, but I needed a good nights sleep and I got one. Good job too, as day three saw us enter the Sahara for the first time.....

Day three was the first day of split journeys. The Vespas were not able to take on the desert route and so went their separate ways and we would meet them again at the end of day 4. For the 2CVs and big bikes, we got away early and convered 220km of mainly tarmac by 11.30. That left us 'merely' 110km to reach camp. Unfortuantely (or fortunately given the spectacular views and location), this 110km was the famous Merzouga - Zagora trail across the Sahara. Obviously entirely off road, the route took us through sand, a salt lake, mud and the like. Let's be gentle and call it 'stop, start'. The cars got stuck very easily in patches of softer sand, and once beached need pushing or pulling out, and the use of sand ladders. I quickly worked out you are better off being the car that gets stuck, as if one of the cars in your group (from today onwards, Erik and me, Kell and Mal and the other English pair, Stan and Fitz) gets stuck you have to help them, but you can't also stop in soft sand so you have to drive on and find hard sand to park on, then walk back through the desert to the stuck car to dig and push it out. Whilst the organisation had their 4x4s etc around, the idea of this is that the 2CVs sort their own mess out, so a tow out by a big beast was never on the table.

Fitz and Stan were the most often to be beached, and on one occasion we had to drive on about a mile to park and walk it back to help them out. Whilst we were at it, we also helped Francine and Erik who had beached and so as a 'reward' got a lift back to our parked cars from the photographer Dominique in his trusty 4x4 truck. I was hanging off the side hoping we didn't go over anything too 'chuck Dave off'ish. That we didn't was little consolation as the latter stages of the desert track saw the second 'Dave' moment of the adventure. Erik had said that if we were starting to crawl to a halt (in soft sand you hit high revs and maintain down the gears whilst slaloming), the idea is for me to jump out just as we approach a stop and push to keep us going. Anyway, at a certain point we started to slow and Erik said 'get ready to get out'. However, all I heard was 'get out', so I opened the door and tried to get out. Even on soft sand, this is not the best idea whilst travelling at a reasonable speed. I knew I had made a mistake as soon as my foot touched sand. I honestly expected to hear my leg snap (and on a hard surface it would have done), but my leg acted as a pole vault and sent me (luckily) flying clear of the car and landing awkwardly in the sand. There was one of those moments of 'what is broken/missing?' before I realised I had completely gotten away with a ludicrous act of pure Dave, and suffered merely bruised pride and a grazed arm. You are permitted to laugh. I did. So did everyone that saw it!

Camping was a bivouac within a traditional Kasbah (defensive building/fortification) in the desert. GPS says the camp is within Algeria, although it is niominally Moroccan. However, I am claiming Algeria on 'countries I have been to) as a result! And there, friends, we shall leave it for now, and I will update the next part of my adventure over the weekend when we relive the splendour of Marrakech.

African Adventure Part 1: Briston to Tangiers

Time for me to stop dreaming I am still in Africa and start writing about it! Over a few blog entries I am going to tell you about my three and a bit week odyssey that ended with me drowning in my own sweat in Dakar. Lets not get ahead of ourselves though, there is a huge swathe of land, travels and tales to tell before we get within a thousand miles of Dakar!

First off, a note on how I, a Vauxhall Corsa driving numptyfant managed to get involved in a rag tag collection of Citroen 2CVs, Motorbikes and Vespas following the Touareg Trail through Northern and Western Africa. Its really quite simple, I happened to post on Facebook that I was looking for ideas for a challenge, and Kell MacLean, whom I used to work with at the nameless bank of evil, suggested I sign up for the trip. She had done it in 2009 and was going again with her father and her Belgian boyfriernd, who had previously gone on the trail as a mechanic, was looking for a co-pilot to go along as a participant on this occasion. Naturally, having never driven a 2CV and having no experience of off roading, mechanics or left hand drive vehicles, it was an easy yes.

So, on the first Friday, I left the comfort of my air conditioned girl wagon at my parents and my father dropped me off at Kell's fathers (Mal), as I would journey with him to Belgium before joining up with Erik in his 2CV for the adventure itself. I arrived at about 3pm with the latest we should leave to catch the 8.30 ferry in Dover being around 3.30 to 4pm. Thus it was with some anxiety I noted the 2CV (who is called Laura) was still up on ramps with the wings removed and work very much underway! Apparantly, Mal had a doozy of a job getting Laura ready for the journey and I was catching the very end of the frenetic activity. You can take the boy out of the OCD, but you can't take the OCD out of the boy.... OCD plus not ready = anxious little pudding.

However, somehow everything came together for a 4pm departure and we were off. the first 12 miles went very smoothly and then we reached Thetford.....and went no further! The car has two petrol tanks, and the one we were travelling on read as full, yet the car, she no going anywhere! Mal was perplexed and I founf myself in doubting Thomas mode, ruefully pondering a trip across another continent when we appeared unable to make it out of Norfolk.

In the end, it was the rush of activity and stress of getting it all ready that had done for Mal and Laura. The tank was indeed full, it was just that it, and the empty main tank had been labelled up the wrong way round. A neatly simple answer, but we had an hour of headscratching to get there (thats what working on a car for solid days and nights with little sleep does for you I guess). A friend of Mals from Thetford towed us to the next garage and everything was set right to go on.

We had no way of making the ferry now, so I arranged for us to take the 10.30 ferry to Calais instead. A major piece of pressing a button on a computer which cost £10. Old rope for which I gave my money. The journey to Dover after this was uneventful, and we boarded the ferry just fine. I managed to set a world record by having 4 pints in the short period the bar was open. Start the trip as you mean to go on!

Once in Calais, we set off for Teveuren near Brussels, where we would start officially. We reached it in the early hours and found we had nowhere to sleep but in Laura. It was rather cold to say the least, and was not my favourite part of the trip. The next morning, after discovering the joys of eggs and bacon in a Teveuren cafe, we met up with the organistion, the other cars and bikes and well wisher at the Africa Museum, the traditional starting point for the voyage. We set off at about 2pm with the aim to reach Barcelona by early morning as we needed to be in place to start boarding formalities at the ferry to Tangiers around midday.

All the vehicles were to follow the same route to Barcelona, so that the mechanics could follow on and provide assistance should any early breakdowns spoil the party. The route for mapaholics was Teveuren (Brussels) - Luxembourg - Metz - Dijon - Lyon - Nimes - Montpellier - Perpignan - Girona - Barcelona. Thats a total of 1384KM, nearly a quarter of the total we would be doing in Africa itself (though on infinitely better roads!) We shared the driving, so I had my first experience of left hand drive vehicles, 2CVs and driving on the right all in one go! I did OK I'd say on that basis, certainly we didnt end up in any ditches.

The 1400 or so KMs took 19 hours to complete, and we only went wrong once, following the signs into the centre of Lyon itself at 11 on a Saturday night. The locals at least were having a fine time in the cafes and bars. It took an hour longer than necessary to correct the wrongturn as someone had their satnav on the last city (Dijon) instead of the next one (Nimes) which meant the two cars that had gone wrong (Dirt Duck which was Erik and my car, and Laura) were trying to go opposite ways all the time. Amazing what a 5 minute pause and breathe can achieve!

In Barcelona, I had the single worst breakfast that has ever been had, ever, anywhere. A tasteless pappy baguettey thing with some rubber in it and cold sausage and cold fried mushrooms. Also on offer were uncooked cold eggs and cold bacon lumps. Needless to say I dumped the offending food and settled for a chocolate muffin. Breakfast of champions!

Everyone made the ferry on time and we boarded for the 27 hour trip to Tangiers in Morocco. Now, I don't know about you, but to me 27 hours with nothing to do spells piss up. Also on offer was a very fine restaurant where I had one of the best meals I have had in a long time, and that was the starter! A Linguini with fruits of the sea. Main course was rather acceptable too, Swordfish, I dined with the other two English guys on the voyage, Fitz and Stan who are both good company. It was after dinner that I had the first Dave moment of the trip. Having consumed an appropriate amount of beer (many), I decided it would be remiss of me to join Kell, Mal and Erik in our cabin as I might snore. So, logically, I should just sleep on deck. So thats what I did, I joined the people who did not want to pay for a cabin asleep on a bar sofa. About 3am I awoke to an enormous dude literally in my face shouting in something that I think wasnt French. Having squeaked in my most effette voice that I was Anglais, he pointed at the other end of the sofa and grunted. I determined he wanted to sleep there so I nodded my assent. And then did a runner in case he meant he wanted to deflower me there, or something. Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. And sleep on chairs. Another chair, another sleep and dawn found me with a hangover.

We managed to make it to Tangiers in one piece, but 27 hours is a loooooong time when you can't go anywhere! A couple of hours got us through customs and money changing etc as most of the paperwork had been done onboard. And there I shall leave it for now. Next update I will take us through the first few days of travel, and the joys of the desert!!

Below are the Dirt Duck, Kell and Erik, and Laura the 2CV.

Sometimes

Sometimes I reach out just because I need to know you're there.
Sometimes my feelings overwhelm me and I feel like drowning in them.
Sometimes I get so scared of silence and wish my life to be filled with noise.
Sometimes the noise makes me sad.
Sometimes I get so angry at the world, at it's cruelty, at injustice, at the belittling of those in need, at the selfishness, the unfairness, the hatred and the dark.
Sometimes an unlooked for flower, or the sound of carefree laughter ringing out shames me for my anger and I am a smaller man in a wider more wonderful world.
Sometimes I need you so much, and I don't know how to tell you.
Sometimes my feelings frighten me, at their intensity and sudden onset.
Sometimes the loneliness is unbearable.
Sometimes I will assure you I'm OK.
Sometimes I am lying.
Sometimes all I want is a hug.
Sometimes I am afraid to ask for it.
Sometimes I forget how wonderful you are.
Sometimes I wish you knew how much you mean to me.
Sometimes I would give you my world.
Sometimes I feel I cannot cope anymore.
Sometimes the words that hurt me wont stop replaying in my head.
Sometimes I am utterly lost.
Sometimes I want the world to be OK, so I can stop worrying for a little while.
Sometimes the loneliness, the loneliness, the loneliness, in a crowded room, on my own, all day and all night, the loneliness.
Sometimes I just want to talk, just talk and let words repair my heart.
Sometimes I'm so scared, so small, so hidden.
Sometimes I just want a moment, just one moment to tell you I care.
Sometimes my heart breaks, and no one knows.
Sometimes.....

A few words from me

As any regular reader of my blog will know, I use it as an outlet to discuss or vent my feelings about my struggles with mental illness. For a while I have wanted to revisit some of the emotions and issues around the concept of losing ones mind. I thought it best to wait until a day when I was feeling particularly level headed and focussed, for want of a better word. Today is such a day.

An easily thrown about comment in the modern world is 'you must be out of your mind'. What a perjorative phrase. The truth is, I have been out of my mind, and it is nothing like the state of affairs proposed by that oft used phrase. In fact, it is the most terrifying thing I have experienced and one I am on constant guard against. To find onesself in the middle of Tescos car park, reduced to a sobbing standstill with no real conception of how you are supposed to make it to the front doors of the shop, let alone the next day, or all the days to follow, and with no control of emotional responses is not something I would ever recommend. It felt so far from reality, and yet it was reality. It was being taken from the cushion of the preceeding weeks and months where I had been 'out of my mind', using false coping mechanisms and denial to being faced with reality, the reality of suffering with severe depression, and socially debilitating OCD, the knowledge that I didn't have days or weeks of struggle ahead, but a lifetime. I was, in an instant, become the definition of abnormal in our causally ignorant world.

Its what came immedaitely after this that I really wanted to write about. To understand it better myself, and to explain to anyone reading why things are the way they are and why I say and do so many of the things I say and do. It was never so much the fact that mental illness can be a lifelong burden, it was the changed reality of accepting it, and accepting what that means about me, about my state of mind.

Percpetions can be powerful, especially peoples perception of you. To present onesself as a mental illness sufferer can be to invite perception of weakness, to allow that perception of abnormality (in this world, could there be a more inapt word for it?) It makes it very hard to be open about it the way one would a broken leg or asthma for example. That in itself is a cruelty, part of coping with mental illness is sharing and taking comfort from that sharing. Having said that, part of the blame must be mine, and still is. I am scared of being seen as weak, I do not want there to be seen any blot or stain upon the essence of me. It horrifies me to think of my family worrying about me, it scares me to think of friends stuck for something to say to me. Mental illness becomes for me a monster stalking me and taunting me for all the things I will never be, all the loves I will not allow myself, all the social and family situations I will hide from as the monster may rear its head and tarnish something beautiful. How hard it is sometimes to remember that I am not the monster, but of course I am not.

I said I was waiting until I was level headed and yet even today, at my most level headed, the tears are rolling down my cheeks. My life is a contradiction, to fight illness I have to be as tough as old leather and yet I am as soft as butter on a summers afternoon. The head tells me to fight silently and dilligently, but the heart screams at me to burn brightly. I feel like I will understand it all when I am old and, at the same time, that I knew it all instinctively from birth. The one thing I want to promise to myself, and to everyone I love is that my mind will stay whole and never again will the wheels start to come off, and thats the one thing I can't promise.

These entries are never easy reading, but I would have you know me better. And for that, they are a start.

The Song of the Drinker (reworked)

Messy mind, it tortures him, thoughts stretched to ruin on the rack,
Hopes, contentment crucified, the future hides in black.
Just live for now, or perish here, the drink decides your fate;
Mortal man, undignified,  filled with spite and rage and hate.

Back over shoulder, mesmerised, the lies of years ago,
Downfall brought to memory, reliving blow by blow.
Trapped mind will wilt in feedback loop, the shattered mirror falls,
In pieces for another night, ‘To Oblivion!’ he calls.

And grasping now the bottle neck, to incapacity he’ll sink,
Swill it back, erase the pain, become one with the drink.
And so to wake another day, regretful and ashamed,
On shadow men, and broken heart, is all his folly blamed.

Another evening, another day

Its the slow intake of breath and it's regretful expulsion through the nose that gives it away. The semblance of calm breath when inside there is utter turmoil. Right now I am not sure how many days I have been passing it all off as tickety boo, but it feels like it has been forever. The only option is to write about it, hope that the process of delivering words to paper (or rather their HTMLisation) will help force me out of this funk. I want to run from now. Now is bad, now is the wrong place and the wrong time. I want to flee to beauty, I want to see beauty, feel it, hold it in my arms. Things here are not beautiful. The world is grey and I find myself reading poems I have written of muses or otherwise and I cannot bring those feelings to being, they seem alien, as if I have never experienced love, gentleness or wonder. I know that I have, I was after all there, but it is as if a screen is between me and the memory, the sensations of the memories. I've loved, I know I have. And what's more, I meant it, but now there is no love, there is helplessness. There is need and there is regret that I am so. And guilt....guilt at being a net drag rather than a net gain. And where did this timidity come from? I am afraid to ask for help, for love, for affection, wary that I am an anchor threatening to halt your progress through the tempestuous seas we sail. So I write it all down, in the hope it will make sense, but, in truth, it never does. I have never fitted in with any world view I can conceive. I have always been an enigma to myself. Capable of emotions that literally rip me apart at their intensity, and yet incapable of placing them correctly in my timeline that the results make sense. Too early,too late, I have been both in my time and I have been both at the same time. I'm tired. I've seen a lot, and experienced a lot, I have done things that no one knows about but me and some of them shame me. I've lived in squalor and splendour emotionally, but I am no closer to resolution or becoming complete. Perhaps for me there are no answers, merely questions and my life will be all quest and no rest. Thanks for listening.

Wishing it was different

First of all, I should apologise. I haven't been in a blogging frenzy lately, so updates have been few and far between. I have also been busy. However that is not the point, the point is I have been trying to pretend everything is OK, when everything is patently not OK. So I am back in the blog, and there are lots of things I want to say, quite a few I need to say and somewhere between the two, things I will say.

On the plus side, I achieved one of my life goals last week in that I did a stand up comedy routine in front of an audience (albeit a small audience). I just want to say that I am extremely pleased with how it went, it is definitely something I will be doing more of and, importantly, nothing I am about to say alters that, or diminishes my enjoyment of and pride in that box being ticked.

Having said that, I have been trying to use the high from that event to cover up the disturbing realisation that I am not OK, but today the tide broke over it, washing away any pretence of OKness. I guess it has always been this way for me, pulsating highs and crushing lows coming one after the other. I have been telling myself that I SHOULD be content, happy, on a high and therefore that I must be on a high. All evidence of my heart however was telling me otherwise. There's a terrible feeling of emptiness in me at the moment, a dread of each day being hollow, purposeless, aimless, wandering. I guess I have come here to talk about it because that is what I do, write about things. Here I can type the words out and know that you will read them and I don't have to subject you to the mess I am in as I press each key, living out the misery I am typing, wincing as I draw the words out of myself, crying as I read it back.

And right there we have one of the major problems. I cannot bear the thought of being burdensome on loved ones, on my friends. I hate the thought of being weak, of being a net 'need' upon people I care about. I have only ever wanted to make you proud of me, proud of knowing me, relaxed around me, happy to be with me. I want to be a giver, for my friendship and my love to come with benefits, not costs. Totally irrational of course, for everyone comes with both benefit and emotional cost, but that is how it is with me. Because I struggle with mental illness, I am determined it shall not affect outside of me, that I contain the negative aspects inside, so that none have to pay in any way for my suffering.

It is a literal insanity, because I am ill-equipped to nurture myself, and nurture surely is a natural thing to expect or hope for from friendship and love? The bleakness I struggle with will not allow me to believe I am capable of giving you the love and tenderness you deserve, and therefore that it would be selfish of me to expect it in return. The ridiculous thing is that however logical it all seems to see it in words, the experience is very different. The actual wrench I feel all the time, in every way, that I would rather rip out my heart and throw it away than let it poison someone else's life. The sheer terror of reaching out, of being in need, of expecting you to meet that need.

What has hit me, and why everything is not OK, is that I have realised I am only ever giving a part of myself to you, only the part I like to think of as relaxed, happy, loving, fun. It means you don't know what it is to be loved by me in totality, and that is an awful thing to realise. Perhaps writing this is the start of a different approach, certainly something needs to change. Perhaps what I am saying is that soon, somehow, I will need to reach out. Because it cannot go on like this, it has done so for far too long.