On the road again!

9^th December 2012

Well Now. It seems appropriate to make a bit of a roundup of events and views as we finally get moving again.

It has been a difficult couple of weeks and quite eventful too. Sorry about the last blog but I was a bit bored and felt like being silly.

Electrics - we had 2 sets of such problems, one was that the reserve battery was not being charged which until now had caused us mild inconvenience but as we now head away from the relative sophistication of Morocco we would not be able to charge from mains electricity so readily. I have at last found that when our split charger was removed as faulty it was replaced with a simple switch which was itself faulty but it took me ages to work this out.

The other electrical problem was that accessories such as windscreen wipers and washer were coming on entirely spontaneously or occasionally when I switch the headlights to main beam. They will only go off when I remove the fuse for an hour or so.

So our friend Rich suggested that this is likely to be the effect of Italian (Fiat) electrical system combined with continuous rain.

The whole business became easier as the weather got dryer. My plan was, on Ric’s advice to take the fuse box out, dry it and cover it in plastic. This was a bit of a pallava! Then, Jerry, my musical mentor, and therefore the obvious person to advise on such matters suggested, ’just take it out and spray it with WD40’. Of course I should have known the ideal solution. Thank you Jerry!

Awning

What did we do with the completely ruined awning?

Well, I managed to claw back the remaining parts from the Italian man who scavenged the wreckage to fix his own awning. I recovered the telescopic supports and the long facia panel which is moulded specially to hold the length of fabric that makes up the awning.

With 3 words of French, a few drawings and £40 later, we got a local man who sells waterproof fabrics to make up a new canopy. We've also had great adventures exploring the local market in the Medina in Rabat  where we eventually found a cobbler who managed to find us some second hand plastic webbing straps to fix the canopy to the panel and ‘Bobs your uncle’!

I spent a day putting it all together and we now have a really good working awning.  It certainly works better and simpler to use.

                                           The New Awning

Ping’s broken tooth

We had to find a dentist.  A Google search produced a raft of results but the very first entry we found was made by another overland traveller. It was entitled ‘Want a good dentist in Rabat?’ it said, “My filling had fallen out and I looked out of the window of my hotel room and saw this dentist across the road. Had excellent treatment”.  It even gave GPS coordinates. Armed with our new GPS gadget (thank you Bernard) we found it and the only problem locating it was that the hotel was now derelict.

I have to say that it took 4 days and £60, Ping had the remains of the old tooth removed and a high quality replacement made. So now she can eat and smile again which is quite good! Sometimes she does both at the same time. Though I won’t let her have any solid food just to be on the safe side. Well you can’t be too careful eh!

          Post dental treatment

Steering Rack

So we are left with the matter of our steering rack replacement.

We received the new rack which cost an absolute fortune.  It seems important to observe that this has been a very important learning process for us.

We were taken down the path of finding a new one although much later realised that there must be a specialist in Morocco to put the old one to rights. Well I didn’t take that path.

The manufacturers were pretty hopeless. I looked on ebay and found second hand ones in UK, and after a lot of searching and many international phone calls, (it was incredibly difficult doing this without help and at such distance) but we  managed to find a man who had one. It was expensive and we had to pay VAT because he is not experienced in export.  We got him to it Fedex it which cost more than the rack. It then arrived in Casablanca airport where because of inadequate paperwork it got held up by customs. We had to go to the airport   where we had to clear it ourselves which took hours and cost us a further 25% in duty, despite our pleas that we were not importing it and we simply needed it so we could leave Morocco.

At the end of all of this Fedex refused to release it until I had paid for a day’s storage, this despite the fact that I had come to clear it within 12 hour of it arriving, I had paid for the ‘premium service’, and I had saved the need to deliver it to us 30Km away. I really felt so powerless and abused by Fedex. What a bunch of Crooks!

Anyway we have it now and it is the right one and we are now ‘Back on the road again’, oh yes I got Ping to find Canned Heat on the Ipod and I am playing it full blast as we drive off from the Iveco garage.

‘Every day is a school day’ so I’m told. We have learned a lot. We have met some interesting people, some very helpful and others not so. We are very lucky in being able to solve these problems although at the time, it didn’t feel so. I have been successful in some of the resolutions by fixing them myself.

It may seem that I have complained a lot. It certainly has been a difficult period. But I have to record my overall impressions of Morroco which have surprised me.

This is actually is a place where you can get things done. If only my French was better.

So often a cliché when we speak of new country the ‘people are so friendly, helpful happy’ and so on. Nevertheless I have to say that the overwhelming image is that a lot of Morrocan people seem to be pathologically helpful and this has been very important to us. There have also been examples of helpful people who would normally have been due a decent tip and by the time you have found your money they have walked away.  You get harassed by panhandlers and people selling beads, crystals tours of the city etc etc. In many touristic places, a firm ‘no’ is taken to be the opening for an afternoon’s negotiations between someone who doesn’t want and another who doesn’t understand no. Our experience in many parts of Morocco has been a firm no elicits the response of “Ok well I will leave you alone I do hope you enjoy Morroco”.

The countryside is fabulous and diverse. Something for everyone. Ancient cities and the world’s most appalling drivers.

We have looked at the stats for our blog and find we have had well over 2000 views which is fantastic and make it all so worthwhile.

I have again to say that we have managed to terminally muff up our mailing list it seems to be gone forever so please spread the word to friends far and wide to take a look at it.

We just love to get emails from you all so do drop us a line anytime you feel like it. Trivial news is great or just say hello.

Lots of love  Noel +Ping

pingbow51@gmail.com  or to noelbow51@gmail.com