2nd December 2012

Crisis Bulletin!

Where to begin…first the nice stuff.

Well we have encountered some supremely helpful people in the last few days. 

Those nice chaps at Iveco Casablanca

The guys at the Iveco dealer who diagnosed that our steering rack has to be replaced.  Obliging, kind, helpful and took a sharp intake of breath when I asked where I might get a right hand drive steering rack.  ‘Well we may get one from Italy but it will take a month’. Their boss would not permit them to charge us until the whole job is done.

We have identified the need to get a more sophisticated GPS device and having spoken to loads of useless people who did not know enough to advise us as to what to get, we found Bernard Houlier  down in Casablanca.  His company is a merchandiser of Marine equipment. Having recently taken on the Garmin dealership, he is quite accustomed to selling these things in wholesale quantities. 

He was such a delightful man who took time out from his busy schedule to, not only sell us just one  but also to show us in detail how to use it. He then allowed and helped us use his computer to download maps of Africa from Garmin.  He spent ages with us speaking his excellent English both entertaining and informative. Having experienced our protracted and stressful journeys around city centres without knowing our way around, this gadget should be great.

So Bernard recommended a camp site just outside Casablanca and armed with our new GPS, of course we got a bit lost.  We found a campsite probably not the same one, but it was horrible. We were hungry for a wifi  site and a hot shower. Sadly the unhappy old man in charge said ‘no wifi’ and looking astonished at the question, told us that there were no showers.  We found ourselves wondering what was the purpose of a campsite with no facilities  when we realised that there was a pack of 4 German Shepherd dogs roaming around in the dark outside the van. The man was nowhere to be seen.  Actually the whole thing was rather spooky. So we bailed out and spent a comfortable night on the forecourt of a petrol station.

We returned to the Ocean Bleu as we had to collect visas for Guinea from Rabat. In contrast to the treatment we got in the Mauritanian embassy the lady in the Guinea embassy was a true delight. Charming, relaxed and quite beautiful. What more could one ask for?

Time has passed and I got to realising that we have not made any progress in getting our steering rack. I was getting a bit upset. I set up the van for the night and found that something in the winding mechanism of the awning broke I couldn’t wind it out fully or wind it back in. it was getting cold and dark. So I thought what’s the worst that can happen? I will leave it leave and look at it in the morning.

That night we had a really bad storm Lots of wind and rain, and at about 4 am there was a loud crash which was of course the awning being torn apart and ripped from the side of the van. It was completely ruined. 

In the morning as I was still getting my head around these mounting problems, Ping knocked up a great breakfast. 

                                      Pre dental  crisis breakfast

As we were enjoying it one of her front teeth broke off and came out. So the day was taken up with collecting our visas, negotiating with a parts company in the UK to find out if they have the right parts for us. We had to find a dentist for Ping. Now I have to say that a lot of this was made possible by our new GPS. Ping went on the interweb and found the very first entry ‘do you need a dentist in Rabat? The entry was from a traveller who  had a good experience and gave all details including Coordinates for the GPS. 

We found the dentist who seemed very nice though he may have been an axe murderer for all we know as he spoke no English.  He removed the remains of Ping’s tooth in under 5 minutes and insisted on showing the bloody remains to her where she nearly passed out. She was fine up until then.  She has to go back for two more visits.

So to sum up we are in a country that appears to be full of people who only want to be helpful if only we could talk to them. We are getting to grips with the mechanical problems (though we still have no idea how to get these parts). We are managing to make some kind of a provisional awning from parts salvaged from the wreckage. Interestingly the Italian man at the campsite managed to salvage some parts of the mechanism to get his own broken awning working. It’s a funny old world .  So we continue to kick our heels in really quite bad weather, most days are quite cold with torrential rain. If we don’t get our problems sorted by a week today then we will have to go back to Rabat and get a new visa for Mauritania  as we won’t have time to travel down before it expires.

This the guy next door salvaging parts from our trashed awning to make his own one work

I know it sounds like all we do is moan, and it is true that a number of things have not turned out as we expected, but actually we are not in bad shape at all.  If only we can stop Ping’s teeth from falling out!

The latest is that John in Charlton may have a steering rack for us by Monday.

  

Oh and on my birthday I bought a nice bottle of Morrocan Merlot to celebrate. I have been looking forward to it. The cork crumbled as I opened it . and when I tasted it Blurkgghhh!!!

Still look on the bright side theres always someone worse off than yourself!

Cheers for now suckers!!!

Peace and  love to you all

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