30th Jan 08

Date: 30th Jan 08
Location: El Jadida
Weather: Clear blue skies and sunny, 25°c
Status: Ben & Luke – frustrated, Colonel – back on top form

Another day of pounding the streets of Morocco in search of the seemingly impossible, battling the admin and spending money we shouldn’t be!

Up early with a soaking wet tent outside as we’d had the heaviest dew yet, so our 6am alarm clock was snoozed suitably until the sun had done its job and burnt the night’s water away! We even managed to get our washing done, dried and packed before we set off, ahhh clean clothes!

Headed north again (damn wrong direction) to Casablanca and as we’d marked the position of the clinic the day before on the GPS finding it was no problem. Then unusually so was finding the right department for Luke’s jab, in the hospital gates and there it was right in front of us, something different was happening from yesterday – things were going ok!

Within the hour Luke was all yellow-fevered up and we hit the road to Rabat, another 100kms north our destination the Mauritanian embassy at 3pm to collect (hopefully) our visas.

Got there at 3.30pm and this time the guard was even in a good mood welcoming us back, we headed down the box of a room to wait and no queue too so straight to the front and another friendly smile from the clerk! How different from yesterday!

“Mr Marshall and Mr Southall you are from England, here are your passports and visas, welcome to our country and enjoy your stay!!” This couldn’t get any better and Luke and I were on cloud 9 again...

Hit the A3 (not the same one) south for what we hoped would be the last time leaving the ugliness and industry of Casablanca and Rabat behind for good. The 3hr journey south took us towards the sun and the coast and back to our awesome little free camping spot on the beach where we had a fire, coffee and couscous before hitting the tent for some hardcore shithead games before bed.

LET THERE BE MORE DAY LIKE TODAY!!

End of day location: El Jadida
Distance covered: 320kms