Finally got a peaceful morning, the bikes have all gone off to watch the Shamrock Rally that is happening here and I have stayed behind because driving the land rover would be manic with all the rally vehicles rushing to the start. It apparently used to be Rally Maroc, goodness knows how it suddenly got to be Irish! They are hoping to see some top riders though so I am sure they will come back all excited.
We area in a lovely camp site in Zagora and the sun is just coming up, promising to be hot today. We have had rain and cool weather until now.
I have been driving the land rover for 2 days now through all kinds of terrain. Yesterday afternoon I think they gave me my initiation test, saying the land rover will never make it through here but I was fine!! It was bone rattling tough terrain but no cliffs to the side, well not much anyway so I didn’t need to panic. Just keep momentum and moving forward slowly.
Morocco is very different to Kenya. Kenya was colonised by the British and lots of those ways still exist, like tea for breakfast and the church is everywhere. Morocco was administered by the French, which everybody speaks so I am struggling to remember mine. It is cafe au lait for breakfast, with the mosque call to prayer in the background. It all feels very new to me, but I am getting to like it. The scenery is dramatic and harsh. Yesterday we drove the valley of the thousand kasbahs (forts) all along the river lined with palm trees, quite amazing. The goat herders wear jallabahs and it looks biblical. We had to stop for a herd of camels to cross the road, not something that happens every day.
The bikers are mostly doing well. It is quite grueling at times. The worst moment was a silly one, Mick was just wandering across the road to talk to us in the land rover and you can’t see or hear much in a helmet and he didn’t look and a car doing at least 120kph almost killed him. He just turned his wheel at the last moment when the car sounded his horn. We had all shut our eyes and expected him to be dead when we opened them, it was horrible. In general though the roads and drivers are ten times better than Kenya, so driving has been pleasant. They actually have road signs and they do pretty much stick to one side of the road. It is the children running down to the road to shout for bonbons that scare me. The other day I had 2 hanging on the bike that is strapped to the back of the LandRover and I couldn’t slow down too much or we would be swarmed by them, not in a  bad way, but it is a bit overwhelming. So I just keep crawling along and hope they give up and jump off eventually.
Mark is hovering over me to check his emails, so I will sign off for now and maybe add more later!!