He Says - RABAT HELL!!

16 - 17 September 09

Tam and I decided to try and minimise the time loss and try and do Ouarzazate to Rabat in one hit. It turned out to be not to bad, we had to return over the same mountain pass, this time it was cold but there was no mudslides, only dirt, stones and a lot of diesel on the road!!

We rode hard, head down ass up, stopping only briefly for some snacks on the side of the road. We took the toll roads and you could not tell that you were in Africa. The only exception to this was the ubiquitous trucks that are running at a 45° degree angle due to the constant overloading.

We made it Rabat by early evening (1645h) both feeling okay but not ready for too much more. Considering the weather had broken and rained heavily for several sections of the trip we had made good time and had done well to make it. Parts of Rabat were flooded, and we had to do two water crossings to get to the campground that we wanted to stay in. Unbenounced to us it is now a construction site for a shopping mall.

The drivers in Rabat, are the worst I have ever seen they will pass on either side of you, push you out of the way for the fun of it. The use their bumper bars instead of turn signals. They’ll go the wrong way down the street if it suits them. The only law they seem to obey is a red light, however they creep forward the entire time and honk if you have not made it though the intersection. 0.00000001 of a millisecond after the light turns green. It was the most stressful driving of my life and several times is was only Tam's yelling “Watch out!” that warned me of a car trying to hit us (well not caring that we were in the way and was going to go though us to get where he wanted to go.).

We ended up riding out of town towards an other campgound that was in the guide book and a tout that caught us off guard made 1 durham for telling us it does exist. Night had started to fall. Just before true dark we had pulled over to decided where we where, and what we were going to do. There may or may not be a campground close by, but we could not find it. It was at this point that I noticed that my charge indication was indicating that Anubis’s battery was not getting charged.

This was the final straw, the drive made me very tired, the traffic conditions had fried my nerves and now the bike has gone wrong again! I felt like crying, I did scream. I shouted at Tam for no reason. She was great and calmed me down. She did what was necessary and decided for us. We will try and find the campground. As it turns put we were almost there, but it was the ugliest dirtiest shit hole I have ever seen. There was broken glass, bits of rusty metal, concrete chips, and old wire everywhere. At first we decided to suck it up and stay. I am not a squeamish or prissy person, but when I saw the state of the toilettes and showers I decided we leave now! There was faeces everywhere and it looked like it had not been cleaned well ..ever.

Back on the bike I could smell burning. We were nowhere near anyplace I could even look to see what was wrong. Fuck it!!! Knowing full well what it could mean we got on the bike and drove on. We headed back for Rabat and decided to stay at the Ibis, we had GPS point for it .. no worries.. Well an hour later we still could not find it. The GPS was always telling me that I was going the wrong direction. The charge monitor was telling me that I was killing my bike. The bikes temperature was skyrocketing. My temper was shorter then ever and I was starting to drive badly. We drove for hours all over the city and could not find one hotel. Not one with space or that was nice.. but a actually hotel.. we were driving in circles, via the GPS and not getting anywhere. Ultimately we found one, it was a western expensive one, a Mercur. It had no parking and was three times our daily budget. But it was now 2100h and were both at ropes end. We booked in. We calmed down, Tam got hungry I did not, but we both ate at the hotel (misspelled by them) “Kangourou restaurant”, it was the most expensive and least satisfying meal of the trip.

I had not slept a wink, but we had to get to the Mauritanian embassy by 1030h to lodge our visa applications or else we would stuck here till Monday. We would be stuck because it was already Wednesday it takes 24 hours for the visa application, and the embassy is closed Friday though Sunday. We also realised that we would need to stay an other night the expensive hotel a second night, as we will not have passports and you need one to rent a room. There goes the budget again!

We got up had breakfast (I had to force myself to eat). Got to the bike, quickly tried to see what could be wrong with it, but had no luck. For some reason everything was taking an age and we were not ready to go until 0845. We went to 4 bank ATMs that would not take our cards the 5th would not take mine but luckily it did take Tam’s. We were ready. We had the visa pictures. We had the photocopies. We had a map (and thought we knew where we were going). We were off at 0859h. 0910 realise that the map was not as we thought it was.. -0945 driving around in circles. Tempers flaring. Only 45min to go and we were no closer to the embassy. We decided to go back to the hotel and get a cab.

0955 we jump in a cab, show him the address, he shakes his head. “no polivo france” he says. We tried to explain what we need, he shakes his head again. We try again. Something Clicks. He says okay. The meter goes on.. HOOO no arguments there then that is good! He starts heading towards Sale’, I may not know where the embassy is but I know this is wrong. I show him on the map. Head shaking again. Finally I said the name of a major road near by, a light bulb goes on over his head (it may have been my blood pressure or the stress but I swear I could see it). He swings the car around. I hear squealing of brakes as other cars stop to let us by. We start heading in the direction that Tam suggested just as we gave up. I was trying to follow our movements on the map. It did not work.

1012h He tells us we are on the major road. Tam re-reads him the address and it clicks, he corrects her pronunciation, and asks if it is the Mauritanian, Portuguese or Mali embassy we need.
1015h we pull up in front of the Mali embassy, I run back to find the Mauritanian one
1025 I walk though the door. They don’t close at 1030h anymore it is now 1230.

We struggle to fill out the forms but get it done hand over 680durham, ask if all is okay. They said “yes pick it up tomorrow at 1400h”.

1049h the trip’s progression is out of our hand. We then realised that our taxi driver did not say he could not speak French but that he could not read western script. This is something that never occurred to me. We walked back to the hotel so that I could find it again the next day stopping for a cold drink and a mars bar, for once we ate in mostly plain sight. We stopped in the Chellah (the ruins of the old city). It was a nice respite from the hustle and hassle of the city and as we did not have cameras it was kinda nice just to walk around. The rest of the day was spent in the hotel recovering from the night before. Eventually, we ventured out at about at 1800h to look for some dinner but Rabat has two types of restaurants bloody expensive and those that are no where near the hotel that we were staying in. We ended up eating Pringles and pudding from the one of the very few mini-markets that was open. Our gourmet feast was accompanied by a 1€ pirate DVD purchased in Marrakech, all in all I was in heaven. We still have not figured out what is wrong with the Anubis.

Next day stayed in hotel till 1100h, and then went to Mauritanian embassy. Anubis was running perfectly fine. No warning lights, once at the embassy in the shade of the a huge tree I switched rec/regs for the spare. Still everything was running well no warning lights. Bugger now what could it be??? I let the engin get hot, and the problem reared its ugly head. It was only then I smelt and saw the fire! The high voltage cables coming from the stator had caught fire taking the connection block with it. During this procedure with my bike smouldering, a fancily dress woman, came up to me showed a picture of a handicapped boy and asked me for money. I could not believe it so I ignored her, Her she is in a fancy dress, I’m covered in grease, bike is burning she is begging off me. She touched me with hand out and I yell at her to fuck off! She left in a hurry rage burring in my eyes. Once she was gone I calmed down and cut out the burnt wires and bypassed block splicing the wires in directly. Suddenly everything was good the RPM were stable and the power was all good. Some how the leads had short circuited and caused the fire. The electrex regulator/rectifier has lived up to their claims (so far) it had survived the fire/short. That afternoon we started to head back to Ouarzazate then to Zagora and the Sahara.