Mali and Me - Africa Rally 2008

Mali and Me, or There and Back Again.

Dave Rossiter

Mali and Me

Introduction This is an adventure long in the forming. For me it started some time early in 2007. I had heard about the Mongol Rally, run by The Adventurists, and knew that an old school friend of mine had done the rally that year. I signed up to be informed about developments and, most importantly, the opening date for applications for the 2008 Mongol Rally. Mongolia is pretty far away and would seem to be a challenge, it was exactly what I wanted. No 18-30's booze fest in Costa del English for me. It felt like a long wait for the rally to open in November.

I knew the year before that around 60,000 people had apparently tried to get a place at once so chances were I wasn't going to get in. As suspected I wasn't successful on any of their lottery type draws. On hearing the last and final “No more room at the inn� there was another email in my inbox. One promising a pioneering and more dangerous feat. Immediately I signed up to the Africa Rally 2008 and got my place. Hmm, looks like I'm driving to Africa then. Now I needed a co-pilot. The criteria were simple; they had to be crazy enough to consider it, ideally they had to be able to drive and they had to have the time to do it. There were a few names that sprang to mind but over the winter months interest waned and I was set to tackle Africa on my own.

A couple of months before the departure date a friend of mine from Samaritans suggested he might be able to come along. Having just retired, being able to drive and also more than crazy enough I was only too happy to have him along.

Thus entered John. We had trained together over 3 years ago when joining Sams so we knew enough about each other and had the training to deal with each other in the car for what was set to be around 6-7 weeks. Perfect.

I had procured a car from eBay, one 1965 Morris Minor in the delightfully heat repelling colour of black. It hadn't started in 5 years when I picked it up but it didn't take a lot of work to hear the "sewing machine" tick over of the A series engine. Purchasing the car back in November was a good idea because it gave me loads of time to get everything sorted and sail through an MOT.

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Erm... right. Serendipity was laid to rest after a 4 page MOT fail just a couple of weeks before the departure date.

(Right, spiders resident in drum brakes whilst I was replacing pads and pistons) In stepped my day to day drive, the fearless 1988 Nissan Micra Collette. This vehicle was of rally pedigree and so was the obvious and, more importantly, only choice for attempting the challenge. Ok, so it had broken down 3 times in the week before I was meant to go but that only reinforced the fact that it was the perfect car to take on a continent.

By the time I was having the car problems there were other things to consider.

We had left The Adventurists and started the T2 Rally, Tipperary to Timbuktu were the new goal posts. With some suggesting the car wouldn't make it to Tipperary, let alone back through England to France, we had a lot to prove. The Minor failing the MOT complicated our original route of; in through Egypt and out through Morocco. Because we needed a carnet and we wouldn't have time to sort one this meant we had to change plans. We had just got visas for Algeria but the dates on them would mean having to wait to leave or wait in Sicily or Tunisia. Not something I was hugely averse to but the other problem of needing a guide through Algeria was a significant cost.

(Above, map showing areas of closed borders and/or landmines between North African countires) 3 of 57

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In the end the only (comparatively) sensible option was to take the West Coast route from Ireland through England, France, Spain, Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania and finally in to Mali. So much had changed in the last 2 months that it was the best choice as it meant we could pick up visas on the way and essentially just leave whenever we wanted to.

Things didn't get any better in the week before leaving. Despite having stopped work to give myself time for every eventuality I still ended up with an expensive spree on eBay and days of frustrations with various things not arriving or being the wrong item. On the Tuesday before leaving I bought some roof bars for the Micra. Everything suggested they were supposed to just pop on and work like you'd expect. Several hours later in a car park outside Halfords I was considering any number of options including a mig welder and nails. I had also managed to order just one spot light on eBay previously so went back on and ordered the second one. Same seller, same item. Or not. My first one was reminiscent of the Lotus 7 kit car style headlight. A stylish little chrome number with a nice sized surface and a white light. The second one that turned up was bigger. And blue.

Style and sophistication are often left outside when you travel in a 20 year old Nissan Micra but I did have expectations of looking maybe just mildly professional. Oh well.

Wednesday was spent unpacking all the boxes in the sitting room and then filling the car while we got rained on. Having taken everything out of the boxes and arranged them neatly in the back seat of the Micra I realized that actually they're very spacious inside. On Thursday I was up at 6am to leave for my ferry to Ireland. I drove to the end of the M4 and slept then woke up very confused at the roundabout so called Dad as I had no England map. I got to the boat terminal with plenty of time to spare to be questioned by customs as I am a truly dodgy individual. The drive from Rosslare to Hollywood was uneventful. It was the first time I'd driven abroad but it still felt like home. It seems strange to think of anything within 2,000 miles as abroad anymore. There were some lovely roads along the way. I arrived in Hollywood around 8.30pm got some grub and heard that Ger and Bob hadn't even left yet, which was no surprise. Me and Mick went to the bunker to strip his bike and await the others after eating and watching some TV. The others eventually turn up around 11pm and we start spraying the bike which ruins my lungs. We don't get back and to sleep until 4.30am.

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Friday I was up at 9.30 to head in to Nass to get some hose and rally stuff for the Micra with Mick. We went to an army surplus store to pick up some bits for him too. We get back and fit the roof rack with minimal effort in the end - only some persuasion and no welding or hammering needed. The spotlights get mounted and electrified and I'm glad that they're not matching. It takes a certain person to make sure they never wear matching socks.

(Left, rallyprepped Micra reporting for duty)

It takes a whole different level of person to drive to Africa with mismatching spot lights! I hacksaw through my left index finger preparing the hose for the air intake mounting. I burn another finger picking up something that had been freshly welded. Lee arrives and the hose is finally mounted to the chimney.

We borrow the sofa out of an adjacent building and sit on it and scavenge some garden hose for redirecting the oil breather tube to the newly positioned carburettor. At 3am we're doing nothing productive so me and Lee go back and to sleep by about 4. Saturday sees us up at 11am when the guys come back from being out working on the bike all night. They have 2 hours kip while me and Lee hit Nass for more Halfords and B&Q essentials. On our return we start clearing out the shed as Bob is being evicted from it at the worst possible time thanks to an asshole landlord. We head back late afternoon to strip the boot of the Micra. I was going to take out the rear seats but there's actually plenty of space so I just remove some of the trim to make the boot more usable.

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We leave Hollywood at 8.30pm to head to Faugheen, the launch site. It's much later than intended but we've done a helluva lot of work in 2 days. We get to Faugheen at around 10.30 and have a pint in a strange little pub outside the town - they sell things like Cornflakes where you'd usually expect a display of Bacardi Breezers - and chat to some of the guys about the procession planned for tomorrow. The pints are swiftly finished and we head on to the farm where we will spend the night. We're not there more than 5 minutes when we go straight to the pub and order a round of 10 pints of Guinness. I get back late and very drunk. Stew is cooked and in conversation with Bob I don't get the chance to eat all of it. I decide it's time for sleep and pass out in a tent.

(Above, the complicated control systems required to pilot the epic Micra) Throughout this journal you will see numbers following the letter M in bold.

(Comments in have been added in the process of putting photos in the journal.)

These figures next to the bold letter M are mile markers from the cars odometer.

I considered transposing them to just show the 'real' miles covered on the trip but felt that would be disrespectful to the history of the car. For the last 20 years that Micra had served a purpose and had traveled around under the gentle right foot of a handful of old ladies. You could almost feel sorry for it for ending up in my hands...

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Sunday – Day 1 M 68277 (0 miles) Wake up at 9 feeling like death in a superheated tent, fully clothed inside a sleeping bag. Still rather drunk too! Headache like a bastard. Dick around for a few hours, then head to the local shops in the rally-prepped Micra. At around 12 Mum arrives in time for another full English breakfast. 1.30 we all head in to Faugheen to greet our convoy of classic tractors and motorbikes and to talk to the Three Counties press. We do a victory lap of the Faugheen street motorbike track with tractors in pursuit before lining up and bidding county Tipperary adieu.

(Right, Mick from Team Gecko, Me and my Mum)

M 68277. We leave Faugheen with 3 motorbikes escorting us. The drive to Rosslare sees the bikes stopping all traffic at roundabouts and traffic lights for us so we essentially shoot straight through every time. Fucking madness. The bikes leave us to do the last stretch on our own with the reporter following behind. We reach Rosslare and have some food and a final chat with the press. The reporter gives Ger and Bob a guardian angel she had been given in Poland 3 years ago and wishes us well, lovely woman. In the remaining hours to wait we start on some car park bodging of vehicles. Lee's boot door lock didn't work until Ger persuaded it with a tyre lever. I do a few cosmetic changes to my car. Having parked away from the guys when we got there for lack of space I do some offroading around the side of the car park to get back to where they are.

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(Left, Micra getting its first experience of off-roading in the ferry terminal car park)

We get on the ferry at 9pm and get up to the bar in time to see Top Gear on.

Some strange men come and change the channel then bugger off shortly after so we change it back. Couldn't really hear what was going on but Clarkson was driving around the Far East in a Nissan GTR by the looks of things. In the remaining hours we have a bash at the arcades. I dominate the crap rally driving game and then kick Lee's arse on the dance matts. The boat docks around 1am and we get to the Travelodge and into rooms by about 2am.

(The full name for the Micra was, by now, a bit of a mouthful)

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Monday – Day 2 M 68346 (69 miles) Up at 8am to pop in to Wilkinson's next door to pick up a flowerpot for the roof rack then a 2 hour drive to Hay-on-Wye, which is twinned with Timbuktu, so we can meet press and get famous. We arrive at 11.40am, 10 minutes after we were supposed to meet the reporter. On calling the office we are told that they have much more important things to cover than someone driving between their twinned towns so we amuse ourselves, getting some food in a cafe then heading up to the castle for some photos. At the castle we bump into a local who looked like he'd just ridden his bike from Timbuktu after several years in prison for a crime he most likely didn't commit. Local nutter type really, very nice man... too nice. He took us for a tour of the castle and explained the political situation – someone had declared themselves King of Hay-on-Wye and now had an MBE for his efforts. We picked up some Hay-on-Wye passports and got them officially stamped at the castle.

Lee heads off to pick up his roof tent and other stuff from home then heading straight to Poole to meet up with us at the ferry terminal. We leave a few hours later and head to the M4 to hit the Severn Bridge.

M 68530 - We stop on the M4 after Bristol to get some food and petrol and to further modify the cars. I sacrifice my spare rear view mirror to act as a wing mirror for Bob and Ger in the Minor as they have little rear visibility. Some gaffer tape later and it's a mirror to be proud of.

M 68602 – It's 9pm and we arrive at the ferry terminal in Poole. I meet up with my co-driver John, who couldn't make the Tipperary launch because of prior engagements, and we await the arrival of our ferry and Lee. We find out the french for scrap yard in preparation of our invasion of Cherbourg. There's no sign of and no word from Lee as we board the boat and head up to the bar.

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(Ger tucks into the diet of champions before we board the boat)

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Tuesday – Day 3 M 68606 (329 miles) Lee made it on to the ferry about 5 mins before they stopped boarding and had joined us in the bar last night. We had a drink then all settled down for some sleep before hitting France. We arrive in Cherbourg at 6.30am and head for the town center to try to find somewhere open for food. Very little is open at that sort of crazy hour but we find somewhere and then head back out of town on to the main roads in the hunt for a hypermarket. I get my first experience of driving on the wrong side of the road, which feels eerily natural... then again the first stretch was a one way system.

M 68611 – We hit the first Auchan we see at 8.05am.

Immediately we set about car park bodging again, firstly fixing Humphrey's (Bob and Ger's car) petrol intake on the carburettor then I buy a tongue for the Micra and fit it with cable ties. We have some early lunch and then Bob and Ger decide there's too much weight on Humph so they buy a trailer and we crack it together in the car park. I head back to the car shop to see if I can pick up a radio gismo for my mp3 player but the lazy French bastards closed up for lunch.

M 68657 – Another stop at somewhere that I thought was Omaha beach, with lots of bunkers and so on – great for photos. Lee jackknifes the trailer in the car park, Bob and Ger are unimpressed.

M 68665 – Omaha beach again? Well this stop was actually a beach so maybe this really was Omaha and the other place was called something else... anyway, we stop for lunch and Ger sniffs a line of pepper for our entertainment. Juicy bacon cheeseburgers were had by all.

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M 68672 – We camp up for the night in a place called Rutland. I went in to the town in Humphrey to pick up beers and we ended up having to drive to Bayeux and just got into a supermarket in time. I decided, after setting up my tent, that I needed a new one. Mine was ok but it had a net top and then another top sheet you had to bugger around tying up afterwards. Far too much hassle in a French camp site, let alone when you've had a hard day driving and you have to contend with being sandblasted. No further mods on the cars, just bed at 10.30pm.

(Long exposure – the camera, not me – while the tents are put up)

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Wednesday – Day 4 M 68678 (401 miles) We're up and off at 11.20am after a late breakfast and slow de-pitching of tents.

M 68765 – We take a mild deviation from our route to see St Michaels Castle on the coast. We weren't allowed to drive right up to it so we swung around in the road, peering at it through the rain, and turned back to have some lunch just down the road.

M 68804 – 5.30pm sees us stop off in Rennes for more supplies sees John get in to Lees car to remind him that he's still got a bloody trailer on after some precarious driving.

M 68834 – A petrol station stop-off sees Lees car pissing its coolant out everywhere. Ger and Bob have a look and decide that he's just overfilled it and this is fine. It's the first near breakdown of the trip, not the best of starts.

M 68932 – Camping up at 9pm, we drove in under some swans migrating which was quite a sight. This area of France is very flat, unlike anything I've seen back in England. This is also the first night we cook for ourselves. Well... me and John cook for everyone else I should say. After food we walk about 3 miles into the nearest town in the hopes of finding a bar. Thankfully a flickering Heinekin sign beckoned us in and drinks were had, otherwise much (more) swearing about the distance may have occurred. We had a nice local rum drink or two and finally got back to camp at around 2am.

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Thursday – Day 5 M 68932 (655 miles) Up at 8.25am I crack on with making a steering wheel cover out of stolen carpet and cable ties. It's pretty funky but not too practical with so many sharp, pointy bits. I decide shortly after that it will need to be remade.

M 68972 – Another petrol stop. We also get some food, an mp3 to tape player converter thing and I find a beautiful sunflower to adorn my empty flowerpot.

M 69027 – Yet another stop off sees me get a lovely new 3 man (my arse) tent for just over 11 Euros and some emergency triangle things which are obligatory on the continent. Bob and Ger are on the hunt for a 16mm drill bit to mount the trailer to Humphrey.

M 69042 – We camp up for the night.

Tensions are raised about the distance covered each day. I gaffer tape the sunflower in to the flowerpot, make a new steering wheel cover and mount my camelpack to the roof lining (this lasts about 40 miles). Bob and Ger start drilling the mounting points for the hitch which takes a considerable amount of time, considering it's a 16mm bolt and they've only got a 10mm bit.

It's my first night with the new tent, which is a delight to put up. 2 poles, 4 pegs and it's there.

Sorted. No messing. We hit the local town around 10pm for dinner, which we realized was a bit on the late side.

There was a fair in town so we played on some of the shooting games. Ger won 2 BB guns and I got a radio. A pub was visited after and tensions were raised again about the trip, but this time about the planning for next year. I left early to get some decent kip, and to not get involved in arguments.

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Friday – Day 6 M 69042 (765 miles) We got up early for a decent day of driving at last, we managed to leave the camp site before 10am!

M 69112 – Stopped for lunch and to tighten some straps. We drove through a lot of sunflower fields and then there was a progressive change in to vinyards. I found a shop that sold white spray paint as picking off the stickers from the doors of the Micra proved to be a pretty futile effort every time. Ger had his first experience of a latrine and was an instant convert.

M 69137 – Yes, that would be another stop. Petrol this time. Micks bike falls over but he's fine. The pannier and jerry can holders they welded on steady the bike and take the weight – good work!

M 69166 – Humphrey has a short in the dash and thick, black clouds of smoke come out of the windows. We pull over and the guys have the wiring bodged by the time we have the warning triangles out. We stop again at M 69170 to have a look through the wiring and see what's what. The guys are content that everything is fine enough to continue.

M 69273 – Camp time again. The Irish guys disappear for ages so myself, Lee and John shower up and decide what we're doing for food. We head through the camp site towards the town and find the others in the bar. We tell them we're off in to get some food and end up in the local town center despite being advised that it was dead. A good meal is had by all and we watch local youths performing some... interesting street spectacles.

Over dinner we decided we couldn't stay at the current pace and things had to pick up... we had to split from the Irish guys. We head back to the campsite, the Irish guys are just preparing to leave and go for drinks somewhere so we have a farewell drink and part on good terms. They want a holiday and think they can do France in a week, Spain in a week and then Africa in a week, getting back in the 6 weeks time frame. We don't think it's possible and while the only one of us with a real deadline to be back for is Lee, we all just want to get cracking and get to Timbuktu. There would be plenty of time for revelry on the way back if they were right about the timing of it. We bid the guys bon voyage and decided to be up at 8 and have a solid day of driving.

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Saturday – Day 7 M 69273 (996 miles) Saturday morning sees us heading off nice and early to conquer the Pyrenees and to dash through Spain in a blur of dodgy cars.

M 69332 – Petrol stop. We crossed the Spanish border about 15 miles ago. This is the first petrol we've found that's been cheaper than the UK! Couldn't believe the price in France. It's not fantastic here but at least we're going in the right direction. The road through the Pyrenees was amazing. Would have been great fun in a half decent car!

M 69388 – Lunch stop. We drive off the main road into a town full of tiny roads, very steep and just wide enough for us to drive down. Nowhere is open, or if it is it looks like they don't want to serve us any food. We pull over on the way out of the town to discuss our options and see Lees coolant pissing out again. On closer inspection he has 3 small holes in the bottom of his radiator and his engine temperature is rocketing. We tried to move on to the next town to see if we could find somewhere or someone to help but didn't quite make it. Lee wasn't happy with the temp shooting off the guage so we pulled over and waited for it to cool down while John walked into the town to see what was about. (I take photos of snails on a tree by the side of the road to amuse myself – the irony isn't lost on me.) It turns out we were only about 300m from a supermarket and petrol station so we pull up and, after not finding any radweld in the garage, use the old egg whites trick. This seems to pretty much block the rad leak but the temperature still just shoots straight up so Lee calls his European-wide breakdown service after a stop for lunch.

The temperature must have been high 30's as we got to 2.30pm. We were very conscious of tomorrow being a Sunday and hense pretty useless for getting anything sorted in Spain. It's 9pm before the mechanic turns up to take us to the garage. For the time we were there and the hassle we went through (GPS coordinates weren't good enough for them to find where we were, along with all the other information we gave them – enough information for a bloody American 16 of 57

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air strike to hit the right target!) we thought this guy would lead us to the far side of Spain but no. We drove about a mile and a half to the other side of the town. How the fuck did it all take so long? Bloody Spaniards.

The taxi from the garage took its time too, and we thought we'd end up being driven around another corner to a hotel. Not this time. This time I had to follow this taxi for about 30k's along a stretch of toll motorway to the most remote hotel in Spain. It was the first time on the road that police ever showed an interest in the car too, but that's probably because I had a tripod in the passenger seat where the camcorder had been mounted... it looked dodgy at best. I think the guy decided it wasn't worth his time and effort asking me about it so he headed off and left us to it.

M 69408 – The hotel. At least it was a pretty decent hotel, for being in the arse end of nowhere and having no facilities the rooms did look nice and they had free internet access. A beautiful shower was had and we headed over to a trucker cafe that was the only place to get grub.

As we finished eating a lightning storm rolled in.

The others headed to bed while I stayed up to capture the moment. I took a load of photos, one or two that I consider among the best I've taken.

While we only covered 130 miles in our half day on the road, the average up to this point had only been 166 per whole day.

I settled in to bed safe in the knowledge that we had at least a whole day of rest coming. It's not the best situation having shot off into the horizon that morning hoping for stonking mileage but we're making lemonade.

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Sunday – Day 8 M 69408 (1,131 miles) There was no rush to get out of bed. We decided to cut it close to the end of breakfast serving time to get the most out of such, relatively, luxurious habitation. Knowing that the F1 was on and there was a TV in a secluded hall watching the British Grand Prix was obligatory. Hamilton won. Over here they keep showing the F1 in the corner while they show adverts, so you don't end up missing anything. Good idea you clever Spanish people, maybe you're not so bad...

After the F1 we fancied some exercise and walked to the nearest town. It was probably 4-5 miles away and it was still bloody hot out. I wouldn't say it was a complete waste of time because it got us away from the hotel for a couple of hours, but walking that distance in the heat to a town that is completely dead – even the bloody churches weren't open – wasn't exactly what we expected.

Oh well, we headed back and by then it was time to eat. The trucker cafe was the only place open for food again so we ate there. John had his grub and went off to bed. I had a few beers with Lee and ended up having an argument about another idea we had been discussing back in England.

Given our previous delays, the fact that Lees car wasn't going to be ready until at least Tuesday and the repeated tension fraying, myself and John opted to crack on and leave at 8 the next morning.

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Monday – Day 9 M 69408 (1,131 miles) Just the two of us, we can make it if we try. And so on. Anyway, we were up at 8 and shot through Spain quicker than you can say “hemorrhagic fever”. I drove for the first 4 hours, covering nearly 200 miles. John then took over and we stormed toward Valentia.

M 69952 – Hotel stop. After a 544 mile day we treated ourselves to a cheap hotel and a pat on the back for proving that such mileage was easily doable in a day.

I'd worked out the trip times based on an average of 200 per day, allowing for crap roads in Africa, and to do nearly triple that in one day was fantastic. I couldn't have done it without the solid driving efforts of my co-driver, good work!

The hotel was a bit of a shit hole (there was a considerable hole in the ceiling outside our rooms). Still, there were beds and showers... we weren't going to be picky. The town we ended up in was disastrous for restaurants but we did find a nice little place with a guy who spoke pretty dire English but who cooked the best steak I'd had in months. Just what we needed.

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Tuesday – Day 10 M 69952 (1,675 miles) There was no breakfast to be had anywhere in Huercal-Overa. The supermarche was closed at 8.40 when we walked to it. No luck finding anything until we stopped on the way.

The main road down the coast of Spain heading south is a rather confusing bit of the trip. We were convinced we were on the A-7, and that we should be on it all the way, but half the time we seemed to end up on the N-340 by some form of Spanish magic. It was all heading the right way but at times the map we had was only suggestive of which roads actually lay before us! Still, aside from the slow going in Marbella and interrupting a local funeral when we stopped for petrol somewhere we still managed just under 300 miles in 5 hours and found ourselves at Algeciras.

M 70243 – Africa. Tickets for the Algeciras Tangier crossing were more expensive than I had anticipated. (Well... actually they were about right but I hadn't found anything online that mentioned having to pay for ourselves as well as the car.) We got on the ferry about 3.30. The reason for choosing the Algeciras - Tangier crossing was because you were meant to be able to get all the paperwork out of the way on the boat and then we imagined that would make things easier when it came to getting off the boat and getting out on the road again. We queued for bloody ages to get 2 stamps in our passports and then again to get the Douanne stamped for the car. I needed to get a member of staff on the boat help me out with the Douanne paperwork because I had no idea what half of the French on the paper meant. Turns out he made a mistake writing stuff out from my V5 which held us up a little on getting off the boat, but considering the hassle it would have been without him I was more than happy to slip him 5 Euros. I wasn't so happy when the border crossing took an hour and a half after getting off the ferry and some hanger-on at the customs wanted my bag of crisps for some alleged help he'd given me. I'm only bitter because it was the first pack of crisps I'd found in continental Europe that proclaimed any sort of specific flavour and it was destined to be my dinner. Thieving bastards.

Just when you think you're clear to go... we got out of customs and had to stop to get insurance. This was a little more costly than I'd expected, but then I thought the Douanne paperwork was a standard 65 Euros at every border - win some, lose some. Once insurance was purchased we were free to shoot off into Tangier.

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What a contrast... and how quickly I got used to driving there! I loved it. The aim in these African cities is to get where you're going, preferably in front of anyone or anything you might be sharing the road with. You worry about what you're going to run over or run in to and just hope the person behind you does the same. Seems to work anyway!

We missed the motorway out and ended up going a very convoluted way through mostly side streets, just heading down the most “main looking� road and keeping the coast to our right. We found a camp site as light was fading and 10 Euro secured us a spot. For what it was worth. We might as well have been trying to drive our tent pegs into the bloody road!

(Co-driver John and the car after the tents were "pegged in") We weren't sure if we had to head to Rabat or Cassablanca for Mauritanian and Malian visas as we had heard conflicting reports, but that was the direction to head. At least 2 days doing nothing lay ahead of us while we would have to wait for the paperwork.

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Wednesday – Day 11 M 70258 (1,981 miles) M 70306 – Food stop. Had some lovely local bread stuff that was quite sugary and also my first taste of the beautiful glow-in-the-dark Fanta they serve on the African continent. You can almost see the evil in it.

M 70423 – We're in Rabat and found the Mauritanian embassy after a trip to the city center, where we expected the Embassies to be. There were riots going on in Rabat while we were there, something about students apparently. Plenty of police were hanging around on every street corner (every 3 rd person in Morocco has some sort of police or military uniform on) but none of the ones we spoke to could even point to our current location on the map let alone where we wanted to get to! We bought a map with street index from a local book vendor and found our way out of town and to the embassy via a rather scenic route... but we got there in the end!

While waiting for the embassy to open we met the first Africa Rally team, as they were hunting for the same embassy, Team “Back in time for tea and medals” or Bob and Ben as I will most likely refer to them. (Or the Suzi guys - they were in a D reg Suzuki SJ410.) Not long after these guys had turned up (we were the first English people they'd met on the way) Team Spidermicra joined us in a Mk 2 Micra driven by Kiran and Jim. (All three cars below) Ben and Bob had found a campsite outside the city the night before and suggested we all went back there for the night with our visa application forms as we couldn't hand them in until the following morning. The guys lead us out of town to this campsite they found.

Which wasn't actually a campsite at all, just a bit of forest.

We're not averse to pitching up and avoiding the cost of a real campsite and the place looks kosher enough. It's far enough away from the road that you can only just make out traffic going past. After scoping the place out we all go back in to Rabat to get passport photos taken at the supermarket on the way in.

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We imagined that visa forms and the application process would be hassle. We had no idea how hard it would be to just get our bloody photos taken. The guy who manned the photo part of the supermarket had disappeared for about 20 minutes when we got to the desk. When he arrived he took our photos pretty promptly but then it was easily another 40 minutes before they were ready.

I'd left John to look after that while I got our shopping (and bought a cheap camp bed and a camping stool that was soon to become my porta-shitter) and went out to pack the shopping into the car only to be told, when he finally came out, that the guy at the kiosk had buggered my photos up somehow and I had to go back in. I laughed it off at first thinking it could only be a joke that something would take so long and bugger up but unfortunately it wasn't a joke. The guy was a bit quicker for me... must have been working overtime, considering our experience of the average pace of an African, to get it done... which was decent of him.

When I came out someone, I forget who, had started eating an orange only to find it full of little breakdancing maggots that would bend double then ping off a few centimeters. Put me right off eating the fruit!

Well, I say that but I bought a very peculiar shaped fruit that just had to be investigated. It's insides had the consistency of jelly with sunflower seeds in it and not a lot of taste. The exterior was like the end of a mace... very exotic... probably flown in from somewhere in the UK! Thinking back to it... I hope it was a fruit! After all the excitement we head back to camp up and chill for the evening.

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Thursday – Day 12 M 70436 (2,159 miles) We're all up early to bodge our visa application forms. There are some fields we just have no idea about or that look like they're too complicated to answer properly so answers were often doctored, though never beyond the realms of the truths contained within our passports which they would possess for 24 hours.

Didn't make sense to deny countries they could obviously see we've been to but when you have to think of everywhere you've been in the last 10 years it's a bit of a struggle sometimes.

Anyway, we set off at 10 to get down to the Mauritanian embassy and get our applications in. When we got to the embassy we found two other Africa Rally teams already there and filling out the visa forms. One of the team members I had vaguely known from my Africa Rally days, Anthony Beatty, who was driving for Team Deathwish in a lovely old Beatle (of Baja Rally pedigree, no less) with Kevin. The other team we met were Steve and Tom in a blue Vauxhaul Nova. No idea what their team name actually was though, sorry guys!

While we're filling in forms and generally faffing around another team turn up but without a car – they parked somewhere they knew and got a taxi. They'd applied for their Malian visas the day before and were just sorting out the paperwork for Mauritania so they would be ready to leave the next day.

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That was Team Black Sheep, consisting of Jo and Johnny. Lovely people and good choice of drink! While we were all chatting outside the embassy I reattached the sunflower to my flowerpot with cable ties because gaffer tape didn't hold up too well to the immense speeds achieved by the powerful rallyMicra.

The surgical reattachment went well and we then popped over to the Malian embassy but worked out that because of the timing we wouldn't even be able to hand our application forms in until Monday. We wouldn't get our passports back from the Mauritanian embassy until Friday afternoon, then the Mali embassy was closed Saturday and Sunday. There's no way we're waiting around till Tuesday for the Mali visas, we decide to just get them in Nouakchott (capital of Mauritania) as that's what most of the other teams will be doing.

After all this deliberation we drove back to the campsite with all 5 cars, and told the Black Sheep team roughly where we were pitched so they could find us later when they'd got back to their car. A short stop back at camp saw us all leaving to go back in to town again. Bob and Ben wanted new tyres for the SJ and we figured we'd go with the rest of the guys to the supermarket to get more supplies. We got enough tins of fruit and tuna and enough chewy sweets to last through a global nuclear holocaust!

On the way back we nearly got run off the road by a 306. I was driving and was expecting the maneuver so did what any Moroccan would do and just leaned on my horn till the problem went away - got to admire their style. On our return agreed it was a good chance to shakedown the car and had a bit of a rearrangement. I said the boot was fine but the back seat needed work, John went ahead and rearranged the boot anyway. Then when he'd packed it all back in he agreed that the boot had been fine.I decided it was the perfect opportunity to get rid of the CB radio as there was no way we were going to bother with it for the rest of the trip and I didn't want to be carting around something that is illegal in some African countries.

I jammed it into some low branches of a tree. Maybe a goat will end up eating it... there was one in a tree yesterday.

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I then cracked into my beers and settled down with Tom and Steve to play shithead while John had a bit of a kip on his new camp bed. I managed to get myself sunburnt – the first time on the trip. We cooked dinner while light was still good and slowly all the teams came back until all 6 cars were there and we had a jolly gathering. I had cut and used my porta-shitter by this point but it still functioned well as a stool, as long as I payed careful attention to my consistency and any prevailing side-winds. I was determined to use my hammock at least once on the trip so I gave it a go here where there were plenty of trees. After setting it up about 4 times I finally got it the right height and felt a wave of satisfaction, pride and delight at being able to sleep out under the stars.

These feelings lasted all of about an hour when it came to actually sleeping in it.

Constantly shifting shapes in the dark had me on edge from the off and I eventually relented and just got into the car. I had a few comfy positions in the car that would always be interrupted by the loss of feeling in a limb or two.

Eventually I decided the handbrake was the main menace and released it, figuring the ground we were on was flat enough anyway. I'd just got my head back down and felt a strange sensation. Looking up I see the world moving in a way that would be only too familiar if I was drunk, but for once I wasn't. I hear a horrible crunching noise and jam the handbrake back on. I glance out through the back window to see if I've run over John, which I appear to have avoided, and go back to sleep.

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Friday – Day 13 M 70472 (2,195 miles) On getting up I realize that the car had actually moved back about 18 inches and crushed an empty water bottle. Ben had been in the roof tent on their Suzi but had also had the idea of getting into their car. He'd woken up and seen the car move and heard the noise but had thought it was some sort of strange dream.

John was just thankful I hadn't run him over in his sleep. Seeing Ben in the car reassured me about chickening out from the hammock.

We all pack our stuff and head to the embassy for a leisurely midday to be ready for the collection time of 12.30 that we had been told.

M 70489 – It's 1.30pm and we finally got the visas back and are heading south after filling up with petrol. The Nova team, Steve and Tom, are following us out.

Good luck to them!

M 70549 – Food time. Steve and Tom had been behind us driving through Cassablanca but at this point pulled up next to us and pointed out the McDonalds ahead and gestured to stop at it. We laughed it off at first but they did actually stop at it. I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity of someone else cooking food that could be trusted. I had a Chicken Mystic and a Daim McFlurry which was very nice, and I'd never had a McFlurry before – it's all about the new experiences!

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John was driving until this point and I took over. We hadn't gone a mile before the Nova guys shot through a light just turning red and we ploughed through after. A whistle and a gesture later and we were having a telling off from the local police. We weren't having too much luck communicating with him and John had been texting so had no idea what was going on, which certainly helped us out. A bit of the old “stupid English” always does the trick. He was telling me something along the lines of the fine usually being 500 Dirhams. Unfortunately I had 500 Dirhams but didn't really want to lose that much to an overeager policeman with no proof of fine. I held up a clump of cash for him and he took 100, worth just over 7 quid. Fine by me. He kept doing a coffee drinking gesture and raising his eyebrows at us while saying “cafe”. I have no idea what he was on about but a smile and a nod seemed to be what he was after and he told us to be on our way. Gladly!

M 70705 – A 230 odd mile half day travelling saw us camp up in a town called Safi. A lovely, picturesque little town full of character with nice roads and a cool and constant breeze. The campsite we found wasn't fantastic for pitching a tent in again but a bit of persuasion got the pegs in. That constant Atlantic breeze wasn't so useful when trying to pitch up for the night! Great progress for the day though, considering half of it had been wasted waiting for the visa. 5 of the 6 cars from the embassy made it to the same camp site which was nice. Peacocks roamed the place, as did the customary mangy dog or two. Sleep occurred around 11pm.

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Saturday – Day 14 M 70705 (2,428 miles) I was woken several times by prayers, birds and the wind and eventually got up at 7.20am. The warm shower was unlocked so I monopolized and treated John to a day of clean Dave. After seeing the state of my toes/feet I felt it only fair for the treat to include myself. We pack up and all head out in various groups.

M 70845? - I didn't get an exact mile marker for this lunch but we started our ascent of the Anti-Atlas Mountains with Team Black Sheep in tow. We stopped in a small town and as the other team hadn't been treated to the local food yet we just had to have Tagine. Not great for vegetarian Jo, but an experience that had to be had nonetheless.

While we're lunching we see the Nova guys and the Beatle go past but they don't see us. Over lunch they tell us about a campsite in Guelmim which allegedly has a zoo on the premises so that's our target for the evening.

M 71003 – A petrol stop. Well... it would have been but the first petrol station had run out. The second one, and only other in the town, thankfully had a supply otherwise we might have been buggered. We start to realize the way things are heading.

M 71017 – We camped just off the main road short of Guelmim. There wasn't any zoo but that's probably a good thing. The camp site had little hut type things for the tents to be pitched in because the ground was too hard for tent pegs... makes sense? John pitched his tent but I couldn't be bothered so I just made my camp bed up and slept on it in a sleeping bag under the stars. Several bets were made as to how long I would last this time.

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On arrival at the campsite I noticed something that still shocks me to this day.

Once there had been a beautiful adornment to the car, but no more... some evil little motherbastard had pulled off the poor, innocent sunflower from its elevated perch. We can only imagine this happened when we stopped for lunch. It was obvious it hadn't blown off in the wind. Someone now possesses it in Morocco, and they'd better hope I never learn of their name. It was a time of grieving and sleeping, after taking a few photos of the night sky.

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Sunday – Day 15 M 71017 (2,740 miles) I spent all night on the camp bed. Much to my own surprise, let alone anyone else's. I hadn't felt tired but that was becoming a recurrent theme of the trip.

Waking up to the overcast morning from the comfort of my al fresco boudoir wasn't exactly the most picturesque of awakenings but it was a memorable one anyway. Mostly because overcast meant we weren't going to roast our chestnuts off all day. It was the donkey braying and the subsequent cacophony that woke me up and kept me awake. The beauty of just sleeping on the camp bed meant that I was ready to go in minutes. A few of the teams were itching to go but we all seemed to leave at about the same time. We needed to get petrol from the first place open and selling in Guelmim because otherwise we'd be stuck. There was a lot of deliberation as to whether a petrol station would even be open here on a Sunday but it seems that they're not quite as lazy as the Spanish and they can get their shit in gear of a weekend - we managed to fill up at the first petrol station we found.

M 71161 – We just stopped for food. I drove the first 140 miles today but I'm not in the driving mood. I'm in a bad mood generally. I don't know why. I slept as well as I ever do. Maybe it's the weather. Maybe it's because I'm not wearing socks anymore. Maybe it's because I had a shave yesterday and have lost my adventuring super powers. I don't know.

We're going to have to talk about our route through Mali at some point because our intended course is starting to concern me. I can't really pin-point why but it does.

Today has remained gloomy. We got mildly lost on the way through Guelmim.

Then got petrol, then saw one of the American teams on the Africa Rally get stopped so we waited to see if they were ok.

Then I got stopped for speeding. 102Kph in an 80 limit. They're great for having signs indicating when you get into a new speed limit here but nothing to say when you can speed up again. No excuse, just an observation. The policeman said the fine was 400 Dirhams, not to be sniffed at. Trouble was we had about 80 in notes and maybe enough to make that 100 in change.

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We persisted in telling them that was all we had and even asked if they'd take the fine in Euros but eventually the policeman begrudgingly let us go, complaining about bloody tourists all the while. We took our leave rapidly, but not too rapidly! Sneaky bastards, why did they have to have radar technology?!

That'll be the French. Haven't blamed them for anything in a while. I didn't feel good about getting away with it. I'd have happily paid the fine if I'd had the money. It was a hollow victory.

Half of me just wants to go home from the nearest airport at the moment. It's been 2 weeks since the launch out of an expected 6 weeks and having left the Thursday before it's a fair time to be away. Maybe I'm mildly homesick. It's not like me but then this isn't the usual trip. Maybe I'm fed up of Morocco. It's all adding up to a shit day, but it's the first day to get to me.

I've seen a lot of old Land Rover Defenders here, which doesn't bode well for us!

Oh well, onward and Southward! I was going to write about getting stopped at a camel crossing and the increasing prevalence of dunes but I can't be bothered.

(Have a picture of a camel instead?)

281 miles covered so far and we've just gone over the Western Sahara border while I was asleep. We're in a place called Laayoune and have seen 4 UN vehicles. Nice. Laayoune is just a military town. It's clear that Western Sahara is occupied and has had recent troubles.

M 71299 – I'm back behind the wheel and I'm feeling better for a bit of sleep.

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M 71515 – I've now driven 2904 miles since Tipperary. An average of over 190 miles per day. Which means I'm back on track for a late August finish if all goes well. However, all is not going well at the moment. We drove on from Boujdour for an hour and a half and were meant to hit another town where we could camp. That town was seemingly 2 petrol stations. No camp sites at all. Not much of bloody anything, other than sand and wind. I'd almost bet money that we drive on tomorrow and 2 miles down the road find a bustling metropolis! Don't think it's likely though.

We pulled over and scoped an area to see if we could find shelter from the wind away from the road. Found somewhere that would have done but my over adventurous driving saw us beached on what looked like a little stone from the road but by the time we were on it it was of much greater significance than just a stone - a boulder more like! We dug the car out, big thanks to John there, and moved on to somewhere down the road that wasn't sheltered at all but is well off the road.

It's cold and fucking windy out so we're sleeping in the car. Had a meal of pasta, ragu and soya stuff which was actually quite nice. Light is fading fast as it does here and we're set for a shit night sleep in the car if it doesn't get blown away!

All this while you're sat at home watching Top Gear.

Bastards. The wind was so bad here I managed to piss with the wind and still feel some blown on my face. Lovely isn't it? No idea how that works in the world of physics but I wasn't best pleased about the incident.

(Left, sandblasted engine bay and carburettor modifications)

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Monday – Day 16 M 71515 (3,238 miles) After a shit nights sleep in the driver side of my car with cold legs, persistently numb limbs and little in the way of what could be considered sleep, I still feel better for having yesterday over. About 2 miles down the road from where we'd set up camp we passed a lorry that had overturned. They're all stacked pretty high out here so at first we thought it might have been the wind, but on closer inspection it looked more likely that they'd fallen asleep at the wheel. At this point I was very happy that John had insisted on being so far from the road!

There were people bustling around the scene with phones already and we didn't think we'd be much use so headed on.

The first few petrol stations weren't interested in our money or in the fact that someone was injured on the road behind us so we ploughed on towards the turning for Dakhlar.

M 71683 – We stopped to have some food at the side of the road. Tinned fruit from Rabat, a veritable feast. We decided that so far on the trip we'd never stopped to just appreciate our surroundings so we gave ourselves a break and had a bit of a wander around. It was a pretty desolate area, as most of Western Sahara is, so possibly not the best for any real entertainment but it was nice to just have the concept of a real break. We kept saying to ourselves we could see all this on the way back so didn't have to worry about it on the way down but after a 500 mile day yesterday and crap sleep we bloody deserve it!

Oh, this morning it was still foggy and cold and I found that something on the car has broken... the heater! No bloody hot air at all, though I'm not really surprised given how sandblasted the engine bay looked yesterday! Still, it's not the sort of thing you expect to break... or the sort of thing you'd expect to need in somewhere called Western Sahara but there we go.

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M 71817 – I was happily asleep when we caught up with the Suzi guys, Bob and Ben, and Team “Argh! I'm on fire!” who we hadn't met before. They were taking photos on the side of the road and we joined up with them to hit the Moroccan border.

M 71818 – The Moroccan border. It took us over 2 hours, from 1.30 till about 3.40, just to get our passports stamped out of the country. There was a group of Belgians heading down to Benin or somewhere much further south. We had a good chat with them while waiting and were advised that about 2 hours was the standard waiting time. We all surmised that there was a stack of passports and a red line in the office and when the stack of passports reached that red line they finally started doing some work. On receiving our passports we leaped into our rally vehicles and drove on to the next check point, only to be told that we hadn't got our Douannes sorted. Great. We start driving back to park up and go to the office but the guy at the check point decides to just do the paperwork there. I think this is the first time they check the chassis number against the V5 and the Douanne paperwork.

It's not something I'd thought to check before so I was a little worried that I might have a hot Micra. Everything was fine though. The biggest problem was with the Irish guys from Team “Argh! I'm on fire” because their Irish equivalent of the V5 only had the last 8 or so digits of the chassis number rather than the whole lot. It didn't cause too much of a problem, when we finally realized what the problem was, but another little hold-up nonetheless. So, we had our Douannes sorted... what more could they possibly want of us? Well another 10 meters down the road was another check point, some guy copying out vehicle details and passport information. For what, I don't know. Didn't look like fun, but these Moroccans... Anyway, at last we were on our way, out in to no mans land.

No mans land is reportedly a minefield, and to add to the consternation there are also local groups of bandits that make false roads, leading to dens where they rob you of everything then leave you on a border (hopefully of your choice) with not much more than a passport. So we figured it would be best to pay for a guide. Thankfully the guide we found started with a price of 20 Euro for all 3 cars so there wasn't a lot to think about there. Given how well traveled the no mans land was between the borders I wasn't that concerned about mines. There were a lot of completely stripped cars dotted around. Whether this was to remind us that there were mines about or whether it was just for touristic affect (I suspect the latter) I don't know but the guide had a merry time snaking us through all these sights through what could be considered a Jeep's playground.

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There was no road and only a vaguely obvious path but every now and then even that vaguely obvious path disappeared. A lot of the way was like a sea of concrete that had set mid-wave. The rest was everything between soft sand and small boulders. I was driving so I couldn't take photos but John said he was glad I was driving because he wouldn't want to be at the wheel of such punishment to the car. The Irish guys hit their exhaust a couple of times - I managed to avoid that thankfully. 3 and a half miles later we were pulling in to Mauritania.

Everything on the Mauritanian border was a lot cheaper than I expected. Both the Douanne and insurance were 10 Euros each, though the insurance was in local Oogadyboogady (Ouguiya) which were roughly 330 to a Euro. On arrival we were subject to our first official corruption with the border guards rifling through our things looking for “petit cadeaux”. In spite of the blatant theft there was a much more laid back air to the Mauritanian officials. We were allowed to come in to the office while they did paperwork and chill on their bed, sipping the local mint tea. I already preferred it to Morocco and Western Sahara. We got completely sand blasted at the border and I started to feel like I was getting sun burn till I realized it was just the sand.

We followed a guide in to Nouadhibou to a place they suggested had Dakar rally pedigree. They weren't completely wrong. There were lots of photos up on the pin board of previous overlander cars that had stayed there and also plenty of good feedback in their guest book. We chatted to one of the staff there about the assault on Timbuktu and he recommended going from the south, a conclusion we had pretty much come to anyway. He suggested that Mopti would be about as far as we should go and get a boat from there... Mopti was still a considerable distance away from Timbuktu to be considering a ferry or car ferry.

Still, we weren't going to needlessly risk our lives on the arse end of the Mauritanian border anymore... which was nice.

The drive in to Nouadhibou was something else. Tangiers, after Europe, was to be expected but here... The guys in Team “I'm on fire” hit a cat on the way in. Goats wandered over the main road, a stretch of dual carriage-way. Donkeys and carts were sometimes going down the same bit of dual carriage-way. Most of them in the same direction but sometimes in the opposite direction!

It's madness and I can't see how it can get much madder but I'm sure it will!

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Our hosts take us out to find somewhere to eat. We pass some small market stalls selling various pieces of animal and start to wonder what local quisine we are going to be treated to. We're led up to a restaurant and once inside realise that it's a Chinese restaurant which serves Chinese Budweiser... not exactly what we were expecting!

I had already started considering this as a one way trip for the car. It was a bit of a bugger because as soon as we got our Mali visas we would have all the visas we need for a there and back trip but given the border we just crossed and the fact that we would be doing it on our own on the way back we were definitely starting to reconsider. It's mainly the hassle of the Douannes and insurance and borders and check points. Petrol was vastly more expensive than we had anticipated out here and certain parts of the budget were already getting stretched. I can't imagine not driving home at the moment and I don't really want to imagine it, but the thought is there nonetheless.

I started my Malerone today so I'll tell you if I've grown another limb tomorrow.

Oh, I lost my pen somewhere too today. The car is an absolute tip so it'll need cleaning out at some point... when we get away from this unrelenting wind!

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Tuesday – Day 17 M 71857 (3,580 miles) Totally shit sleep last night. I had lots of dreams and lost my pillow. When I woke up I found it half way across the room. It's always a measure of how badly I sleep – how much of a mess I make. Good news is that I found my pen though!

The plan is to have breakfast and drive to Nouakchott with the other teams. We decided it would be best to just stay in convoy for the whole country.

The timezone is different here again here so my phone is now an hour fast, having been an hour slow and on time before. Not that there really is such thing as time here. By any sort of time measurement we were always going to be fast in this conteinent!

In some ways I'm feeling the end is in sight now. Just need to get our Mali visas which should be doable by tomorrow of the day after. We don't have enough money to get through the country at the moment but that's all based on us changing what we had left over.

On Thursday I'll be starting my fourth week away from home. That should mean we're half way and while we're not there yet I feel like 6 weeks is still very achievable. We'll have everything set for the way back. We'll save at least 3 days waiting for visas and probably 5-6 days in France and Spain. If we'd managed that sort of pace on the way down we would only be on day 9 or 10, not 17.

M 71991 – Stopped to eat some tinned pineapple and do a driver swap. I'm fucking nackered.

M 72096 – Team “I'm on fire” break down with some sort of gear linkage problem but it's fixed with cable ties.

M 72101 – We get stopped at a police checkpoint who have a quick chat with Ben and Bob in front and then come to our window saying something about trieze mil. Now we were expecting some level of corruption and all but 13,000 Ouguiya is about 40 Euros. Not a demand to be ignored. The guy then kept doing a key gesture and things got a bit more worrying. In the end he walked off and gestured for us to follow. I jumped out and left John in the car.

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We walked over towards the checkpoint guards car to discover that what he was after was a 13mm spanner because his Toyota Hilux (Top Gear thought they were indestructible) had broken down. I lent them mine, half expecting never to see it again, but they fixed their problem, gave the spanner back and waved us through.

We hit Nouakchott at around 6pm and pulled over just before the city to discuss where we wanted to sleep. We hadn't been stopped more than 2 minutes when a Toyota Land Cruiser going the other way careers off towards us, over/through the mud and dirt central reservation and stops on our side of the road. A lovely, young woman winds down her window (we notice then that the car is full of lovely, young women) and asks us if we're looking for a campsite. We are but they're off to one 150k's away and we sadly decline. A few minutes later an older and not so lovely man is driving the whole way along our side of the road (not the side he should have been driving on) towards us and offers us somewhere to rest our heads for 2,000 Ouguiya for the night. We figured we couldn't go wrong for that price and accept. The guy leads us back to an Auberge with some very clean tiles and a good stock of cold Coke.

After a dinner of chicken and chips we sit around drinking the last few beers the Irish guys had with them from Prague only to realise they're pretty much nonalcoholic. I feel poisoned - there's about 0.4% in each can. My spidey sense should have been tingling from the off but I thought it was just that they tasted crap.

While we're drinking we have the first rain we've experienced on the African continent. Not much more than spitting but we stand out in it, much to the bemusement of our host. He explains to us that usually the temperature is around the low 40's but the last few days had seen some alarmingly changeable weather. I hit the sack early, having had bugger all sleep the night before, only to discover that our air con has the throughput of a one-lunged asthmatic.

Great. Another night sweating our bollocks off ensues.

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Wednesday – Day 18 M 72159 (3,882 miles) Bob wakes up next to a pile of what we can only imagine is rodent droppings, which is nice. I've been admiring my insect bites and watching my sunburn from Rabat remove the skin from my shoulders. There seems to be some sort of cockroach thing in the kitchen here. At least we've done all our eating!

It doesn't really bother me but it's interesting to start seeing more insects and wildlife as we head South. I figure I'll have to start cracking out the DEET. Today we're getting our Mali visas. Our host says we should be able to apply in the morning and get them in the afternoon which is fantastic. Our host also says there's only one cash machine in the city and that it only accepts Visa cards so we'll have to make a stop off there.

M 72160 – Got our Mali visas. Same day service for 20 Euros, bargain! It lessens the injury of having my towel stolen in the Auberge and the insult of the people denying it.

Outside the embassy we see some other Africa Rally teams. One of them was a team with 2 cars until the day before when some local had driven, full pelt, in to the back of their SJ. SJ's are essentially made out of spit and newspaper so they're lucky to get out without any injuries. Africa seems to be at the pinnacle for not taking responsibility for their own actions. As soon as these bastards had driven into this team they jump out and start insisting the team pays for the damages. The team sensibly decided to just take all their important stuff out of the car and throw the keys at the guy.

Still, it meant they were flying home from Mauritania, vastly short of their end target and without a car and probably some whiplash. Shit luck for some. They also told us of an American team who had double-booked a guide for crossing no mans land (or something along those lines) at the Mauritanian border and the one they'd booked first went mad and attacked their car, smashing the windscreen and a side window. What an absolute tosser. I was very glad I hadn't been there, that team had also been expected to pay the guide off for the damage he'd done to the car. By that logic if I'd borrowed a border guards gun and shot his knees out then I should get paid for it. Sounds like a bargain to me!

This is one fucked up continent.

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We bid the other team good luck in getting home and head off. On the way out of the city we see 2 donkeys and carts. Both carts had cars on them. Presumably there were no engines in them, just the chassis, but still... insane! We don't get particularly far. We took the wrong road out of town. It's not quite as simple as driving from London and heading towards Wales instead of Oxford with plenty of options to just cut between the roads or go other ways. Out here the road we were on first heads North East into the Sahara and stops. There are no roads away from this one that join up with others. If you start heading the wrong way you might be going a long, long way before you even realise it out here. On turning around Ben and Bob spot another SJ and decide to see if they can get some spare parts from it. They think there's something wrong with the prop shaft so start some heavy negotiations. It's not as hot as it has been on the trip here, but it's still bloody hot. The bartering and then fitting of the universal joint takes bloody ages.

M 72296 – I actually took a lot of photos on the way today which meant I lost my hat at one point. I've had this hat for over 10 years, it used to be black and long ago turned brown. It's been in the Med on the shore of Malta. It's been chewed by a dog. It's seen better days basically. And now I go and get it run over by 2 cars in Mauritania. If hats could talk... well, that would be pretty worrying and I think it'd be time to end the trip, no pun intended! Losing the hat meant running. I'd hardly been off my arse for 3 weeks (and, to be honest, several years before that) so I was fully expecting a swift death from leaping from the car and running the 100 meters to the hat and back. It wasn't so bad actually, as I'm certainly still alive, but running in Mauritania is not something I would advise.

We camped up for the night and we got stuck in the sand trying to get far enough away from the road. The Bob and Ben pulled the Irish guys out with the Suzi and then I got to use my hand winch off the back of their car to get us out having buried 3 strips of carpet and the front half of the car with my own efforts. Carpet for sand ladders my arse, who had that stupid idea?! Eventually we get out of the rough stuff and camp up, with light failing as we start cooking.

It didn't take long for us to appreciate that trying to cook with the light failing was a bad idea. We all had torches and these sources of light attracted a rain of insects. It literally sounded like rain on the cars and the tents.

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I'm not a huge fan of eating insects and despite us trying to eat in the car I couldn't manage more than a few mouthfuls because every time I turned the torch on for a second to see if the food was clear and remove any offending insects another one would dive in. While we were preparing the food I was happily minding my own business outside my tent when out ran the ugliest beast I've ever seen.

It scuttled straight out from next to my tent, grabbed an insect and headed straight for me. At first I thought it was a spider but it didn't seem to move quite like one, and it looked like it had 6 legs and 2 pincers and it was about the size and girth of your average tarantula - not that I took the time to study it as it ran straight at me! I shouted (or perhaps screamed more accurately) "Scorpion!"

Running away seemed like a pretty good idea right then but the thing started following me around my tent. I noticed that it didn't have a sting for a tail like you would expect but my fear and desire to run away overrode my curiosity at that particular point. One of the "Argh! I'm on fire!" team stamped on it but as soon as they took their foot off it was straight after me again. I shot up the bonnet of my car and sat on the jerry cans while the ugly beast ran underneath.

Apparently this abominable creation is called a Camel Spider and is renowned for being fast, jumping a lot and being about as pleasant to gaze upon as Medusa. I can't vouch for the jumping but the rest is pretty accurate!

Once I got into my tent everything was fine. Until the wind started blowing and all my tent pegs came out. Being the sole tent peg personified, having left all heavy bags and things inside the car, was far from fun and not conducive of a good nights sleep!

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Thursday – Day 19 M 72296 (4,019 miles) Morning saw us breaking camp and having a competition to see who had the most dung beetles hidden under their tent. I had a fair few but it was a tie between Bob and John in the end. Ben had decided to sleep in the car after hearing of the camel spider incident. Can't blame him really!

M 72330 – Driving past lake Aleg the Suzi guys said we should go and investigate. It wasn't really worth investigating when we got there, just a lot of cattle by the water side. The drive to the lake, however, was ace. The first quarter of a mile was like driving through a golf course. Nice short, green grass with scattered trees. Then the trees thickened and much more swerving had to be done. Finally the solid ground gave way to the well trodden and thankfully dry marsh land around the lake. On investigation some of the holes in the marsh land were significantly deep – up to about a foot down – not the sort of terrain you want to walk around on for long if you like your ankles. All told the drive totally battered the car both ways, great fun! (On coming home my co-driver did some research into the various areas we had been - turns out some people had been kidnapped from around lake Aleg not long before our trip.)

M 72404 – Petrol stop. Instead of finding a petrol station we all just used a 20l jerry can each here. While we were stopped I took advantage and answered natures call. I'm not sure if it's the excessive quantities of African Fanta I've been drinking or whether my kidneys just hate me but I've got some pretty orange piss going on. In fact I hadn't had a clear one since Rabat. Thankfully the other guys were saying much the same, in spite of drinking 4-6 liters of water a day.

Really didn't want to be having a UTI out here! I feel fine anyway so I'm not worried. I managed to disturb a lizard with my passage. It was a bit disappointing really, it just looked like a common lizard back home. Nothing like the exoticness of the Chameleon we'd seen at the campsite in Rabat (which I 43 of 57

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probably forgot to mention before). Still, after the camel spider incident I'm quite happy to see tame and boring creatures for a while.

Ben and Bob spot a burnt out car ahead and want to get some photos. Ben hops in the SJ and promptly reverses straight into the Irish guys car.

To this day I don't think any of us will know quite why he felt like reversing but no damage was done. He decided to walk over to the burnt out car after that (one of an increasing number).

Inner Mauritania seems a lot greener, wetter and more inhabited than I ever could have imagined.

I guess we may be skirting the top of the tropics belt here but a map in the Mali embassy showed the tropics not really starting till below the border.

Will have to have a look at google maps when I can!

Since leaving the capital we've driven past a lot of dead animals. We did wonder why locals didn't bury, move or eat the animals. Retrospectively we guessed the reason they don't eat the animals is because they weren't killed in the correct manor for Halal meat. I'm not sure if religion prevented them from moving the bodies. Either way, there's nothing quite like the smell of a large animal decomposing in that heat. It's something you could almost chew. Walls of smell often assaulted us, sometimes we couldn't even see the dead body but we could definitely smell it. Given the fact that John can't smell much and I'd only managed to offend myself with my own smell twice on the trip it should give some measure of the pungency of these rotting beasts. There were all sorts – camels, cows, goats – I'm half surprised we didn't see any people run over.

Mostly there were just a few every 10 miles or so but we drove out of one town, unfortunately I can't remember which one, and in about 100 meters of road we counted somewhere between 25 and 30 bodies. That was just what we could see. It was as if a lorry had driven through a herd at night. The smell was unbelievable.

M 72590 – We've camped up in a lovely scenic place. Just enough light to cook and set up tents (and hopefully not attract any more Camel Spiders!) Now I'm in the tent as light has failed.

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Bats have been circling overhead since dusk. A lovely meal of carrot and coriander soup followed by baked beans was consumed. We have 2 jerrys of fuel, loads of local cash and another day and a half (probably) in Mauritania.

Good night!

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Friday - Day 20 M 72590 (4,313 miles) I forgot to mention that last night was the first time I didn't have signal anywhere near where we camped. Western Sahara had bad patches but I could still get signal if I walked around. Here I have nothing. It's strange how the remote areas of Western Sahara have signal but not this relatively inhabited area of Mauritania.

We were up nice and early to start packing away. I was first to get my tent off the ground and found a lovely little scorpion had also made a home there. I wasn't sure how I'd react seeing one in the flesh but it was all fine, not at all like a spider. John picked up his tent and, as is his style, found a much bigger scorpion under his tent. Big enough for a photo with my wide angle lens. Not that I was hugely keen to get too close!

M 72697 – We stop at a guard post and the bastards make me write out everyone's passport information because they can't be bothered to do it themselves. They were thankful for it but still...

When I finally got out I discovered that Bob and Ben's engine coolant overflow bottle had been shaken out completely by a hairy bit of road earlier that day. The road was a diversion around the usual main road out because there seemed to be a giant lake in the town. We were shaken to pieces. We might as well have been wearing roller skates on a cobbled street.

It was worse than our detour to Lake Aleg.

(Above, heavily laden local car)

M 72709 – Ben and Bob grind to a halt. Their car had been juddering under power and would cut out at full throttle. It had been getting steadily worse for the last day and they were concerned that it might be curtains.

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We put some carb cleaning stuff in and put some revs through it but a few miles later we're stopped again. We suggest dumping the fuel and changing the filter.

On removal of the old filter we see a very black substance dripping out. We've all been filling up from the same petrol stations so that was mildly worrying. I think they'd been running the tank lower than most of us though and it was most likely just years of shit that had already accumulated in there. After draining the tank and chucking a new fuel filter on it was good as new. We were all glad because the guys had been talking as if that was it and it would have been horrible to see an end to their adventure at the side of a road in Mauritania.

While Bob was working on the SJ a guy pulled up next to us in an old Mercedes to ask if we needed help. We said we were fine and he started to pull off but then stopped. He then came and asked us for help. We pushed the car, expecting him to be in the car and dip the clutch but he left it in gear, got out and pushed it with us. We were all a bit baffled and then he looked at us to help get him started. One of the Irish team jumped in and we had it bump started within 5 meters. As we were walking away it sounded like it had cut out again but by then another car was on scene to help them out. It's far too hot in the afternoons there to be pushing cars around. It was a bit shocking to see the locals so inept at sorting their cars out. These old Mercs tend to go on past global destruction but every now and then... oh well we got them going.

M 72754 – We're at another police check not far from the Mali border. Bob finds a giant wasp in the car (possibly a hornet) while Ben is inside the hut talking to the police. We coax/annoy the creature out and I stamp on it so hard I give myself a headache. There was no way I wanted that flying evil alive when I moved my foot away. Bloody insects.

M 72772 – Mali! After another arduous border we are finally in our last country!

I wrote too soon. We've just been turned around and told to get our Douannes sorted. Bastards.

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After a LOT of messing around, some severe flattery, an exchange of gifts, some “music of Hitler” and a dodgy hand shake we're in! Christ, Africa can be a pain in the arse. The guy who stopped us looked like a military dictator out of a movie genuine psycho.

M 72780 – We've camped up. We've been with 6 other teams for the last 40k's or so which is cool in a way but bad for the border guards, etc. The first post we got while together in Mauritania still the guy took us to his hut, rested his hand on his gun and said, basically, pay him 10 Euros or our trip is over. Bit of a shitbag really, even for someone who can't be arsed to do their job which seems the norm.

We found a great camp site and got everything sorted before dark (ever the priority). We didn't eat tonight because John wasn't feeling up to it and I couldn't be arsed to cook for just myself.

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Saturday – Day 21 M 72780 (4,503 miles) We manage all of 30 miles before the inevitable police stop which said we didn't have Douanne, as I had suspected, even after all the ballache of the night before. It took us till Midday to get the Douanne sorted. Partly because the guy wanted to buy my spare car cd player and I wouldn't accept less than 20,000 CFA for it. He said I was a nasty man and that if I sold for less things would go a lot quicker but I couldn't be bothered with the haggling of it. If he had tried to cause any more grief over it I was fully prepared to take a hammer to it. It was useful for us to get hold of some local currency though and I got just shy of 30 Euros for it, considering I'd paid 40 quid I was reasonably happy with that.

We left as a convoy of 7 but things quickly reverted to how they'd been in Mauritania. Just us, the Suzi and the Irish guys. This was fine because it was clear that going through borders or check points in big groups just made things slower and more expensive. Police check points had gradually got less and less invasive through Mauritania and Mali saw a similar decline in interest. Most of the time we were just waved through. We hit a toll road on the way to Bamako, which I hadn't been expecting. It cost less than a Euro and actually you could tell that Mali was a lot richer than Mauritania (though perhaps only comparatively).

The roads were generally better in Mali. The people seemed nicer too. In Morocco you'd sometimes get a wave, in Mauritania you'd usually get a wave and sometimes a smile. In Mali everyone waves and has nice, big smiles for you.

Sometimes more on show than just smiles, which is pretty distracting when you're trying to drive... apparently. It is refreshing and I can feel my desire to go on rising again, having been so low in Western Sahara and parts of Mauritania.

I don't really remember at which point things happened on this day. I have a mile marker of M 73094 which might be when I realised my exhaust was falling off or it might be when the Irish guys had a blowout. They had it sorted in 5 mins. They had a really good system of attaching things to the roof rack which, if I'm ever stupid enough to do something like this again (likely), I will have to copy.

These things always seem to happen at the worst time of day – between 1pm and 3pm. It wasn't hot but you'd sweat just standing still there.

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We hit Bamako after about 300 miles of driving. John is unwell so I did the whole day which was fine by me. Light was fading as we drove into the city. Christ knows how but we bumped into 4 other teams while driving around looking for an Auberge or anything. We all ended up pulling up in a petrol station after being accosted in the usual style by men on the street offering camping.

It took ages to regroup and by this time I just wanted a bed, a beer and to break off my bloody exhaust.

We got to the campsite late after a hectic drive through a busy African city at night. Fun in a way but quite draining. The population of Mali is meant to be just short of 12 million people. 1.7 of those million live in Bamako and most of them were out on the roads by the looks of it. The three of us from our convoy all wanted a night together in Bamako because it was going to be our parting of ways. Instead of camping at this place we payed for a 2 bed room between 7 of us. Nice and cozy!

The Irish guys, myself and Ben and Bob all decided to hit a Jazz club after dinner. We wanted a bit of a night out and a local experience. Local experience is what we got! The jazz was... interesting. Not what I'd call jazz but aside from the singing it was actually music. We were the only 6 white people in the place and it was the first time we went anywhere there were locals where we didn't get hassle. It was nice to sit there and chill with some beers and just soak in something that wasn't road or a sleeping bag. It did take us a while to actually get in. I have no idea why because all of a sudden we were there and done. It was pretty packed and was worth going in for, though I don't think I'll be getting any of "Malian Jazz" compliations any time soon. We had a few drinks then all headed back to squeeze 7 of us into the 2 bed room.

My guts, which had decided to take a disliking to me the day before, were back with a vengeance tonight. In my brief toilet trip I lost my bed spot and ended up having to sleep on the floor but I was more comfy there than I had been in days.

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Sunday – Day 22 M 73098 (4,821 miles) John and myself set aside Sunday as our day of rest again. Everyone else was off South while we were due East so we wouldn't be holding up the convoy and as we couldn't get any local currency till the next day we wouldn't have got far anyway. I wasn't 100%, hadn't been since the Mali border, and John was in no fit state to travel. He spent the day doing the Olympic toilet relay, perking up every now and then to ask if it was free then disappearing in the blink of an eye only to "John Wayne" back into the room 5 minutes later.

It's now 3 weeks since I left Tipperary. I'm worn out, I'm having to check for sidewinds before having a number two (had to happen eventually I suppose), I'm mildly fed up and I just generally want to be home. All the cars, aside from our convoy, left without saying goodbye and most of them without paying for the camping. Bit of a shame to have that as a parting gift but oh well. We have pretty much no money again. I was hoping this day of rest would be a good chance to watch the F1 (see any trend with these rest days?) on the sports channel but it isn't showing live sport which is a pain in the arse, so I'm sat here missing that too. I couldn't be arsed to go out and try to find somewhere showing it, I've got no money anyway.

It seems mad thinking back to the last F1 race in Spain 2 weeks ago. So much has happened. I feel very emotional today. Ben and Bob and the Irish guys left around lunch time, they figured they'd be able to make their next border the same day if they set off then. We had a group photo by the campsite parking looking over the Niger and said our goodbyes.

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I just felt like crying. I was sad to see them go, but it was more than that. More the culmination of the last three weeks hitting me on the one day I actually stopped. I didn't feel up to anything other than going to bed. Crying might have been a good idea but I wasn't sure I'd actually stop if I started. At this point I consider rewriting Eddie Cochran's Summertime Blues at the Malerone Blues (antimalarial drug) with references to Africa.

Timbuktu is so close and we're nearly there... I think that's all that's driving me on. The fact that when we get there we're done and then we can fuck off back home. I almost feel bad for wishing it was over but it's just what I need emotionally and physically – an end in sight and a little more motivation. This is the hardest thing I have ever done.

Looking back I see that all the miles I had been working out were wrong because I calculated the date from the start but the miles from France. I'll have to dig out the real miles later or maybe now. It would give me something to do while I miss the F1!

Well I worked out we've actually driven 4,821 miles and averaged just under 220 miles per day (I think), which still puts us ahead of schedule in a way but it means it's a bit further than the 8,500 total I had originally thought. Shouldn't be a problem though.

I've slept most of the day. From about 3 till 6.30 then till 10.30. Don't feel tired at the moment because I've just had to kill a cockroach, nearly taking off my right kneecap in the process! I think I'll be able to sleep all night too though.

We'll see.

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Monday – Day 23 M 73098 (4,821 miles) On waking up this morning I had an hour or so to reflect on things before John woke up. The conclusion I came to was that if he woke up and felt 100% then it would be worth hitting the roads for Timbuktu but, on getting there, we wouldn't be driving back. Everything is hassle here. We're either constantly driving, asleep or often being harassed by children or stressed by some police check point. John woke up and he wasn't 100%. Truth be told I don't give a fuck about Timbuktu anymore. What we have done, seen, experienced... that's a feat in itself. We didn't make it but damn we were close!

I spoke to the campsite owner about selling the car. Hopefully he'll be able to help out with police paperwork too, to sort out all that shit. We just have to clear out our stuff from it and wait till it's sold now. Don't get me wrong, I'm deeply saddened by selling the Micra and disappointed at getting so close to the goal and not making it but it feels like damage limitation now. Damage to us physically, financially and mentally are all possible and probably inevitable if we chose to continue. Overall, making the decision to sell up and bugger off home has settled or calmed something in me and that says the most. Don't go against what the grain of your body is telling you.

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So... it's now 4.30pm and I'm sat in Bamako airport sipping drinks and waiting for the flight out at 3.35am. The total time between here and Paris is going to be about 12 hours with a 2 hour stop. I had no bloody idea we were so far away! I think that says it all really.

From 8am, saying to the campsite owner that I wanted to sell the car I was counting out CFA (Central African Franc, currency) just over 4 hours later. Not bad really, but fuck was it a load of hassle! Starting with my middleman Mohammed who took what he wanted from the car with the help of a greedy little friend. That was around 10.15am. I was so unbelievably fed up of people pointing in the car and asking for things or asking if things were for sale.

Mohammed had said it was time to go and on trying to get in to the car at the campsite someone came and asked if the tools were for sale. This just put me over the edge and I went on ranting about just wanting to sell the fucking car and get home. I opened the boot, half threw the tool kit at him and told Mohammed we were bloody leaving. Mohammed is a local taxi driver and I think my driving for the next 10 minutes concerned him greatly. I was fuming. Fully prepared to blow up my car just so I could leave.

We had to go to a mechanics to get the exhaust welded back on before I could sell the car. The guy did a pretty good job and when it came to pay him for it I'd calmed down quite a bit. The irony of Rod Stewart singing Sailing on the radio while I was waiting was not wasted.

From there we went to the buyers place. I wanted 400 Euros he offered 200,000 CFA which was around 330 Euros and I accepted. Done. I just wanted to be rid of it and free to fly away. I left all the paperwork with him and no doubt it will come back to bite me in the arse at some point. I didn't care as long as I'd left the country.

I got a taxi back to the campsite where John was repacking his stuff. I spent about 5 minutes repacking my bags and we left for the airport. On arrival we got promptly shafted on an exchange rate for both our CFA's and Ouguiya. I didn't care. I didn't care about anything except getting on that plane now. Thanks to some unparalleled help from a mutual friend at home our flights were booked and we just had to wait. Having gone from wanting to sell the car at 8am to arriving at the airport some 7 or 8 hours later I finally felt like Africa may be working in our favor. It's now 5pm and we still have 10 hours to wait till the flight but it's the home straight. We're nearly there... when the plane takes off I'll be happy, and you'll be the first to know.

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I just worked out that yesterday I had a total of about 14 and a half hours sleep.

I haven't had that much sleep since... years ago. I've now been up about 16 hours and for the last hour or two I've felt dead. More than tired, dead. I haven't felt this tired for a long time, even when I've not slept for 40 hours. I am dead on my feet. Peeing now burns slightly and my eyes were sore earlier. I've been bitten by mosquitos for the first time on the bloody trip and my arse hasn't seen anything solid pass for days. I just want to be home. Or anywhere but here. Oh and my eczema has flared up in my left elbow. It's 10 minutes till check in is supposed to be open. All I have the effort for is checking in and getting through security. Nothing else. No hassle. Nothing.

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Tuesday – Day 24 It's nearly 4 weeks since I left home, the Thursday before starting the rally, and now I'm taxiing down the runway at Bamako International Airport. At roughly 03:55 and 15 seconds we left Mali soil and soared into the air. Bamako is a sea of tiny blueish lights punctuated with strips of orange lights for the roads.

I wouldn't believe it till it happened, but we had finally left.

As the adventure of life continues this particular adventure is at an end for me.

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In Conclusion I don't feel I failed in the basic task of the rally. A lot of people ask me if I feel disappointed at getting so far but not quite making it but I think we did bloody well and I certainly don't feel like I have unfinished business with Timbuktu either. (That feeling didn't last too long, as it happens!) What Africa has really taught me will no doubt become evident over the years. I appreciate that it was a once in a lifetime experience. For that fact I am mostly thankful. There are a few things I've left with that I'm aware of, many more will no doubt reveal themselves to me in the future. These things are; 

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It's very easy to get to Mali. Even at the worst time of year. You don't need a Land Cruiser. All you need is a vague sense of direction, a strong sense of adventure and a willingness to delve far from the reaches of your comfort zone.

A little forethought goes a long way. Always travel with photocopies of your passport because writing the information out (again, and again, and again) isn't fun.

Africa runs on Africa time.

You can't over-plan a trip of this magnitude. You can't under-plan it either.

Lateral thinking or common sense will see you through anything a trip like this will throw at you.

Life would have been easier if we had our Mauritanian and Mali visas before we left. While it's likely to be much harder to get them from your country of origin it will save you the hassle of finding embassies.

There's nothing wrong with standing still for a minute, but make that minute of your choosing.

Malarone is not a fun drug to be on but I've heard it's better than Malaria.

Considering its effects on me I'd almost be willing to put that to the test.

(I later heard that one of the guys from the Irish team with the Fiat, "Argh! I'm on fire!" caught malaria while out and that it felt like a near death experience - Malarone is definitely worth taking!)

Finally, that personal discovery and development only occurs when we are pushed to our limits. Arthur C Clarke said it best, “The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”

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