constanttrek

Excess Baggage

I will be posting a longer entry later this week.  But I wanted to get in early to let any interested parties know that I will be a guest on Radio Four's "Excess Baggage"  program this coming Saturday, 13th May at 10am.  I am on with John Pilkington, who has also been travelling in the Sahara recently.

There is a change some of you might notice on the weblog - I have, finally, put up a paypal connection for those who would like to make a donation to the walk.  I want to stress that I am in NO WAY asking for donations, but rather am simply providing the facility for those who feel they would like to donate.  I will keep a running tab on the site of what money is raised, so that you can see how close I am to my target of £5000, which will pay for the next leg of the walk.  I intend to raise my own funds, through working, selling articles, and hopefully, my book advance - as well as the RGS grant should it come through - but if you feel that you would like to help, of course I am grateful and welcome all offers.  Up until this point the walk has been entirely self funded.

I would also like to give something back to those who choose to donate, particularly those who have supported the walk and read the blog for a long time, so if you use paypal to make a donation, please email me to let me know and I will post through the first chapter of my book, "Slow Journey South", via email. 

I very much appreciate those of you who emailed me to suggest I take this course - it is something I have felt uncomfortable about doing, as I want very much to make the walk pay for itself - but I am also so grateful for the kind offers of support.  Thankyou to all who continue to email and comment on the site, and, don't worry - come September, I WILL be walking again.

Over the weekend I went to hear several Saharawi poets-in-exile (based in Spain) read some poetry about the refugee experience in the Western Sahara; it was very strange to walk down a central London street and see a man in gondora and a woman in melekhva standing there!  I felt my heart lurch and for one moment, I was back in the desert.

It is interesting for me to meet up with people connected with the Saharawi camps in Algeria; it is a much different community to the nomadic one I moved in.  In some ways I have absolutely no relationship to this community, and find it difficult to understand - although many nomads feel strongly about the independence issue in the Western Sahara, the sheer grind of daily life tends ot overshadow political considerations.  I am not accustomed to talking to Saharawi people who actually live in Europe, in a European fashion, and write about their homeland from a political perspective; it is helpful for me to hear them, but also strangely disorientating, as if I am at the beginning again.  I don't have the same sense of belonging as I do with the nomads.

Anyway.  As I said, I will update this again later on in the week, but in the meantime I hope some of you can find the time to listen to the radio next weekend - the bbc website makes it possible to listen online if you are in another country.

Cheers
paula

progress...

Just a quick one.

I met with Danielle from the sandblast-arts project, and felt wildly excited about what she is doing; it seems that we are very much coming from the same angle in regard to the Saharawi issues, and I feel very passionate about the way in which she is working with Saharawi artists toward self empowerment and recognition through the art and music of the desert.  We are meeting again this week to talk about how we can tie our two projects together, and work toward mutual publicity and recognition.  For me it was also a wonderful experience to meet with another European who understands the culture and has actually spent time in the desert; it has helped a lot with the inevitable feelings of loneliness and alienation I have experienced after moving so abruptly from one environment into another.  I am feeling very positive about working with her, and also relieved that through her project I can remain focussed on my own.  I remind myself every day that I must simply find a way to carry on walking in September, no matter how great the financial obstacles seem at times. 

I realise that the readership for this blog is not massive, but as I move more into a relationship with the sandblast project and begin to form plans as to how to move forward, I would be hugely appreciative of any ideas, comments, or suggestions from readers.  Somehow I feel that for me the way forward in this thing is through communication and being part of a wider community - a high priority for me, as for Danielle, is to raise international awareness of the issues in the Western Sahara - a corner of the world which few people recognise or understand.  Over the coming weeks I hope to post a lot on this site in connection with the arts and creativity which comes out of the desert, in the hope that I can communicate the beauty and depth of the culture I have been travelling in - and that it can be through this that Saharawi life can be showcased, rather than simply as a political issue.  The politics can never be my fight - but helping to bring the culture to a wider community, can be.

Anyway.  As I said - a quick one - but I want to stay in contact and online, and keep any interested people aware of what I am doing to keep the walk on track.  I hope to get some photos up soon to give you a visual picture of what is happening with sandstorm - in the meantime the link is www.sandblast-arts.org, if you want to see what Danielle is working on.

More soon

Paula

Re-adjusting with the help of all things sinful

Well, I might be back, but the photographs continue!

My last day in the Boujdor house, making tea and feeling mixed emotions about leaving.  Thanks to Jamila and family for the fresh henna.

This was a traditional wedding in MHamid just before I left; Saharawi wedding ceremonies are long and involved, the celebrations continuing for three days, and pre-marital rituals such as the bringing of gifts to the bride's home, much longer than that.  Contrary to Christian practice there is no one person who officiates over the ceremony.  Rather the bride and groom gather with their families and agree to the marriage; it is the parents who say words of blessing from the Qu'aran, and join the two.  There is no rigid formula to how this is done.  Afterwards, the marriage is consummated, and a key part of the ceremony remains the display of the blood stained sheet, evidence of the bride's virginity.  Friends of the groom will wait outside the room until the sheet is displayed. 

So it was from amidst the feasts and festivities, I left MHamid, the desert, and Morocco, and took a flight back to the grey and cold (seriously cold) environs of England.  But I would be lying if I said I wasn't enjoying it.

After the craziness of the last few weeks in Morocco, sorting out the camels, travelling from one end of the country to the other (between Boujdour and MHamid alone is something like 2000 km), organising my baggage and leaving everything in a state which I can come back to, I was pretty fed up and tired.  After such a long time away, also, I was hanging out to see friends, talk in my own language, be around men and women of my own culture.  Particularly men.

And I couldn't have come back to a more divine environment; I am staying with Dan and Stefania, very good friends of long standing, who worship at the altar of good food and wine, and also work independently (ie: also desperately trying to convince various organisations to fund their creative projects), and so I sank into the indescribable bliss of endless conversation, constant gourmandisation, and general congeniality.  The only time I have drawn breath from talking is in order to pause and stuff more divine Italian cheese in my mouth.  (Cheese!  HAM!  AAAAhhhhh, as Homer Simpson would say.)

And in the meantime, I have been trying frantically to work out what to do next.  And here is where I am at.

The Radio Program "Excess Baggage" on radio Four have expressed an interest in me coming on the show (on Saturday Mornings); they have said they will call back this week, conditional of producer's approval, with a date.  I have my fingers crossed and will be straight on this blog if it happens.  I phoned the Royal Geographical Society; but the unofficial response from them is that my chances don't look good, since my expedition is more adventure based than research.  I have never relied on the RGS, and always seen it as a long shot, though one I would have been very grateful for; they are now saying that rather than the original date of May, it is now more likely that interviews will be held in June (the first date given was JANUARY...), so the way I figure it, whether I make it to interview or not, I need to be here for a while.   I have come across a fabulous woman by the name of Danielle Smith, a filmmaker who has worked with the Saharawi, and spent long periods of time in the refugee camps of Tindouf.  She is currently in London after being awarded an Arts Council grant to showcase the culture and music of the Saharawi, and she is working hard to raise international awareness of the plight of people in the Western Sahara,a  cause that is obviously very close to my heart.  I am meeting with her later this week, which I am really looking forward to.  You can look at her website at www.sandblast-arts.org.  I am hoping to work closely with her, and feel excited about the projects the sandblast organisation are working on.

In the meantime I am still writing and sending off articles in the hope that someone will buy them, and working on my next book; and trying to get publicity in order to shift the first one!  I have a lot of ideas about how I can raise money for the next leg of the walk (through my own efforts I mean - I am not going after sponsorship, as this has always been about me working to support myself through the walk, not relying on someone else to pay for my "holiday").  Although it is a bit tough at the moment, since there is no money and no immediate prospect of any, I feel that if I just continue focussing on what I am doing, and remain determined to walk again in September, that I will find a way to do so.  And despite the fact that it is a wonderful luxury to be back in the UK, and feasting on food and friends, I miss the desert and my walk and I know I must continue. 

I have been in constant contact with friends back in Morocco - it is pretty funny when I get a phone call on my mobile and pick it up on the bus, only to hear someone on the other end shout, "LABAS!" (how's it going) at great volume.  Most of my phone calls just consist of the endless Saharawi greetings before the credit runs out, but I enjoy them just the same.  It makes Morocco and the desert seem not so far away.

But, just as before, when we were planning our walk, I think that London is the best place for me to be based until I can start walking again.  Everything is here, it is easy to work, and to be in contact with people.  It is hideously expensive to live, and the weather really is bloody awful, but conversely, it truly is the centre of the world.  I just need to find a cheap room to doss in for a month or two!

I hope to be posting a bit more regularly now that I am back and somewhat readjusted.  I say somewhat; I still have an utter tea addiction and am very grateful I brought back all the necessary ingredients to make it properly.  I miss my melekhva a lot; it is very strange to have to think about clothes again, and I don't feel as elegant and somehow comfortable in my Western stuff as I do now in melekhva.  Odd, when I remember how difficult it was to manage at the beginning.

One thing I DO NOT miss, particularly after passing some time in Marrakech before coming back, is being constantly approached by men on the street.  The first day I was back here I walked from the tube station to Dan and Stefania's flat, and passed several men.  I put my head down and hunched my shoulders, mentally bracing myself for the barrage of crap I am so accustomed to.  Sure enough, one bloke called out, "hello! Hello!" just like in Morocco.  I gritted my teeth and wanted to kill him; how dare you, I thought - do I have something on my head that says I have just come back from Morocco and quite LIKE being approached?  Seething inside, I ignored him and stalked on, carrying my pack and my anger.  Suddenly another man did the same thing, and this time I was nearly in tears.  I ignored him too.  Then a girl ran up to me and tapped me on the arm:  "excuse me," she said, "but you dropped this."

It was my bag of maps, and it had fallen off my pack.  I turned around and the blokes were looking at me curiously, wondering why I had ignored them; they had been trying to let me know I had lost something.  I felt so ashamed, and sorry and sad, and teary again; I wanted to explain that for months and months, every time I walked down a town street in Morocco I had endless men saying "Hello, hello.  How are you?  fine?  American?  Australian?  Ah, very beautiful..."  or, if I was less fortunate, simply "we go together?  Now?  I f@&k you?"  And that this does something to your head, after a while, makes you defensive and sullen and stubbornly blind to all around you.  (At this point I feel guilty and so place here a picture of some of the many "good guys" - nomads are always models of courtesy and kindness).

For this I loved wearing melekhva; but in the North, rather than the Western Sahara, it simply wasn't possible to wear it.  There are barely any Saharawi women in Marrakech, let alone a Westerner adopting the dress.  Only one night I wrapped up - it was late and I was hungry, and I just couldn't bear the hassle.  I made full melekhva and walked right past them all, without one comment.  It was bliss.  The problem, of course, came when I opened my mouth - at which point my cover was completely blown.

Of course, if a man, like Madani or MBarak, was beside me, the comments stopped, if not the looks.  But I was - am - tired of the constant hassle and harassment, the being seen as a walking visa opportunity and one desperate for sex into the bargain (and believe me, Western women are certainly considered in such a way, much of the time).  It is the difference between Saharawi culture and the rest of Morocco; in the desert I was simply another nomad, part of the culture and respected for it.  But the second I entered a town that changed, and suddenly I would have to deal with the other Morocco, one I don't like being alone in.  It was exhausting and alienating; when I got back to England, I even hesitated before hugging my male mate hello, and that made me sad too.  I have become so accustomed to treading around men with massive caution and trepidation that it is taking me a bit of time to readjust to them being friends and non-threatening.  It is cultural differences like these that made my time out there so exhausting, and challenging; I think of the walk itself and that wasn't the hard part, although it had its moments.  It was in the constant socialisation, and never ending immersion in another culture - without any kind of respite, and so totally different to my own - that the challenges lay.

But I have learned so much through this walk, and will do many things differently when I re-commence; I feel so passionately about continuing, and feel, also, that I have only begun to learn what I want to.  There is so much more still to master and experience.

Well.  One downside of having all this time and internet access is that I can't refrain from inflicting my mental cartwheels on everybody else, so after that long rumination I will stop.  I will write again if (oh, what the hell, let's be positive - WHEN) I get a date for the radio program, and with any other thoughts or ideas that come my way.  If you have any - feel free to share them!  I am grateful for any and all suggestions.

Once again I really want to say an immense thankyou to all the kind people who emailed me in support, giving me encouragement, after my last post.  I say it a lot on this blog but I truly remain grateful every day for the kindness of strangers and friends who take the time to write.  It means the world to get them, and the messages on the site.

So I am going to go and make some more tea and indulge in something fatty, sweet, and NOT tajine or camp stew.  May as well enjoy the sins of the West, eh?


 
The horses are from the king's visit; they were part of the parade I spoke about in an earlier post.

The Good Life

Another update without photographs...I do apologise, but now my excuse is that I am in Marrakech and the camera is in MHamid, where there is a wedding this weekend. Madani wants to take some pictures, so for some time now, I have not downloaded any pics, hence the visual desert on this page.

Actually, I haven't done much of anything. And, let me tell you, my friends: it has been BLISS.

I had no idea how tired I was - well, maybe I did, and that was why I left Boujdor and came up here; but I was really, truly exhausted. There is a hotel here where the guys are incredibly kind and know me well; they gave me an excellent price on a room, and I entered, shut the door - and slept. It is difficult to describe how bombed I was; I actually found it an effort to go out the door and buy food! I think it was not just the walk, but the endless company I had been in - I knew I was crotchety and, unusually for me, snarly with everyone; what I didn't realise was that I was just utterly exhausted.

So, a week or so later, about three long, lovely scrubby hammams, many English editions of the newspaper, and more midday naps than Ronnie Reagan in his last days, I have gained some perspective and sense of humour once more. For which we are all eternally grateful!

Madani and I organised everything with the camels over the phone, with massive assistance from Habib, and after a back breaking three day journey they arrived in MHamid two days ago, somewhat bewildered to have covered in three days what it has taken them six months on foot. Madani is actually much happier now that we have chatted a lot and I have explained what I am doing to try to keep the walk going - not try, that is the wrong word - what I am doing to KEEP the walk going. I think it was very tough for him feeling that after all this time, and glimpsing a future beyond leading tourists into the desert for a few days, he would just have to swallow his dreams and go back to the family home and old work.

But I have been thinking a lot these last couple of weeks, and come up with a few things.

First of all - even if the grant comes through, as I said earlier, I will not be walking again until September. This gives me some four months to work on my next book and on raising money. I plan to spend some of that time coming back to Morocco and studying Arabic at the Language Institute in Fes, if it is at all possible financially, so that at least my Arabic is fluent by the time I start hiring the next guide etc.

More importantly, I think that the gut instinct when things get panicky with money is to jump into a routine job "just to make ends meet" for a bit. The problem with this theory, in my experience, is that once one takes this road, the road creeps up to become your life; the dreams get shoved to one side, then eventually left behind. I set out on this walk in order to pursue my desired career of writing. I have finished my first book, and am half way through my second; I have had several articles published and am waiting in hope for news on others. Everything in me says to just put my head down and keep plugging on with those things, no matter how broke I might be - and just keep thinking about the next stage of my walk, planning it, and keep in my head that come September, I will be walking once more.

The strange thing is, I don't really doubt it; right now it is just a question of exactly how I am going to achieve it.

I have learned a few things this week. The first is that when it is time to take a break - you MUST take it. Two weeks ago I was despondent, feeling that I had failed, and that if I shipped the camels back to MHamid, that would be then end of the walk and my dreams; after just a bit of a rest I can see all sorts of different options, and feel a renewed passion for what I am doing, a passion that is hard to truly feel when you are exhausted, run down, and six months out there.

I was reading about Karl Bushby again this week. Those of you who have followed this blog may remember me raving about Karl - he has spent seven years walking from the tip of South America to the top of North America, and has just crossed the Bering Strait into Russia - all of this in his planned attempt to walk around the world. He is currently having a hell of a time of it, having walked through Arctic blizzards only to be arrested by the Russians on arrival. But this ins not what got me - it was something else that he wrote earlier in his blog. He said when he went back to his family for a six month break that he was at one of the lowest points in his life, seriously questioning why he was doing this walk, if he wanted to continue at all; but that after only two weeks rest, he found himself almost subconsciously thinking about and planning the next stage - and he realised that like it or not, this was his path, and he would see it through.

I guess I feel a bit the same; I think about stopping sometimes, but I know that for me, this walk is not finished. This six months has only been a taste of what I want to learn and experience in the desert; it has just been the beginning. It is an entirely different walk to that which Gary and I did last year, with packs; it has been physically much easier - but mentally far, far tougher. I feel that after this time I have really developed the skills, both mentally and practically, that I need to keep walking. And I want to use them! I want to put together a shit-hot camp, exactly the way I want it; I want to master the language, and be able to participate fully in my surroundings, rather than relying on someone else for translation. I want to cross this desert as I have dreamed of doing my whole life, and I want to do it well.

So now I am returning to London with an absolute commitment to two things: my writing career, which I have to believe will take off, even if I am not "famous enough" for publishers to take the book on just yet; and my walk, which I want more than anything to see through.

I have a lot of ideas and am trying to put a lot of them in place; but I really believe that if I have got this far, that there is nothing I cannot do.

I know one thing.

In a year's time, I do not want to be stuck in traffic on the North Circular, on the way to another teaching job, wondering what the hell happened to my dreams. I am prepared to eat an awful lot of beans on toast, or whatever it is that starving artists and dreamers in garrets eat these days, before I let that happen.

So. Enough of the noble sounding rhetoric; I had better get off my ass and actually do some work in an attempt to NOT have to eat beans on toast, rather than raving on about my good intentions...

Cheers. And I am loving Marrakech, by the way. Again.

Changing places

It has been an eventful few weeks.

MBarak got offered some work with tourists back in Zagora; he agonised over what to do, but I felt it was stupid for him to stay with me when it was possible to earn money elsewhere - and goodness knows, there was little in the way of funds to pay him or indeed keep him, with me in Boujdor. So, with one last visit to the camels, one final night of wine and song, tears all round and many promises to stay in touch, he swept out with his little bag and went his lonely way. It was a tough, very tough, goodbye.

Meanwhile, the king was visiting Boujdor. I have hordes of photographs of this, but I really, really struggle to upload pictures here, so I am not going to delay a post for want of photos but will hopfully post them up another time. The King's visit in this part of the country is a bit of a mixed blessing; since the population is predominantly Saharawi, and there is still a good deal of conflict over the independence of the Western Sahara, the King is hardly regarded as an honoured personage by many. But it is not overly wise, in the Western Sahara, to expound on the issue at great length - as the illegal detainment and human rights abuses of Saharawi activists are sad evidence. And so, the many Saharawi tribes dutifully set up their traditional tents on the flag lined road leading into town, donned their best gondoras and melekhvas, hoisted up the big photos of Mohammed 6, and made ready to proclaim their enthusiasm as the royal party drove into town. In reality, the whole three day festival was really just a great excuse for everyone to dress up, hear some excellent Saharawi music - and ride their camels through town at high speed, women lining the streets ululating and clapping, and a host of four wheel drives following slowly, honking and flashing their lights. The camels rode through town at regular intervals for nearly a week, the Saharawi men sitting up on the high saddles, robes flying in the wind, howling excitedly as they hurtled through the main street.

Behind them came the more traditionally Moroccan rows of men on horseback, holding their long rifles proudly beside their sabres, and trotting in stately, military splendour. Down on the plains near the seafront they gathered to perform the traditional ritual of racing across the ground and firing a fusillade as they neared the other side, to the excited accompaniment of warlike shrieks from the crowd. All very testosterone packed and wild, and a great show.

It was a bit tough for me to enjoy; despite wrapping up in complete melekhva, I was hauled into the local police station twice when I was spotted by the thousands of security present as being a tourist, and questioned endlessly as to my reasons for being there, regardless of the fact that I had already given all my details to the local gendarmerie. The problem is that this mob weren't from Boujdor but visiting from Agadir, and they were determined to ferret out any dangerous looking insurgents. I guess tourists qualify as that.

After a couple of days I gave up and just hid in the house until the carnival left town.

Despite my best intentions of buckling down to work, I found it almost totally impossible. At every minute of every day family either phoned to invite me to eat, or just arrived for tea or a meal, often staying for hours. Closing one's door is not possible in Morocco, and I was starting to get pretty stressed out, to be honest, since I had a number of tasks that desperately needed attention. On top of this Madani was making the most of his month off, which meant several friends on a nightly basis listening to Moroccan music in the salon until the early hours; not conducive to peaceful sleep or early mornings. Normally none of this would have bothered me, but when you are under pressure work wise, it is difficult to maintain composure.

I spent a few lovely days with various families, learning to make cous cous from the beginning, talking, making henna. But it was difficult to relax and enjoy it; I was terrible aware that I had just one month to try to organise continuing into Mauritania, and was desperate to try to source funds and organise a new guide, etc.

Finally one day I sat and took a long look at myself in the mirror. I wasn't eating. I was exhausted, wrung out, and getting very frustrated with Madani and all the others around me. My skin looked terrible, and I felt ill; I thought about trying to head off into the increasing heat, uncertain of funding, tension running high between Madani and I, and I thought - enough. It is time to take a real break.

I won't know the results of the Royal Gographic Society's decision until May. I have been over six months in Morocco, most of which have been spent entirely in Saharawi company; I need a little bit of time in my own culture, a peaceful environnment, to work out how to go about the next leg and get some work done. I don't want to try to maintain the camels, Madani, run a proper Saharawi home, and write articles at the same time; it is just too much. If I have learned one thing over this walk, it is that you must know when it is time to stop and take stock.

So I have organised a truck to ship the camels back to Habib in MHamid, along with all my baggage, tent and equipment. I will not renew the house for another month, but instead fly back to the UK at the end of April for a short rest. I remain determined to continue my walk - but I need to work out how to go about that. Of course, I hold out hopes that the grant will come through; but if it doesn't, I will need to work hard to come up with other sources of income. I know that to do this I am better off in England, no matter how much the though tof going back may rankle.

I still get dogged by thoughts of failure, that I somehow haven't done enough, or what I set out to; I had always hoped that I would get through to Timbuktou before taking a break. But I also accept that fighting ahead blindly when the weather is turning hot, money is scarce, and I haven't had time to properly organise my camp and equipment for the next leg, would be stupid and lead to problems. I feel that it is much better to return until I know the results of the grant decision, and then come back to Morocco and organise the next leg over the hot months of the summer, so I am ready to set off as soon as the cooler weather hits. No one in their right mind would head into the Sahara for the four hottest months of the year; it is close to a suicide wish.

And I need a rest. Not from the walk, so much, which I still love, deeply; but from the emotional strain of being totally immersed in a new language and culture, without any recourse at all to my own. I stayed in a hotel for a night - it was the first period of time I had spent completely alone for over six months.

My fascination and interest in Saharawi culture and the desert remains undiminished. I have learned so much, many things I never expected to, and I know that the experience has enabled me to put together a much more efficient operation for the next leg. But I also feel that if I take a little break now, I can come back renewed and healthy, with the energy and strength so important in organising things here. At the moment I am just tired, and worn down by the effort of trying to work on a Western schedule whilst living on a Saharawi one - I need to seperate the two for a bit.

Madani and I are okay with it all. It has been a bit hard for him to suddeny realise, after all this time, that he will be without a source of income or a purpose; he was pretty angry with me at first, since he had thought I would find a way to get money to continue directly into Mauritania. But I explained that I do still want to continue, and that I would very much like him to carry on if I find the money - but that there simply aren't funds at the moment. I think that came as something of a shock - although he had no issue with me not paying him after this month, he had assumed that there was still money to buy food, and cigarettes, and cards for the telephone. I had to explain the facts of life a bit, after he spent his entire month's wages on date whiskey and women, and came sheepishly asking for a bit more to see him through. It had never occurred to him that he might need to use his money to contribute to food and other things associated with the house. It has been a good learning experience for us both - I will certainly be well equipped when it comes to handling teenage children, if ever I have any!

But all is peaceful now. We are packing up the house and camp and camels, and I will be getting organised to fly back to the UK. I know it is the right decision; but it also hurts to be leaving. I just hope and pray that I can find a way to come back.

So, I guess the next update will be from the gray UK, unless I get excited in Marrakech and post from there. I really want to thank all those who have read my little blog through this part of the walk, and sent me messages of support. I plan to keep on going, and hope you will stay with me, insh'allah, all the way across the desert.

I'll get there somehow.

In honour of Madani and MBarak

And so the end is here. The end of six months, 2000km through the Western Sahara, and a totally life altering experience. And, as ever, it was a bit of an anti-climax.

We walked the longest distances we ever have, after leaving Boujdor. There were only two wells on the route to Dakhla, and Mbarak was stressed out about water – and landmines, although he didn’t want to talk too much about it. We met a few other nomads and they all frowned when we said we were continuing to Dakhla, and told us that after the second well, feed for the camels was absolutely terrible, and there were no other nomads – though plenty of opportunists who might take a fancy to the camels in the middle of the night.

A day came when we found a stunning camp – near water, and with the most amazing feed for the
camels that I have seen on the entire walk. And for the first time since we left MHamid, Mbarak asked for a group discussion.

I kind of knew it was coming. We were all exhausted, and I could sense he was worried about the coming week. So we had a long and involved conversation, with lots of sand drawings, tea, and translating by Madani, and he explained his concerns:

The road to Dakhla is actually forty kilometres off the direct route south into Mauritania. There is absolutely no feed for the camels along the route, as it is a Peninsular jutting into the Atlantic; this means we would have to camp back in the hamada before the road departs the main route. The problem with this, he said, was that this point is a notorious contraband route, and he would be very
concerned about someone stealing the camels. There is also no well for some 100km, or good feed. I had originally planned to rest in Dakhla for a week or two, and sort out what my next move was; but Mbarak said that he really felt he couldn’t camp there for a week without a water supply or good feed – something we were all in agreement with. After many previous problems, Madani and I were reluctant to be forty kilometres from the town, since this inevitably means hassles with hitchhiking and paying for a hotel. There are also not many Mhamid people in Dakhla, which cut out our usual fall back of having a helpful family member deliver water and supplies to the camp. We discussed our different options, and agreed that the place we were currently camped would be the best for Mbarak to rest; but there was no way for Madani and I to get into town from there. In the end, after long hours of looking at all the different options, we agreed to finish walking where we were, and turn back to a place not far from Boujdor where there were other nomads we could leave the camels with, and loads of family to help us.

It was a tough decision. I have been hell bent, in the past, on always reaching exactly the destination I set out to; but after six months here, and with camels and other people to consider, I had to ask myself what on earth a difference of fifty kilometres made in the grand scheme of things. I also thought that if I am able to continue walking, then where I stop for a break is absolutely irrelevant; and if I don’t, I will still have made it through 2000km of the Sahara. So I threw my hands up, we all breathed a sigh of relief, and back to Boujdor we came.

I rented a cheap house here for a month – there are family everywhere, and it was organised within a day. We put the camels with another nomad, where they are grazing contentedly on the lush pasture
that grows here, and Madani, Mbarak, and I packed up our gear and started life in the town.

I thought they would both leave; my money is pretty low, and I can’t afford to pay them after we finished walking. But they have both stayed, telling me I can’t possibly be here on my own, and besides – if I can find the money to keep walking, Mbarak wants to meet the new guide, and put him
through a rigorous interrogation process. The poor sod.

So here I am now, in my Moroccan home, trying to adjust to a life that doesn’t involve packing up a tent and four camels and walking every day. It has its bonuses; electricity for me to write on the computer (although this is intermittent at best – it goes off for about seven hours every day), a proper wash in the morning, and internet around the corner. But I miss the air blowing through the tent, and the peace, and the excitement I always feel in the mornings when we pack up and set off. It is also a little difficult to adjust to being around other people – I can’t just wander out of the house, answer the door, or be with people, without melekhva; and there are a lot of people! Every family and tribe member in Boujdor has either invited us for dinner or eaten with us – it makes for a busy social life.

The house is typical Moroccan – squat toilet which doubles as the place for washing – personal, dishes, and clothes, since there is no sink. The only tap is also in the toilet, and in the mornings we fill all the buckets and bottles, because the water usually goes off after ten o’clock and doesn’t come back on until late at night. There is a room that is obviously designated as the kitchen, evidenced by the long tiled bench and spaces beneath for storing food; there is no light in there, though, so we cook on the porta – gas by candle light, just like in the tent. There is a tiny room where I sleep and write, and a larger salon, where Madani and Mbarak sleep and we eat and receive guests. The camel blankets and mattresses cover the concrete floor, and in the large corridor running through the house there are lovely mosaic tiles on the walls and floor. Friends donated a car stereo and speaker, so Madani plays his Moroccan and Saharawi music incessantly; occasionally I protest and we switch to Bob Marley, the sole Western cassette he has. The other women in the street are lovely and invite me for tea every day.

On the corner there is a tiny shop which bakes absolutely awesome bread; it is a rare treat for us to be able to buy it fresh and hot for every meal, rather than eating two day old sand bread. In the morning men wheel carts past our door calling out their wares of mint and eggs; it is strange to taste tea with mint in it again instead of the small plant we used in the desert.

Ali Baba, our faithful donkey, was the first casualty of our new circumstances. He was unceremoniously loaded into the back of a Landrover and came to town with us, where he was promptly sold. Mbarak has not quite recovered from the shock, and I doubt that Ali Baba will ever recover from the trauma of being bodily lifted into the back of the vehicle. The poor thing was terrified. At night Mbarak gets all teary whenever he thinks of Ali Baba and Chamlette; when we look at the photographs on the computer, Madani and I crow over the people, and Mbarak points wistfully at the camels. Maybe he will miss us, but there was more than the suspicion of tears on the day he hobbled the camels for the last time.

I have applied to the Royal Geographical Society in England for a grant to continue my walk into Mauritania and Mali. I have met with some guides who are interested in taking me into the next stage, but not only am I unwilling to engage someone before I know if I have the money, I am also not ready to let go of Mbarak. He has been the most wonderful guide and friend I could ever have hoped for, and now is more like family than anything else. He and Madani have been my teachers, friends, guides, and the bridge between two worlds for six months, and I will never, ever forget them, nor be able to properly express my thanks. Mbarak taught me how to tie my melekhva; how to spot meteorites amongst the rocks on the hamada; how to greet other nomads correctly, and behave with them; the names of the plants the camels feed on, and what is good or not; how to handle the camels, and pack them so they are comfortable. He sewed up my clothes when they tore, kept a secret stash of cigarettes for when supplies ran out, and showed me how to make sand bread. The things he taught me are too numerous to ever list on this site; but above all, every day, he exemplified the unquestioning hospitality, open welcome, endless patience, and unfailing good humour that the Saharawi nomads are famous for (even though he himself is Berber).

Madani has been my best mate, confidant, and in-betweener for the whole trip. He will stay with me if I can walk into Mauritania; he understands my work, and is the invaluable link between French and Arabic when my grasp of the language fails. He taught me about the zig-zag country that is the other side of Morocco; the way nothing is ever direct here, and how to recognise the bendy parts and deal with them. I would never have survived the towns without him.

People ask me how I managed a camp of Arabic men, alone, for the last five months. I say I didn’t manage a bloody thing; Madani and Mbarak managed me, with tact, patience, and understanding. I have been very lucky indeed to have such companions.

I will not hear from the Royal Geographical Society until the end of April. My visa here finishes on the 26th of that month, and I plan to stay in Boujdor for one month, and see where I am at after that. I may return to the UK for a brief organisational trip, or if I actually get invited to the final interviews for the grant; if that isn’t the case, I will be working on trying to sell some articles about this leg of the walk, and my first book, which is still in the hands of London agent Jeffrey Simmons. The difficulty he has had in selling it comes down to the fact that I am not famous enough, something which gets me down a bit.

I want very much to keep walking. I love it here, and the other major bonus about having a month in Boujdor is the time it gives me to be with other Saharawi women, and learn from them. I am increasingly fascinated by women in Saharawi culture; unique amongst the Islamic world, they have long commanded equality and respect with men both in the home and wider community. In the refugee camps of Tindouf, where thousands fled during the war between Morocco and the Saharawi liberation army (Polisario) over the Western Sahara, it is the women who are the doctors, teachers, nurses, and administrators. In the ongoing demonstrations in the Western Sahara, which remains occupied by the Moroccan government in defiance of a decision by the International Court of Justice stating that Morocco has no claim to the territory, and a UN resolution calling for a referendum on the issue, it is Saharawi women who lead the activist movement – and who are frequently persecuted and imprisoned as a result. The women work together, placing community and the wellbeing of the group far above individual achievement; and they are remarkably self assured. I have never heard a Saahrawi woman moan about her weight or appearance, or make a self deprecatory comment. I find them inspirational, and a challenge to Western notions of what constitutes feminism. I think that in Saharawi culture, the women have a stronger grasp of what being feminist truly means, than in any Ph D thesis I have ploughed through on the subject.

But I guess I am rambling on. I will keep posting – regularly, since I find life here absorbing and fascinating, and find I have a lot I want to say. You will all be subjected to my naval gazing, so apologies in advance.

In the meantime, Mbarak, Madani, and I are resting content and enjoying the odd bottle of contraband. For a month, life could be a lot worse.

All the best to you and thanks for reading; Inshallah, there will be many more months of adventure to come. If the Royal Geographical Society reads this…

SHOW ME THE MONEY!!

Cheers from the non-famous European woman in Melekhva. And PS: it is hugely difficult to upload photographs, so I willbe putting them in over several days.

boujdor

We got to Boujdor three days ago.  After we came off the piste and met up with road, about thirty kilometres from the town, the first car that passed us just happened to be – of course – family of Madani’s who live in Boujdor.  Inevitably, they are both extremely kind; and, extremely insistent we accept their hospitality.  For me this came at a bit of a bad time, as after the hassles we had in Laayoune, I had planned to get to Boujdor, book a room for a couple of days, and get some articles written and sent off; catch up on correspondence, and generally have a bit of space for the first time in four months.  But family is family, and so we have spent much of the past time in houses, being showered with kindness and generosity.  I finally put my foot down and said I had to work; but I am giving up today, since my phone rang incessantly yesterday with outraged voices demanding why on earth I am in a hotel when there are endless homes for me to stay in?  It is difficult to explain that to write I need just a bit of peace and quiet, and that is hard to find in a home with people everywhere.

But enough of the personal dilemmas – it is par for the course in Morocco and, as I have said, the family is incredibly kind and has taken care of us amazingly well, delivering water out to Mbarak at the camp and sparing nothing in order to aid us.

Thankfully the piste after Laayoune was a great deal better than the one before.  The landscape was more varied, feed for the camels plentiful, and there were a few more water stops – although they are far from regular around here, and the wells are often very saline.  We have been lucky to find large puddles from the left over rains, which is largely where we take water from; it is much fresher, if a bit brown in colour!

We hit some more big dunes through this stretch – quite startlingly beautiful, and dramatic from a distance.  Although after we had plodded through them for half a day and seen no sight of relief, even Mbarak got a little tense, and sent Madani up to the top to see if they were ever going to end; dunes might look pretty, but as far as feed for the camels or water goes, they are far from desirable.  Our camp that night, though out of the dunes, was a pretty barren, sparse affair, and we were glad to get back to the more familiar rocky hamada, where there is good vegetation and wood to build a fire for bread. 

After here, we are on the final haul to Dakhla.  It is a long stretch – 340 kilometres – without any kind of village in between.  We have heard there is water about, and okay feed, but I think all of us are feeling a little nervous about such a long stretch of isolation.  Generally, for the first six days of any walk, we can happily move twenty kilometres a day, and mentally are fine.  But – and with time I have learned it is always after six days – gradually the mental and physical strain starts to show.  Perhaps we have three nights where sleep is scarce because of the weather, or mosquitoes, or restless camels; often we walk four or five days straight into gale force head winds, which puts strain on us and the camels; or we might have several days running where our water is low and the camels haven’t eaten much, meaning we just have to stop when we find good feed, whether we have walked four kilometres or forty.  Often on this trip people (usually the gendermerie, who seem to fancy themselves expert on all things, despite never having met a camel in their life) are surprised when we say that we only walk fifteen to twenty kilometres a day.  Frequently there are comments to the tune that we should be doing thirty to forty.  Back when Gary and I walked with packs, it was customary for us to average between 25 – 35 kilometres a day; although this pace, after a year, took it’s toll on our bodies.  But there are many huge differences between this walk and that one.  For starters, at the end of a six day stretch on the last walk, we would always find either a good established camp ground with showers and general civilisation to relax in, or – more likely – a cheap hotel to sloth about in for a few days.  Here, there is no break from routine; this hotel is the first room I have stayed in since I went back to Spain, and even this is only for a night.  And I feel horrendously guilty leaving Mbarak with the camp and camels – he needs a break, too.  For us arriving in a town means simply a lot of problems – three hours here spent in the office of the gendermerie whilst they painstakingly traced our history via their colleagues through the desert, and went through all of our identification piece by piece.   Buying all of the supplies necessary for a month out on the piste is time consuming, and finding a way of getting it all back out to the camp, often difficult.  In between these things, family obligations, and trying to get some work done, there is little time for luxuries like a hammam, or finding the things really important – like sunscreen, which I ran out of on this stretch. 

We are all much happier when we start walking again.  But, as I said, at the end of a six day stretch, we start to slow down, and this time it will be very hard to take a break – probably around twenty days walking for this stretch, and nowhere, really, to stop, unless we find a good well.  We are hoping too.  There is a lot to do when we finish our walk; finding wood and making a big fire to cook the bread, and dinner (we try to save the portagas for when conditions are really bad).  Preparing the dough for the sand bread, organising the tent if weather is bad, repairing things, keeping a close eye on the camels, since there are a lot of other camel herds grazing through these parts, meaning our camels get either bolshy (if the herd is male) or extremely excited and worked up (if they are females).  We have had to get in between fighting camels a lot lately.

I don’t write all of this to moan about how difficult it is – these things are all just part of the walk, and I accept them and they do not detract from the experience.  But it’s tough when people question our progress, especially when I know myself that this has been the slowest of any leg I have done on foot, but understand totally the reasons why.  The weather during this stretch has been a big factor.

But we remain in general, in good humour, although I think we will all be glad to reach Dakhla and take some time out.  For me I have learned so much, and will know a lot more about how to organise my camp for the following leg into Mauritania.  I have spent most of the last year in Morocco; sometimes I think I am more at home here now than in my own culture.  It is a far different country to the one I experienced when we walked through last year with packs – travelling with the camels, and being accepted as part of Madani and Mbarak’s family, makes me a part of the country rather than someone simply travelling through it.  Sometimes now I knock into other tourists in town and I find myself without much to say.  Two young blokes who are just setting out on a backpacking adventure told me that our excursion was “rad, man,” and that they would really love to come walking with us.  I just smiled and said thanks, I would think about it.  They wouldn’t last a week.

The walking itself is easy, and probably the most enjoyable time of every day – that, and sleeping out on the hamada at night, which, thankfully, we have been able to do again on this stretch.  But although many people say they crave the isolation and peace of the desert, what few understand is the neverending socialisation that comes with it; there is rarely a day when we are not mixing with other nomads, visiting a tent or entertaining in our own, and here this is a long and often very traditional business.  Answering the same questions day after day, resting in a tent and speaking another language, often for hours on end, and having to always be cheerful, takes it’s toll; as does running a camp of two Arabic men, who also miss their homes, lives, and women. 

This post, I think, lacks my usual humour.  I am not down and out, no need to worry, but sometimes I think it is also necessary to tell the other face of the story, give a complete picture.  All things in life that are worthwhile and rewarding come with challenges attached, and this is no exception.  For me the trade off is absolutely worth it; I fell in love with the desert the day I saw it, and it is a love affair that has only grown stronger with time.  But it takes a lot of strength to get through life here as I have chosen it, and I am a different person to the one who set out from Mhamid.

We are heading off again tomorrow – if we don’t end up in another family home tonight – and, Insh’allah, we will be in Dakhla sometime at the start of April.  I have absolutely no idea what happens after that.  Much of my hopes about this part of the walk rested on getting some kind of publicity, in order to help sell my first book, and to raise some money.  But there has been no media interest, although this is the first time any Westerner has crossed this part of the desert on foot; and never has a woman alone attempted anything like it.  Part of me thinks I should be doing that horrible networking thing to get papers and TV interested; but something in me just balks at all of that.  I am doing this because it is what I want to do, and I love it.  All I can hope is that I will find a way to continue.  I don’t really fancy hocking my soul to all and sundry to carry on; I have got this far.  I just hope I can keep going.

So, I will leave it there, serious sounding as it all is.  Contraband booze is off the agenda this far into the Sahara Occident, so it will have been a sober old two months by the time we hit Dakhla – where, I am told, there is a plethora of bars.  Mbarak, Madani, and I have agreed that we will happily pay someone all of our combined petty cash to guard the camels for a night while we get pleasantly plastered in honour of our arrival.  If any of you adventurous tourists out there are really serious about wanting to experience the desert, here’s your chance….!

Thanks again to all who send messages to the site – and I have to say a special hello and thankyou to the Morris family: my darling mate Jodie, whose emails get me through the tough times, Andrea, who has listened to all my moans a million times, and Helen and Tony, for sending me a lovely message and reminding me that I am very lucky to have such good friends and support.

I’ll see you at the end of Morocco.

Laayoune

So, we finally got here.

It has been an interesting piece of piste - although whoever it was who told me this was one of the most scenic parts of the route, needs their head read.  Far from the luscious days between Assa and Tan Tan, with rocky massifs rearing up on either side and a peaceful ramble beside stony watercourses and pretty palmeraies, this has just been one long, flat, windswept bit of desolation.  Think "Deliverance" and you may come close to imagining it. 

The weather this close to the coast was always going to be a little inclement; but what I didn't really understand is that the problem is not that it changes constantly, but rather, that it does exactly the same thing every day - it is just that what it does is really, really foul.   The wind (lejej) starts off as a dull roar early in the morning, just enough to flap the tent about as we pack it up (heavy with the dense humidity that accompanies the nights).  By about 10 am, the dull roar has become a whipping gale, making conversation impossible, the camels uncomfortable, and inserting sand into every orifice you never knew you had.  Despite the sun being pretty strong, the wind lowers the temperature so that one rarely gets out of heavy clothing, and feels reluctant to stop for long.  By early afternoon, when we stop, the lejej is hard enough that erecting the tent is an almighty battle; not to mention the fact that actually finding a place where there is either sand to weigh down the tent, stones to hold it, or - hallelujah - ground actually soft enough to drive the pickets into, is nothing short of a miracle in itself. 

Ah, but once inside the tent, we are sheltered from the lejej.  And snugly content, one might think.  Until you realise that flies are not stupid creatures; they also recognise our tent as an excellent source of shelter and gourmadisation.  It must be like coming across the Sheraton on top of Mount Everest for those guys.  So we make our tea and eat our lunch with a multitude of crawling black mates in the middle of everything, and then settle in to regard the fascinating sight of gravel hammada being stirred into dust balls by the ever increasing wind. Although MBarak usually deals with it in his own practical fashion...

And then suddenly, it drops.  Usually just after we have cooked and eaten dinner, and are preparing to get into bed, the tent stops shaking, the chill drops from the air , and we find ourselves stripping off our layers and taking off blankets.  It is not long after this that we become uncomfortably aware that the atmosphere has changed from one of raging winds to one of dense, suffocating humidity; and along with the lovely sound of "drip, drip, drip" as the condensation runs off everything, we are treated to the sultry symphony of that most delighful of insects - the mosquito.  "Namoos", in Arabic.  Our night is then punctuated by the less than sophisticated utterances of pure frustration, as one by one we are savaged by the little bastards.  Mbarak is my favourite - he has adopted the "f" word as his own personal curse, and thrashes about in his sleeping bag saying "f___cking namoos, layla f___cking" throughout the long night.  I never cease to chuckle quietly to myself at his exhortions.

Generally I give up at about one in the morning, and venture outside for a sneaky fag and a look at the stars - and to suss out if perhaps by some miracle the mozzies are worse in the tent than on the hammada.  But five minutes, a wet bum, six new itchy spots and no sight of the stars through the layer of humidity is enough to send me scuttling back to the stillness of the tent, where at least misery has company.

Daily the thundery purple clouds threaten rain, but generally all they produce is the thick humidity that prevents us from sleeping outside - although MBarak did give it a good go for a few nights, with a tarp and stone interesting little sleeping setup.  But even he abandoned it in the end, and joined Madani and I in what we jokingly refer to as "the prison".  Ho, ho ho.

But - although you would never know it from this incredibly self pitying whinge session - there have been some lovely highlights.  For a start, the constant rain and humidity has meant that the desert has burst into flower; and more exotic, sweet smelling flowers you could never imagine.  These purple ones (Madani told me the name, but, ever terrible at science, I promptly forgot it) grow in small clumps and are vibrant and plentiful, usually by cacti.  And there are also some very plain looking yellow daisy types that give off the most extraordinary scent - like incredibly fresh citrus fruit mixed with pine needles, invigorating and sharp.  The smell of them lifts the heaviness of the lejej from mind and heart, and sweeps across the barren plain with the freshness of Spring.  We cut them and thread them through turbans and hair, in a (vain) effort to detract from our own stinkiness.

There have also - for the first time since we left the great dunes of Erg Chigaga - been a series of sand dune clusters, enough to make it look like we really are in the Sahara of the films.  There is also an ancient Spanish road (of sorts) which runs across this piste, and it is quite a funny old sight to see it disappear into the depths of the larger dunes.  It doesn't matter much where the road goes, since anyone travelling this piste finds their own route through it anyway.  The sole problem here is that of landmines, of which there are many, the twisted wrecks of cars along the route dismal proof.  I have seen more pieces of live ammunition along this piste than any other part of the Sahara; we are all in agreement that after here we will follow the road, since the following piste is in much the same state.  I don't fancy winding up buried beneath a pile of camel meat, no matter how good it may taste cooked.

Between the beginning of this piste and Laayoune there is just one small settlement, by the name of Hagunia.  On the map it actually looks like it may constitute something reasonably substantial - that is to say, there is an actual proper dot with a name attached, indicating some kind of life.  By the time we were close by Madani and I were in  frenzy of excitement - the problem, you see, is that we commenced this stage determined to quit smoking, and thus without our usual plentiful stash of contraband.

Personal note to self:

NEVER, NEVER ATTEMPT TO QUIT SMOKING IN THE SAHARA.

Particularly when there are two of you. 

By day two MBarak was on his hands and knees begging us to auto stop somewhere, anywhere, to buy ciggies, and by day three, he was hailing down every passing nomad and begging for nicotine in order to prevent the imminent double murder of Madani and I.  Finally he found one kind soul who donated a pipe and some tobacco, which we fell on with unseemly ravenous ferocity.  And so it was that all three of us looked to Hagunia with a kind of lustful anticipation, envisioning a little shop with row after heavenly row of cigarette packets, and - in MBarak's case - a sexy little nomad wench behind the counter (you really do NOT want to know how much time he dedicated to describing this particular fantasy). 

But - inevitably - it was not to be.  Hagunia, after a week of walking, was no more than a place with (okay, major bonus) a well; two slightly deranged military gentlemen on some kind of punishment duty; and - only in Morocco - an extremely officious bureaucrat who demanded passports and gave us unending pointless advice.  He told us he was the head of the local citizen's association, whoever on earth the local cit's may be.  He also told us very sternly to beware of the deadly family of polisario camped in the next tent.

That would be the incredibly genial old man who invited us for tea and offered to slaughter a goat in our honour, then.

It was the day after this that I took a tumble down a nasty piece of hammada on the way to water the camels, and managed to tear half the ligaments in my ankle; unfortunately there was sod all I could do about it, since we were way beyond the black stump, so to speak, and the chances of hitching to Laayoune were next to nothing.  In the end I walked on it for three days until we found a lift into town, where Madani and I spent a pretty stressful couple of days getting x-rays done and trying to find a lift back out to the camp.  It was a semi-deranged MBarak we found, worried the water would run out, and without a soul to speak to.

So it was that when we limped here to the outskirts of Laayoune earlier today we were a bit of a sorry old bunch, although extremely glad to be putting the mosquito piste behind us.  Unfortunately Madani has been on the hunt for contraband booze since we arrived in town, and has yet to find any, which  is rather worrying - after a stretch that long and ugly one has the need for all things sinful.  But at least we have blessed cigarettes, MBarak has a halfway decent camp, and if I am really lucky there will be a hammam open tomorrow, since I have sand in places that don't bear thinking about.

I guess my love affair with the desert had to diminish sometime, and this stretch has really been a sod.  I never mind the heat, cold, wind, or rain, if I can just have a few moments of glory in the night; but this time, those moments were precious few, and the walking a painful grind.  But there were moments of beauty, and I try to hang on to those; and besides, Inshallah, there will be plenty more in time to come, and this will be but a frustrated smoker's bad dream.

I will write again in Boujdor - hopefully just two weeks away.

All being well.

Oh dear, that sounds suspiciously like inviting trouble...

Festival, feasting, and Spain again

When Madani headed back to his family for Eid Kabeera, the fete of mutton, I sent the camera with him, since I thought I might be spending a rather solitary time of it in the tent.  As it turned out I had a wildly sociable time with a nomad family camped nearby, and sorely missed the camera; but nonethless, Madani got some great pics of his time with the family, although I can only feature a few of them on here.

This is him with his family and the unfortunate sheep.  The process of slaughtering and eating is a ritualised one in Saharawi culture, following fairly strict traditions.  After the throat is slit in the usual halal fashion (leaving the streets running with blood, since every family slaughters a beast) the carcass is skinned and hung to drain the blood. 

Then the tissue from the front of the chest is taken (I know a million people out there are going to correct me on names and locations of animal pieces, but I am no expert and just have to describe what I saw) and dried.  Meanwhile the sweetmeats are cooked up over a coal brazier, whilst the tender meat from the neck is strung onto skewers and wrapped in the dried tissue ready to grill.  It is a wonderfully relaxed, convivial gathering, with everybody preparing something; the women wrapping the intestines into plaited ropes, ready for a later pot, the meat being wrapped and skewered, and over it all the wonderful smell of fresh meat grilling over the hot coals.

This is Madani's family in the process of preparing everything.  I was in a tent on this day, the guest of a very kind family who wouldn't hear of me eating alone for the fete.  I was captivated by the bustle of activity, as everyone from the youngest of children to the eldest of grandparents participated in preparing the meat, all sitting in a congenial group in the smoky tent, talking and laughing, singing as the delicious smells wafted through the space and out into the desert.  The small girls of the tent,  no more than six years old, picked up the babies when they cried and comforted them, leaving their mothers free to carry on working.  The children in the tents are so capable; one small girl, no more than eight, returned to the tent to eat her brochettes and then resignedly pulled her sandals back on and marched back out onto the hammada to guard the thirty or so goats the family own, with not so much as a word of protest.  She ran here and there, whistling and using her stick to drive them into good feed, quite confident in her role.  The other young girls in the tent variously operated as baby carers, cleaners, fetch and carriers, or simply general dogsbodies.  They never stopped working and never once did I hear them complain that a task was too hard, even when it involved a large, heavy cauldron of boiling water being shifted from the fire to the tent.  It was a lovely family and I felt thoroughly welcomed and at home, not to mention utterly stuffed with wonderful meat!

Meanwhile Madani had a marvellous time being with his family again, and similarly stuffed himself into gastronomic heaven.  We met in Agadir on my way back to Spain, and had a few very civilised beers in a quiet courtyard bar.  It was a very odd experience for me, almost like being back in Europe; we kept looking at each other and bursting into nervous giggles, wondering if it was totally obvious to all there that a couple of stinking nomads had just come to town.  The next day we handed over and Madani returned to the camp, where I just spoke to him and he is going suitably loopy on his own, bless him.

I then embarked on the mother of all horrendous bus rides.  For various reasons I had to go to Ouarzazate before heading back to Marrakech; this alone was a very cold eight hour bus ride.  After a night there, I got on the bus I have done many a time, the route from Ouarzazate across the High Atlas mountains to Marrakech.  Unfortunately this year Morocco, like much of Europe, has experienced a particularly harsh winter.  As the temperature in the (unheated) bus got increasingly icy, we arrived at the barrier which marks the entrance to the infamous Tizi n Tichka pass - featured some time ago in this diary page when Gary and I crossed it on foot last year.  There were something like 100 vehicles backed up in front of the barrier, and snow was falling in thick, heavy curtains.  We came to a stop and the driver informed everyone that he had high hopes the barrier would open later in the day; we would wait until then.  There was not a word of protest on board, despite the fact that the temperature in the bus was falling to subzero temperatures, the sole food supplier in the little village had closed after being besieged by the passengers of all the coaches stopped at the pass, and many people had connecting buses in Marrakech they were likely to miss.  Everybody simply settled in and began chatting, sharing out their blankets, putting on extra layers of clothes, and sharing whatever food they had.  After a couple of hours a local woman turned up with a huge pot of soup which she charged 3 dirham a bowl for; it was wonderful, and just what we needed, since by this time it was 3 in the afternoon - the bus having left at eight that morning.

One by one the trucks and buses turned around and headed back to Ouarzazate, convinced the barrier wouldn't open.  Ahead of us the odd vehicle was still passing; the common conclusion was that if one had enough cash to hand over to the gendarme on the barrier, the bad conditions would be forgotten.  But finally it became obvious that the snow wasn't easing off, and our driver admitted that even if we all pitched in to pay baksheesh, he wasn't overly comfortable tackling the steep descent in fading daylight and heavy snow.  We all agreed with this, and then a lengthy debate ensued about the best course of action: should we return to Ouarzazate, and give people the choice to end their journey; should we go to Agadir and then on to Marrakech (an enormous detour of about eight hundred km) or should we chance the alternate pass over Taznact and Taroudannt, also a major detour but slightly less than Agadir, albeit with the dodgy mountain road?  This became the final choice in what was a very civilised group discussion.  Everybody on the bus coughed up the fifty dirham per head to cover the extra costs involved, nobody saying anything about the few women on the bus with small children who didn't have the money.  And so we set off.

But the weather got worse, and because so many other buses had chosen the same route, every town we came to had sold out of food after servicing the unusual demand; as the bus trundled on through the treacherous night, we shivered and shook with the cold and shared the bread and cheese we had been able to buy.  Behind me a women with three small children, one a new infant, was helped by the two crusty old blokes opposite me who simply took control of the two older ones (toddlers), cradling them on their knees to keep them warm, talking and playing endlessly with them all night, taking them to the toilet when the bus stopped, finding them food and drink, leaving the mother free to look after her new baby.  All over the bus I was struck by how incredibly kind everyone was to each other; there was not one raised voice or dispute, no complaining about missed connections or inconvenience, or the terrible cold, even when the bus was stopped at another barrier for a further three hours.  Sometimes I would hear a mobile phone ring, and the laconic answer would go along the lines of : "Oh, hi!  Yeah, everything is ok, just a bit of a hold up on the bus, no I'm fine - how are you?"  Never once did I hear anybody get distressed and say what a nightmare it was.  I know I go on frequently in this diary page about the extraordinary humanity of Moroccans, but never was it more amply demonstrated to me than through that terribly long, cold night, when the priority of everyone on the bus seemed to be to look after the other, and laugh at the situation with great good humour.  Somehow, even though buses were sliding into each other and cars going off the road in near zero visibility, and half the bus was close to hypothermia, the calm, resigned acceptance took out the element of panic one would expect in such conditions.

In the end it was 28 hours on the bus when we pulled into Marrakech; 28 hours for a trip that usually takes no more than seven, and it was a stiff, cold, tired crew that lurched into the cafe for tea and kissed each other goodbye. 

My journey to Spain after that was uneventful, just the train up to Tangier (on which I met a man from Belgium, blonde as you like, who told me his mother was an exiled Saharawi woman and he was the long lost prophet of the Saharawi people....hmmm) followed by the boat to Algeciras, and the bus up to Malaga, where I am now blissfully ensconced in a lovely little apartment with Gary, whom it is heaven to see again.  The sheer luxury of eating glorious Spanish food again, and drinking wine in the sun by the sea, is impossible to describe; one could not have asked for a more perfect break, not to mention the bliss of talking to the one person who really understands the walk.  Unfortunately for the time being we will remain apart, since Gary has commitments elsewhere, and the walk must continue; we are hoping this situation will change by Dakhla at the latest.  In the meantime we are having a wonderful week and thoroughly enjoying the break and each other's company.

I am not at all looking forward to the travel back to Tan Tan, though I know of course that once I am back in my camp in the glorious peace of the desert I will be perfectly content once more.  It is just the getting there that drives me nuts! 

Normally I finish a post with a photo, but they are a bit in short supply this week due to my laziness.  I promise more next time.  In the meantime it will be some time before there is an update, possibly until we finish the piste stretch to Laayoune.  I will catch you all there, and if I have time, post before then with some more photos.  To all my mates who have sent such lovely emails, man, I miss you all, and really, really love hearing from you.  Have a beer for me (and I will raise a glass to you all here in sunny Spain...)

Cheers.

Sahara blues

If all goes according to plan, you will view some pictures on this blog.  But this is Morocco - the Sahara Occident, in fact - and very rarely do things go to plan.  Thus it is highly likely that you will not be able to see what I have been up to, and so I shall endeavour to paint a few pictures in words.

We have been having some weather out here in the desert.  It has been some six years since the Western Sahara had good rains; and so - yes, you guessed it - this year the powers that be decided it was a good time to dump the accumulated precipitation in one great, torrential, seemingly endless, catastrophe.  We have had rain, wind, more rain, more wind, mist, more rain, cold, wind again, the odd bit of very hot sun, and then more wind.  The rivers have flooded.  Nomads were washed away, tents, goats, Landrovers and all - some eighty lives lost in this region alone, not that this makes the news, because of course they are just nomads - who would miss them?  The prediction of MBarak - more reliable than any news service, by far - is that this weather pattern is likely to continue for most of this month, in this region. 

Wonderful.

We no sooner came to terms with the erratic weather than Mimi, one of the best of our four camels, injured his foot; it is not a huge problem, according to the combined wisdom of the many nomads who have examined it, chewed their pipes thoughtfully, drunk tea and delivered a verdict, but nonetheless our Mimi is not in a condition to walk for a couple of weeks.  Due to the weather, we had walked only 100 km skirting Tan Tan, to the place where the long piste road to Laayoune commences.  This piste will be three weeks of nothing - no villages, just absolutely nothing but desert.  I love stretches like this, but this time there were a lot of things to think of - after the 22nd of January I am illegal, and thus must exit and re-enter in order to renew my visa.  Gary is arriving in Spain on the 18th of January, and I had planned to meet him there  for a sybaritic break before travelling back to the camp together.  The idea of being on the piste when the visa runs out, and having to deal with the angst of the gendarmerie in Laayoune when they realise they have an illegal in their midst was a less than appealing prospect; and also highly likely, given the inclement weather.  On top of these considerations, in eight days there is the grand fete - Eid Kabeera - the fete de mutton, the Islamic equivalent, fiesta and gourmandisation speaking, of Christmas in Christian countries.  For MBarak and Madani it is a difficult time to be away from their families - not to mention cooped up in a tent with an alcohol deprived, itchy footed Australian woman whilst the wind howls outside.  I made an executive decision to take a long halt of nearly one month in order for both of the men to return to their families for the fete; for Mimi to recover; for the weather to stop; and for me to reach Spain before the visa finishes.  In this way when Gary returns we can enjoy the piste together, something I would like very much since it is one of the most dramatic stretches of the Western Sahara.

So, yesterday, with the sun uncharacteristically shining and poor old Mimi galiantly limping along, we walked until we found a fantastic place to camp -  a well, great feed for the camels, small palmeraie, and close enough to the road for me to wave down the police if I need them, just near the point where the piste track takes off into the wilds.  We put up the tent in a good spot, and took stock of our supplies - at which point I begged a short leave of absence in order to return here, to Tan Tan, and buy necessary items such as booze and fags.  Very fortunately for me, the gendarmes in the nearby village are exceedingly hospitable, and not only drove me in to town, but also directed me to the best place to buy contraband booze - and negotiated a very good price.  Extremely understanding, bless 'em.  They have promised MBarak faithfully that they will arrive every day to check I am ok, and since I have now met their wives as well, not to mention the numerous nomads camped in the vicinity, I somehow doubt that I will have a very solitary time of it. 

Despite having been an extremely frustrating month in terms of day after day of enforced halt, I was very fortunated to run into a French bloke by the name of Jean, the  last time we were in Tan Tan.  He came back to our camp with us, and provided me with a marvellous week of speaking blessed ENGLISH, and communing with my own culture once more - a rather strange experience, actually, after such a long time in the Sahara.  I made a concerted effort to take my melekhva off after he commented that he found it rather odd to have a discussion with a woman completely wrapped up.  I tend to forget it, to the point where I feel rather naked without it; I have been trying to wear my "tourist clothes" a bit in order to remind myself of my other life.  One thing I did realise, when he started to take photos of us walking, is that I am wearing the same melekhva in every shot; he reckons I should explain that I have one for walking, and others for socialising.  (It is the French mentality and obsession with chic - I know all the Australians out there couldn't care less). 

Unfortunately for Jean he arrived at the same time as the weather, so he spent rather more time flaked in the tent with us than striding through the desert; but he bore all of this with incredible good humour, and was a very welcome addition to our camp for a week.  All the best with the rest of your travels, Jean.

In amongst all of this we passed Christmas and New Year.  On Christmas day we were camped just by a nomad family with a seemingly unlimited supply of unmarried females of a suitable age, much to the glee of MBarak and Madani. I spent a wonderful day in the women's tent having intricate henna decorations tattooed on my hands and feet, a very long process and a lot of work for the women who created them.  Not for me, however; I spent the day reclining on cushions and being fed.  Yep, pretty much my idea of paradise, as we all know.  It was rather amusing for me to try to explain the concept of Christmas; they had never heard of Christ, let alone Christmas.

Both Christmas and New Year were celebrated with a couple of bottles of the good old contraband.  (I swear that when, or if, I ever return to European society I will forget that it is possible to enter a shop and buy alcohol legally, and go searching out the nearest Landrover with tarp covered back.)    It was a pretty low key celebration, all in all.  Everyone here is of course waiting for the real festival, when every family buys a goat or sheep and slaughters it in the ritual halal manner of slitting the throat, and then gorges unrestrainedly on meat, meat, meat for two days.  After years of being a temperate meat eater, I have turned into a raging carnivore during this trip, and salivate eagerly every time I think of barbequed brochette.  No goat is safe near my camp right now.

I got a bit down for a week or so, when I felt that we were getting nowhere.  And then I thought back to last year, when we were forced to halt in Paris for a month, and how I nearly went stir crazy; I thought of how afterwards, I realised that if I had just accepted that we would be stopped for a month, I could have enjoyed Paris so much more than