TEAM RURAL CHIC

PLYMOUTH DAKAR 2005

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Team Journal

6/01/2005:  Well here is our first official journal entry, quite a lot has happened since we first started the venture almost a year ago, however the time of departure is finally drawing near. At this time we pretty much have the car as ready as its ever going to be, apart from the hunt for a spare gearbox (seems major I know, but I’m sure it will be fine) The only other teething troubles have been a blocked carb. (several times), bonnet flying off because I forgot to fasten it down (now slightly dented) and lastly one of the brakes seizing solid, which has now also been fixed (I hope).

     Anyhow…. All is going smoothly.  Oh, we also bagged ourselves a slot in the Alton Herald newspaper over Christmas…. (I’m still bracing myself for all the MAG donations to be received from that one, but it’s a start).

17/01/2005: The more important things really are progressing. With just over 4 weeks to go, our mate ‘gorgeous’ Dave has been kind enough to donate bead seats for the car!! Oh what comfort! Not only that, but he has donated a fire extinguisher, medical kit and a photo of himself (only joking).  All we can say to this extreme generosity is ‘cheers Dave!’

 

Right: No not a young David Hasslehoff , but our mate ‘gorgeous’ Dave, generous donor of beaded seat covers.

For the most up to date news on our progress please go to the link below where we will text in regular updates on all our inter-continental antics! (if this page isn’t updated very often)

 

                         Link to regular Rural Chic Updates

5/02/2005: With only a week and  half to go, we decided to take a journey to Yeovil to meet up with some fellow adventurers. After approximately 5 miles we hit our first hitch with a break down! Without too much hassle the problem was put down to a blocked jet, perhaps not the best of starts but we made it there and back without further miss-hap. Nothing else to report, just looking forward to the big push to Portsmouth harbour on Thursday the 17th.

15/02/2005: Forty eight hours to go! With the trip edging ever nearer, paranoia that the car will fall apart on leaving has started to set in. With our final test run to London successfully achieved, and the evasion of light fingered Chavs stealing shiny pieces of our car everything seems to be going well. One more entry before departure, then any regular update will be texted into the main site. Go there if you're interested.

17/02/2005: With 1 hour till we leave for the ferry port there is some apprehension in the air. The car is packed up and due to all the weight now has minimal ground clearance (not so good for the desert!) I'm sure we will end up forgetting something important but oh well. Good drinking session with friends last night, and am still feeling the effects of ’old thumper ale’, maybe not the best way to start! Signing off until we decided to text in our progress. Bon Voyage!

10/03/2005: Above is a copy of text  messages received from the team to date. A phone call was received from Simon on 28 Feb, saying that they have just reached Dakhla (that is now with over 2,500 miles behind them!)  The road runs out fairly soon into desert and they expect to be out of contact for the next five to seven days after leaving Nouâdhibou.  All has been reported to be running well.  Sand could be a problem.  Not just in filters , but also because the car sits fairly low the petrol tank is taking a lot of wear and may have to be moved to a different position in the car, possible using a jerry can as a temporary tank.  Sounds as though all are enjoying the experience! 

15/03/2005: All done and dusted! No major problems. Should be back at Gatwick some time tonight.  Will update site as soon as possible!

Team diary of what happened (being written when I  have time)

It is the end of an era…   Yes we have returned from what could have been one of the most legendary trips to date.

 

I feel I should firstly apologise for the lame way in which we have updated our website on route. There is a good excuse for this, being that my mobile failed to work almost the whole way down. Anyway the story shall begin on the night of the 17^th of February, Team Rural Chic’s D-Day...

 

 

France and Spain

 

We clambered into the Fiat to leave for Portsmouth through the only working door. The car was packed to bursting (mostly with essentials such as the ‘shit station’ and our body boards)

 

We arrived at the ferry and once on board subjected ourselves to a barrage of bad Celine Dion covers performed by some wobbly pop idol reject, after around ten minutes of the magic show which proved poor at best we decided to hit the sack.

 

On arriving to St Malo the aim was to reach Biarritz for some evenings merriment. This drive was bloody long and fairly tedious, around Bordeaux the snow started falling but the Fiat and the car stereo was going strong.

 

We arrived in Biarritz at around 5 pm with no problems at all, we had only see one other car doing the rally, which shot past us on the motorway near Bayonne, our sedate 100 Km/h was no match for keeping up so that was the last we saw of them.

 

The night in Biarritz was a pretty funny experience, made extra funny by the cheesy house and French fashion that was thrust upon us. After getting fairly inebriated we passed out and prepared for the mammoth drive to Granada in Spain that we planned for the next day.

 

Sunday arrived and we hit the road for Spain. Driving over the Pyrenees was a tedious task that was complimented by the horrible scenery of heavy industry that seemed to litter the countryside. It was almighty cold in the mountains, which wasn’t a problem until our steering rack started to fall apart. We were forced to stop at some miserable service station where I promptly dropped the bonnet fasteners down a drain. Whilst Ru proceeded to fish them out with some wire, I lay under the car in the snow trying to fix the problem. Somehow we managed to bodge it and carried on with absolutely no thanks to the old Spanish bint who tried to chase us off the fore court whilst the car was in bits.

 

The steering problem stayed dormant for around 150 miles but then reared its ugly head worse than ever. Once again we were forced to stop, and with the help of some local chavs on quads we found a garage. We waited there for a good couple of hours for the owner who finally turned up. Grumbled and coughed a few comments, shook his head and drove off again. ‘Bugger’ we though, and carried on carefully to Granada with the horrible thought the steering wheel would fall off.

 

We finally reached Granada just before midnight that night after eating some succulent motorway lambs neck tapas. Lovely!  We had been driving for around 15 hours and were so bloody tired I suggested sleeping in the car as there seemed to be not one bloody hotel free! The feeling was along the lines of could this get any worse! After about two hours we found a hotel, but were too tired to go out.

 

Day 3 involved getting to Gibraltar (Sotogrande). All was going well and we arrived at the hotel in Sotogrande around lunchtime. Here we met the first few teams. Everyone seemed desperate to head off to Africa, so whilst we hung around for a day of viewing monkeys an ex-pats a large proportion of the teams steamed off to Africa. After a fair amount of deliberation and beer from the local Irish bar (drinking local hey!) We has a swift change of plan and decided to cross to Tangiers rather than Ceuta, as it was supposed to be much improved on previously years. So on day 4, still on our own we left for Africa behind most of the teams….

 

 

Morocco

 

This is when the fun really began. We jumped aboard our ferry to Tangier with slight apprehension, the ticket price was our first sodding rip-off of the journey and cause a light bit of friction, but really the choice was academic, as we had to get the boat. Whilst on board we polished off a few formalities ahead of the boarder and bought up the ships supply of gin to keep moral up. As we drove off the ferry the onslaught began. What the Moroccans call ‘Fixers’ began swarming round us all wanting a piece of the Mendus wallet. For the princely sum of 5 euros we had been told that they will very much speed up the ludicrous formalities. What a bargain we thought and after a few bit of paper has been sorted I slipped some kind man my 5 euro note I have positioned in my pocket. He then proceeded to run off as I realised he had only done half of what was supposed to be done. Foiled at the first hurdle! After this we tried to carry on by ourselves, which isn’t really a problem apart from the fact that anyone with what is barely passable as a uniform on runs off with your passport, however we did survive with all our paper work in tact. We cruised off into the heart of Tangiers trying to find the road to our destination Chefchouaen. As we left the city we realised we had forgotten the most important and yet the most useless of documents, the car insurance! With much annoyance we carried on with the idea of buying some in Fez.

 

The road to Chefchouaen was fine if you ignore the kamikaze dogs and children that run out in front of the car. As it got dark we approached Chefchouaen, which happens to be the centre of hash production for Europe, this sounds intriguing however it has its problems mainly being that there is tonnes and tonnes of hash which locals have and are trying to flog to unsuspecting tourists to earn a little money. This is fine if you want some, but not so fine if you don’t as the locals take it upon themselves to chase you in the dark in our case, trying to force you off the road to selling you a couple of kilos of the stuff. This proved our first slightly buttock clenching moment of the trip as this golf chased us down, over took and proceeded to force us onto the dirt, with a bit of quick thinking and a total disregard for a local dogs life which was sitting on the opposite side of the road knowing on the last tourist to be stopped, we overtook the crazed dealers whilst ploughing through a village, narrowly missing Fido and his prize piece of bone. First incident over with.

 

On the final arrival in Chefchouaen, and the inevitable hour of getting lost we checked into hotel Salam, this place was fine, with the exception that the average nightly temperature felt like –10 degrees C.  The town was amazing and we felt like we were in some kind of Howard Marks novel as every corner some shifty local waved a nine-bar in our face and asked for the princely sum of around £5. In all fairness this town was great and has amazing views from the hills above. We decided to spend a couple of nights here, waiting for a few teams who were catching up behind us. I decided to go in for the Arabic style hair cut, when meant a Barber hacked away at my head at around 400 chops per second whilst telling me how he didn’t like tourists. With the feeling that I may had eaten my last Lamb Tagine I politely carried on conversation. In actual fact he proved to be a very nice man, although his hair cutting skills had a lot to be desired!

 

Late on day 2 in Chefchouaen the other teams finally appeared. Into a restaurant walked Team Bronco, Sons of Hasselhoff, and Boarder cross. I think they were somewhat overcome by my overexcited banter at actually seeing other teams but at last we were not on our own.

 

The next day the other teams needed to make repairs and me and Ru felt we had to get on the move. After looking at Geoff and Chuck s brakes from Sons of Hasselhoff, and informing them the reason why their car wouldn’t stop was because they had no brake pads left, Ru and I moved on towards Fez.

 

We arrived in Fez without problem, however the steering rack was still really bad. We spent the evening wondering around the Medina, and getting really lost and pestered by kids. This was probably the first time the phrase ‘Donne moi une cadeaux’ was repeated by hundreds of kids constantly for hours on end! AAAHHHH!!! After trying to have a football match with some local kids we decided we would be nice and give them one of our top class plastic footballs we have stashed for emergencies. All they did was legged it off without even a thank you, then came back one minute later and had the audacity to ask for money and or a ‘cadeaux’!!!  ‘Ungrateful bastards’ was my initial thought, which actually didn’t change for much of the way.

 

On the long drive over the mountains from Fez to Marrakech the steering got even worse on the car, so we both made the decision to try and get it repaired by some local Moroccan mechanic. We stopped in a small town in the arse end of nowhere, whilst some locals preceded to strip the car to bits. With some concern we decided to go and find some food during the process. This is when things started to go wrong…

 

After spotting what I thought was some kind of display of a typical lamb tagine the locals were able to offer I promptly ordered one. It takes ok but the wedge of spinal chord and stodgy cous-cous was enough to make the most trustworthy of men suspicious. Anyhow, after our food we carried on waiting and waiting and waiting for the local mechanics to try and fix the ailing Fiat. After much deliberation and cups of mint tea then mechanics decided the bushing had collapsed in the steering column, and then continued to tell me it was unfixable. With a look of horror on my face I re-asked the question of can they fix it, he repeated ‘no’ then continued to say how they could do a temporary repair. We then felt a bit more relieved as the man disappeared to try and find a replacement part. Hour after hour past by, and this town was bloody freezing. Not only was it sub-zero temperatures, but to add to the misery the lamb tagine has started to repeat on us. Felling really very very ill the car was finally fixed with what looked like the end of a crutch. This just reinforced what we had heard about the ingenuity of the African mechanics, and with the total bill of about £14 we carried on our way.

 

After a few hours it was dark and we were feeling so ill we decided to check into the best hotel we could find half way between Fez and Marrakech. By the best hotel I meant the equivalent of a –1 * in the UK, but it seemed to do the job. The night unfolded in what can be best described as a lot of vomit and trips to the bog. It was one of those hellish nights that seemed like they would never end! It was also the night that made me decide my days of tucking into lamb tagines were definitely numbered.

 

The next day we drove to Marrakech, and all seemed to be going pretty well. We arrived totally knackered around 6 O’clock, and made the educated decision that a Mc Donald’s was going to be the prime choice for blocking up our cuts, as staying local as you should we managed to track down the golden arches. After eating our fill and having an argument with one of the many parking attendant / protection racketeers who say they will guard your car for money and if not you will mysteriously find you car missing a wheel or worse (call me a cynic) we moved on to a hotel and had another rock night on the toilet. (Dam that tagine!) During the late evening I thought it best to ring the others we knew to be behind us, on calling them we actually discovered they had overtaken us and were on their way to Agadir. So there we were, officially last in the group and unable to hold down even a Mc Donald’s for more than an hour.

 

The next day we were off at 7 to try and catch everyone up, we swiftly paid the local protection racked for their services on the car (ha ha) and moved off. I especially still had great concern that if we were to break down there was no one behind us to help us out, so it was much to my relief when we finally arrived around Agadir and rang the other to find out we had caught up.

 

In a petrol station south of Agadir we met with several teams. This is where we seemed to officially for our group consisting of: Sons of Hasselhoff, Team Bucking Bronco, Team ReVOLVOr, Team RADAR, Team Badger Racing, Team Conedodgers oh and of course Sid and his son Martin who from Spain onward seemed to have had the worst luck around, which didn’t seem to improve at all. (But that’s another story)

 

We all carried on to the boarder town to Western Sahara called Tan-Tan. This part of the drive was very long, arid and rally not that stimulating on the senses. On this stretch of road there seemed to be endless police stops where we had to handover a ‘fische,’ which is a pointless information form they are obsessive about.

 

On finally arriving at Tan-Tan we had reached the official start of the desert, however we still had good tarmac all the way to the Mauritanian boarder. We decided to head from our first camp site which we thought was 4.5 km south of Tan-Tan, however after a gruelling drive almost all the way to Layonne we finally arrived late at night. The drive through the dark was treacherous at best, the road was thin with sharp edges on both sides with regular sheer drops off the edge. This wasn’t too much of a problem but then to add to the misery there were regular lorries driving towards us with full beam on the whole time. This caused a complete blinding for us, and with the road not being wide enough for both lorry and car we were regularly forced onto the dirt/sand/sheer drop.

 

We still hadn’t found the mystery camp site and us and Geoff and chuck from the sons of Hasselhoff we getting increasing desperate to find somewhere to sleep. After passing the one and only petrol station we had seen in the past 200 miles we decided to turn back to stay there. This is the first point where team rural chic thought their lives were at an end…

 

In the dark on a thin road a 3-point turn was attempted, with the car positioned across the road and a lorry bearing down on us minus several headlights, there was great panic, followed by the car stalling. In the panic I jumped out to try and push the car out of the way, but Ru thought I was bailing out to save my own skin, so proceeded to follow through the only door that opened. During this fascicle exercise Ru whacked his head on the car as I was desperately trying to pull it to safety. When the car failed to move I think by the look on our faces we had accepted defeated and awaited our imminent death by lorry. Luckily we averted a potential grizzly end as the lorry driver had actually seen us and to our disbelief we had managed to meet properly the only African lorry whose brakes were still working.

 

Geoff and Chuck looked on in disbelief at what had just happened, and then informed us that the lorry had actually stopped well in advance of hitting us, but that still didn’t take away the feeling of near death.

 

We decided to carry on driving and I took the helm to try and reach this mystery campsite. After around another hour, on the approach to Layonne we saw a sign pointing off the road saying ‘camping 4.5 km’ the relief was fairly high as we were totally knackered by now, however this 4.5 km was not on a road, but just over mud and stones. So we proceeded to crunch along this tundra like desert and after getting lost a few times we finally found the campsite.

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