Archive for August, 2005
August 31st, 2005
For the first time since I began this weblog, I am appealing to anyone out there who may know the answer to a rather complicated question. After some days of trying to organise the various legal and visa requirements for the next leg of the walk, I have hit something of an unexpected snag.
When we originally crossed into France last year from the UK, nobody stamped our passports. We wandered, blithely unconcerned, down through France and over into Spain, with nary a problem. From Santiago, however, I flew back the UK for a weekend; and on re-entering Spain, my passport was stamped for the first time. I actually asked the guys at border control what the situation was, considering that I was on foot, and about to cross into Portugal; but they seemed entirely unconcerned.
Nobody gave my passport so much as a glance until the boat over to Morocco, where it was, once again, stamped without comment. On return to Spain after the three months walking in Morocco – again, no comment as Spanish border control stamped it. However, at the airport when I left Spain to fly back to the UK, Mr “I have a uniform and therefore I am” dickhead passport control got all excited at the fact that, on close inspection, he could see that I had stayed longer in the EU than my three month allowance under the Schengen agreement. He huffed and he puffed, and humiliated me in front of all the suntanned Easy Jetters waving their magic little red passports as they looked at my pathetic blue one pityingly, and then finally he condescended to wave me through with the strict warning that I would not be allowed back into the EU for six months since I overstayed my welcome last time. This, mind you, despite the fact that Gary – also travelling on an Australian blue one – was waved through without challenge simply because he had never flown out of Spain the previous time, and hence had no stamps marring his little blue book.
Now, we are booked to return to Spain on the 15th of September, from whence we had planned to take the boat to Morocco (it is approximately two hundred pounds per person cheaper to do things this way than fly to Morocco itself). Somewhat worried, I have been to the Spanish embassy today, whose advice went along the lines of: “well, just go on the plane and try. They might let you in and they might not” variety, which was rather less specific than I had hoped for. As far as the Australian embassy is concerned there should be no problem; the British Home Office, through whom I have Indefinite Leave to Remain in Britain, has no idea. (About the passport issue, either.)
So, here I am. The vastly amusing thing about all this is that I rang the Mauritanian embassy to get our visas sorted out and:
a/ got answered by a human being straight away
b/ was immediately emailed the requisite forms, and
c/ issued with a trouble free appointment to acquire the visa.
So much for Africa being the home of incompetencey and inefficiency. Compared to the utter mong brains of the EU, every African administration I have dealt with so far appears not only charmingly polite, but overwhelmingly straightforward, helpful and efficient.
I may never come back.
In the meantime, if any of you have any thoughts on this dilemma, please email or post a comment. I am off to drown my sorrows; at least that’s one thing I can do without a bloody stamp.
August 19th, 2005
For over a week now, I haven’t walked anywhere.
Except to the pub for the occasional (okay, frequent) pint.
I haven’t sweated. I haven’t hurt. I haven’t met any strangers. Weirder still, no-one has looked at me with that bemused, what-the-hell-are-you-doing?- stare, the open mouthed, ill-disguised gawping as if at an alien. I look just the same as everyone else. Well, okay, I am in Cornwall; but even so, after a year of being the central attraction everywhere we go, it has been an odd change of pace.
I am glad that we have only a month off; we are due back in Morocco on the 15th of September, and plan to set out for the desert around the 20th. It means that this break is more a quick whirlwind of organisation rather than a flat out period of indolence, and in many ways I am thankful for this, as it keeps us focussed on the walk and enthusiastic. I think that if it were a longer holiday, it would be rather easy to move away from the task at hand, and sink back into everyday slothfulness – particularly with such luxuries as baths, televisions, and pubs close to hand. Dangerous combination. Although I guess they are rarely all taken at the same time (pity, that).
I went to the doctor this week to have my feet looked at, as for the last thousand kilometres I was suffering increasing pain. Apparantly I am suffering from something called “plantofacialitis” – I think that’s how it is spelt – which is essentially to do with the tearing away of small muscle filaments at the insertion point near my heel. My arches are also flattening out. It was a tremendous relief to discover that there really is a cause for the ongoing pain, as I had begun to wonder if I was just going to suffer from this problem for the rest of the walk. The doctor and physio reckon that a bit of rest and plenty of massage – did you hear that, Gary?? MASSAGE – should put it to rights, and I shall just have to re-think my footwear for the next leg. If anyone out there is a footwear manufacturer and would like to get on-board the constanttrek project, feel free to throw indecent amounts of money and product in our direction.
Form an orderly queue, gentlemen.
The second phase is becoming increasingly exciting. The initial two and a half months will be our “going to school” period, during which we will walk through the Western Sahara to Dakhla, on the border of Mauritania. Our guide is a Hassaniya Bedouin man. The Hassaniya, so called as they are descendants of the Beni Hassan tribe, who led the Maqil Arabs across the Sahara from Yemen during the Middle Ages as part of the spread of Islam, dominate the desert from Morocco to Mali. In walking from M’Hamid down through the Western Sahara, on to Nouakchott on the Western Coast of Mauritania, then across through Mauritania to Mali, we will be following an ancient and well trodden pathway. Our guide speaks only Hassaniya – an Arabic based dialect – so this period will give us a chance to learn language, custom, and skills associated with the Bedouin. Meanwhile, Habib, our contact in Morocco and an extraordinary wealth of knowledge and expertise in organising expeditions of this kind, will drive out to meet us three times during the two and a half months in order to check that we are coping okay.
I am enormously thankful for this backup, as after the border of Mauritania, we will largely be on our own and running an independant expedition. Hopefully we will be in a better state to do that after our period “at school”.
So for now we are busy organising our equipment, trying to get the website set up, and looking at technology options to keep this website functioning from remote areas. Again, interested parties (satellite phone producers) line to the right. Millionaire donors to the left, please.
In between all of this, we are rediscovering the joys of the Sunday papers, fry-ups, Real Ale, and deliciously cool weather. Gotta love England’s idea of a summer.
We are toying with the idea of holding an afternoon at a pub in London where all who read this are welcome to come and chat with us – as much for an opportunity for us to put faces to the very kind names who have emailed us over the past year, as for you to meet us. If you would be interested in coming along, please email me. It would be a very informal gathering, but perhaps also a chance for likeminded individuals to meet up. You all sound like a wonderful crowd, and we would love to meet you and say thanks over a pint or two.
Anyway. At the mention of that magic word, I may have to go and indulge. After all – it’s going to be a loooong, dry, trek….
Cheers
Paula (Cornwall this week)
August 2nd, 2005
Five thousand kilometres later, after five countries, seven boot re-soles, and exactly one year to the day from when we left London – on the first of August, 2005, we walked into M’Hamid.
We have finished the first stage of our walk.
I am writing it; but I still can’t believe it. We’ve done it! WOOO HOOO!
In true walking fashion, it really wasn’t over until it was over; the three day stretch from Zagora was one 
of the toughest we have done, through some of the most barren and lonely country in Morocco. This is, after all, where the Sahara begins.
For those of you not familiar with the history behind our walk, M’Hamid is where Habib Naamani runs his camel trekking business from (at the Hotel Sahara). He is the man we have been talking to over the last few years about the Trans-Sahara stage of the walk, and hence M’Hamid, which is where the road south stops, has been our 
destination. Unfortunately (or not, if I am honest) Habib is in Zagora this week – which meant that minutes after arriving in M’Hamid, Gary and I jumped on a minibus and zoomed straight back up the road over the last 100km we had just laboured through, to comfortably ensconce ourselves in the sheer indolent luxury of a hotel room with a pool. Unbelievably wonderful after three days seriously hard walking. Habib is as incredibly hospitable as ever, and we are being escorted all over town and dined at the home of his wife’s family – although frankly at the moment we are so happy with ourselves that we are a bit oblivious to anything else.
The road out from Zagora winds around palmeraies, across a couple of quite impressive mountain 
passes – impressive if you don’t have to walk over them – and down into the beginning of the sand dunes. There isn’t much around, on this road. Just hamada, sand, and the kilometre markers, going down terribly, achingly, slowly. One year of walking and I still wish they would hurry up.
We had the usual problems of heat and water shortages; this time those problems were a little exacerbated by the afternoon dust storms, which blow up daily from the desert. It is pretty tough walking through swirling sand driven by hard winds. I am still washing sand from places I didn’t know it could get to.
On the second day we had over forty kilometres to walk, and our water supplies were looking a little precarious. We saw a village over in the distance after about twenty kilometres, and rather fortuitously a young boy rode past us on his bicycle at about the same time. We waved our water bottles at him hopefully, and sure enough, he immediately dashed off on his bike and returned with full bottles of cold water, which we happily paid for. Even better, he told us there was a well in a further twelve kilometres, over the mountain pass.
By the time we crossed the pass in the heat of the day, that well was number one priority on both of our minds. There is nothing – and I really do mean nothing – better than suddenly coming across a seemingly endless supply of cool, fresh water, when you are down to your last mouthful and the heat is
right up. I think of all the things in my life that have ever seemed wonderfully luxurious and welcome – and I think none of them can possibly compare to how we both felt when we saw that well.
So, we walked, and camped, and rested in the minute shade of thorny trees on hot sand, and the kilometres kept going down – we have photos of nearly every marker from about sixty down, I think, 
although I shan’t bore you – and all the while I kept wondering how I felt about getting to the end of this first stage.
But I couldn’t really work it out, because whilst we were actually walking, it simply wasn’t finished. Whilst our feet were melting on the hot tarmac, and we were worrying about water, and the packs were heavy on the shoulders and the wind was scratching our faces – it just wasn’t over. It wasn’t over when we got to just over one kilometre from town and had to go through the usual Moroccan bureaucracy of armed guards nosing through our passports, it wasn’t over when we walked through the gates into town and the local kids ran up begging for money, pens, and chocolates, and it wasn’t over when we had to spend an hour explaining who we were to the very bemused people at the Hotel Sahara. (Although it must immediately be added that once we were understood, they swung into action with overwhelming generosity and hospitality – and we were certainly not at our most coherent when we arrived.)
In fact, I think the first time that we realised that we had really done it was when we sat on the mini-bus and travelled back up the long, narrow, desert road toward Zagora, looking out the window at the shimmering heat and dust, and marvelling that we could actually have walked through such a harsh landscape. It is incredibly strange how a place which has such personality when you walk through it, can appear so dead and featureless from a car window; the well seemed so insignificant, the dried up wadis no more than a dip in the road, whereas when we walked the wadis were our shade stops, and the well a miracle. And the land itself seemed so inhospitable from the bus; it seemed inconceivable that anyone could ever just walk across it, the distances between towns taking forever.
But it wasn’t like that at the time. We just did it. And although it was the hardest thing I think either of us have ever done, we really did it; we made it. And now we are facing the Sahara, and months in the desert (after we have a little holiday, of course!) and even though we are tired, and need a break, both of us feel so excited to be at the edge of a new, amazing adventure – a whole new stage.
We are going to have a little rest in Zagora – “make a little fiesta!” – as Habib put it. Then we are both returning to the UK for a short time to re-equip and have full medical checks, and we plan to be back here in early September. But for now we are taking it easy, just sitting a lot and thinking about the fact that just over a year ago, we were in Trafalgar Square, hoping that we would make it as far as Dover.
Thanks to all of you who have followed the web-log this far, and thanks in particular to those who have taken the time, particularly during these last few truly hard weeks, to email us and send messages of support. It means more to us than I can say, and there has been more than one occasion when I have sat in internet cafes with tears pouring down my cheeks, grateful beyond belief for the kindness of friends and strangers who have written us a line or two encouraging us to carry on. Sometimes it is those little things that really have made the difference.
I will carry on updating the site whilst we organise the next stage – at this point we are planning to commence the desert crossing at the beginning of October, when the weather has cooled slightly.
And you know what the good news is?
For the next few thousand kilometres, it will be camels carrying those bloody packs – not us.
Man, that is going to be good.
I am off for a swim. And then I plan to just….sit.