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Okay here is is, I warn you it is long, but then lots of stuff happened 
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Morocco is an awesome place, In terms of amazing scenery, variety of challenging conditions, and just interestingness. The only downside was the kids begging, seriously a pain in the bottom, and ironically caused by previous expeditioners driving through and chucking out sweets and pens...
If anyone does want to give, rather give to the local charities, or if you do have pens/writing materials, drop them at a local school, they are easy enough to spot.
Anyway, apart from it just being an awesome trip, many adventures were had. These adventures I will remember far longer than any other holiday, or even this trip, had the adventures not happened. This is the story of those adventures.
I originally planned this trip with Rich (Woods 767), and we decided to just go hard with the off roading, and not bother with any dedicated sightseeing, as we figured we would see more of the culture by going to remote areas than going to tourist markets. Pretty soon the convoy had grown to 4 vehicles.
Crossing the High Atlas, the hard way.
Our first day “off road” we were crossing the High Atlas, using all the most challenging routes we could find. This was our first encounter with the Ninjas (fully veiled beggars), and we were just a bit freaked out. They chase the cars, and when they catch you, they start screaming at you in French, all very scary. I was out in front when I came round a hairpin bend, to find half the road missing. Normally in this situation, you just stop, backup, and find another way. However, the bit I was on was loose gravel, and on a fairly steep negative camber, and I felt the back of The Land Rover beginning to slide towards the cliff edge, and of course the rocks hundreds of feet below. (Okay maybe it was only 50 feet, but it still would have hurt..) I spotted a “safe” beaching place the other side of where the road ended, but obviously I needed to give it some gas, and say a little prayer to Jah, in order to get myself there! You will see in the video me driving up at an angle on the cliff side, then beaching myself in a little land rover sized crevasse. After much bouncing and liberal use of the waffle boards, the guys managed to get me turned around and facing back the way I came. It was then that I was sure I was going to die, or at the very least, spend the rest of my life on that cliff. Unfortunately when you are that scared you forget about the video camera, so no good video exists of the site before we had rebuilt it.
Wasn’t really sure how I made it across the first time, and neither were the guys. We wondered about aimlessly for a while, and I suggested Trevor drive Leroy out, as he was the oldest and had the fewest years to loose. He didn’t go for it. Eventually between us, a plan emerged. We built up the downside slope with rocks and waffle boards, more for my piece of mind that anything else, as no one really expected the rebuilt slope to support the weight of a fully laden Land Rover. The real stroke of genius was digging a rut in the upside of the slope, to take the weight off the downside wheels, as well as holding the upside wheel in place. This process took 4 grown men with 2 spades, 4 hard sweaty hours to do, that cliff was damn near solid rock.
This probably would have worked by itself, and if we had been in Wales, I may have just tried it, but with no air ambulance, and questionable hospital care, we were taking took no chances. My winch was then anchored to an upslope tree, and Rick was to keep it tight while I edged across. We rigged up a block and tackle with 3 strops, 2 snatch blocks, and Ricks winch cable, and anchored it to the back corner of my roof rack. Simon and Ray kept that tight to stop the back slipping off the cliff. You can piece most of this recovery back together with the still pics which I will also edit into the video. It was an anti climax in the end because it felt so safe, but in the circumstances I was more than happy with that.
Erg Chebbi Adventure.
The second adventure, wasn’t really life threatening, I may have mashed the land rover and got a headache from being pounded in the head with a loose fire extinguisher, or possibly a fridge. It was much less scary than the first adventure, and we got to get one over on some cheeky nomads, which was priceless.
Trevor and Ray were lost at Erg Chebbi, and Rick had gone to look for them. I was by myself in a sea of sand dunes, and bored as heck. I thought I could get up onto the smallest of dunes and with my increased radio range could co ordinate the rescue. I was driving along a flat ridge on top of a dune, when half of it suddenly disappeared, and all of a sudden I was just about capsized. Giving it gas would have been stupid, so instead I just got on the radio and said “Guys, I’m in a huge pile of S**t!”
All of a sudden there were like 15 nomads there, and they made it very clear that if I tried any of my “western trickery” recovery techniques I would mash “Leroy”, and go home on a flatbed. They said they said seen it happen loads of times, and that they would dig me out , the nomad way was the only way, and what would I pay ? I offered them 200Dh, about 20 squid, which seemed fair for a bunch a nomads with nothing better to do They wanted no less than 1000Dh, so I said no worries then, I knew some dudes that would do it for 8 rashers of bacon from my fridge.
This time Leroy was definitely going over if moved, and using the roof rack was not going to do the job of keeping Leroy level, we bent it trying. (Don’t buy any Patriot Racks on eBay for a while 
Then another stroke of genius from Rick, well at least I thought it was. We put two high lift adaptors in the down side rock slider, then attached straps to those, then ran those straps over the roof rack to meet at a pivot point on a shackle, which in turn was anchored to the winch on Rick’s 110 which was parked at right angles to me. That kept Leroy level while I slowly winched myself towards Trevor’s Disco, which was in turn strapped to Ray’s vehicle.
Easy peasy, rounds of applause from the nomads, who probably went home wishing they had taken the 200DH.
We then bounced the 4 remaining cold drinks from my fridge, and found an awesome Berber camp to stay at.
As Rick had killed his batteries with the winching, he went out for a solo drive to “re charge his batteries”, while we drank Whiskey Berber (tea) with the Arabs.
2 hours later when Rick was not back, I wasn’t worried, Rick can look after himself better than the rest of us put together. But Trevor was panicking, so went out to try the radio.
He came back in even a bigger panic, and relayed the following message from Rick. “I am stuck, repeat, I am stuck, I think I can recover myself, but I have run out of (static), I repeat I have run out of (static)...” Then radio silence. Now I was focused on the “I think I can recover myself” bit, while Trevor was focusing on the “I have run out of....” bit, so I was calm and he erm wasn’t..
Anyway, to put Trevor’s mind at ease, I went to the nearest high point to have a chat to Rick, as I have a much bigger aerial than the other guys, and Rick has a big one too So I just got his latitude and longitude, so that I could find him if he didn’t recover himself, and headed back for dinner. Unfortunately Trevor was too panicked to have dinner, and he went to look for Rick.
I just drank more tea. Rick came back about an hour later after rescuing himself, and Trevor about 15 minutes after Rick. The mystery of what Rick had run out was then solved..... It was Beer!
The next morning I went to fix my starter solenoid in Merzouga, as some of the guys were tired and wanted a lie in. Found a great guy called Ebrahim (who speaks no English) in Merzouga, who has a garage that is considerably busier than Dunsfold DLR. That place was great, met Climbing Mike from one of the land rover forums I use, he blew in in his tricked out Disco with shredded tyres. Took some paragliding spots from his GPS to give to Rick, Mike if you are reading this, Rick says thanks, he had some great flights.
Also met some nice Frenchies who really liked my 90, and a bunch of Scottish students who had ripped the wheel off their rental car while “off roading” it in the desert. I said it’s a rental, just take it back. They were reluctant to do that it was the third one they had broken. If you guys area reading this, you are even bigger morons than me, respect
Then scooter man was back with a solenoid from the nearest big town. Unfortunately it was the wrong solenoid, and after a tea, a nap, and some lunch he was off again. Gotta love Africa time.
Eventually a new solenoid was fitted, and I was good to go.
That evening we continued on our route only to find the road blocked by the military, who said the way ahead was impassable due to shifting sand dunes. So we found a harder route through a mostly dry riverbed. We probably did 20 kilometres in this river bed, and the whole way we were constantly harassed by these little bastards on scooters. There were about 4 of them, and they kept telling us we would not make it, and around the next corner there was a big problem. The offered to take us an easy way for 600dh, to which we said no thanks, we came to do it the hard way.
Every time we lost them in terrain the scooters could not manage, they would appear around the next corner, just like pesky little fireflies, it was dark by then. Eventually they were offering to lead us for free, and even when we refused, they just road in front of us to lead us to there desert camp. Rick was trying to knock them off there scooters with his bull bar, but they were too agile. By the time we got to their camp it was around midnight, and we were so worn down we just stayed there.
Next day we blasted through the Sahara, the crew were up early, and we just killed it. The vehicles took a beating though, the Sahara is pretty hardcore, nice soft duney bits, interspersed with the nastiest corrugations you can imagine, they will shake the fillings right out of your teeth. But, all very beautiful.
At this stage it emerged that I needed to be back at work a few days early, so early the next morning I went Lone Wolf.
Didn’t seem like a risky thing to do, Leroy was bullet proof, I had spent thousands on him. He had a low mileage “recon” by Dunsfold 200tdi engine, brand new genuine Land Rover disco transfer box, good second hand checked over gear box from Dunsfold, and he had had a 48000 mile pre trip service at Dunsfold (despite only have done 10000 miles since his rebuild). In the service everything had been checked, and all the fluids and oils replaced. The obligatory trip gremlin had surfaced and been dealt with, I thought, and Leroy and I should have been able to go anywhere!
Getting on the road at 7am means you can travel at a sensible pace all during daylight, and also have enough time to stop for breakfast, to take in the scenery etc... So 3 hours later I was feeling on top of the world when I stopped in the middle of the Sahara for bacon butty on a toasted Moroccan flat bread, with of course some Reggae Reggae sauce, awesome.
Some weird 6th sense told me not to turn of the engine when I stopped, but I just put than down to post replacing the solenoid jitters, and I put my faith in Ebrahim and shut it down.
Ebrahim, you *&%$%£, where did you get that solenoid, North Korea? I wasn’t very stressed, I knew someone would come by eventually, the Sahara is like a motorway these days, French tourists everywhere. Couple of hours later Gee (not Guy) came through with 6 RAID Maroc rally cars in tow. They pulled over and all the Frenchies were out, snapping pictures of the stranded land rover with great glee, all very embarrassing.
He gave me a crash start and I made it to the nearest town, which happened to be Foum Zguid. There I found a tailor called Kamal, who spoke some English. He took me to a Mechanic who spoke so little English I still don’t even know his name, but he was just the bodge man I needed. Had his hack saw out, cut some unnecessary junk off the starter solenoid, soldered some bits on, and hocus pocus it worked, and has ever since. Kamal fitted me out with a turban, and some Arab threads, and I was off again.
I was still wearing the turban and videoing myself singing the Cure’s “Killing an Arab”, while the same song was blasting on the stereo (I call it desert karaoke) when I came unexpectedly upon an Army checkpoint. I only had time to drop the camera and deleted the incriminating video and turn off the stereo, before the soldiers were at the window. They seemed highly bemused by my turban, and I gave them some ice cold Miranda’s from my restocked fridge, so friends for life... I also made friends with their dog, and he ran after the car for about 3 miles after I left, I might go back to Morocco with a trailer full of dog toys, thinking migrator ducks maybe, Rich dog lovers could buy them for 50 quid each, and I could take them to these poor dogs who have never had a toy in their lives.... but then maybe the dogs would start chasing 4x4’s, like the kids do, so maybe it’s a bad idea...
That night I stayed in a hotel, and had my first restaurant quality Tagine, amazing. While at the hotel, I fell in love with a Spanish girl who was visiting too.
The next day I blasted through the rest of the Sahara to Tan Tan, which is a rubbish little town where the police have really bad attitudes. (I later hear the other 3 guys all got fines while in Tan Tan – Stop signs in Arabic really do look just like gibberish...)
Give the whole place a miss and stay in the hotel/campsite on the piste detailed in Chris Scott’s book.
Next stop was the tidal beach at Plage Blanche. According to Chris Scott’s book you should not start this run more than an hour after low tide. So I arrive on the beach at an hour to high tide. Randomly turned on the radio, and there was Rick, they had already made it to the other end. I told him I was going to wait till the next tide and go then, but he said just blast it at 60mph, and I would be there in 10 minutes. As his judgement has always been great, I went for it.
A minute later I was doing 70mph along the beach. 5 minutes later I was stopped on the beach with steam pouring out of the bonnet, I guess running on beach sand is hard for cars too Now there is no danger of drowning on the beach, even if I had got stuck below the high water line Rick would have had time to come back and rescue me. The danger is at the far end of the run where you cross a lagoon. It was 6 inches when Rick did it, but rising fast.
When I got there, the shallow channel was about bonnet high, and the rest of it was maybe roof high. It was coming in fast, and if I stuffed it, there would not be time for a recovery, just an escape. Maybe I would finally get to test the funny little orange hammer that is supposed to break the windows when you are drowning in an upside down Land Rover
But it all worked out okay. Rick pointed out the shallow bit for me, and I just gassed it. To make it up to Leroy I got him a hot water jet wash in the nearest town.
I was done with camping by this stage, so I left the guys again to finish the piste to Sidi Ifni, where I stayed in a lovely Spanish hotel, and fell in love with a Spanish girl. By now I was really keen to get home to the dogs, and so I picked up the pace, and by the next eve I was just 5 miles away from the Spanish Border at Ceuta, and coming down a huge mountain that was just sitting there in this big fluffy cloud, I was feeling quite euphoric at this stage.
I haven’t decided whether to delete the expletives from my video or not, but if I leave them in, you will probably notice the point in the video where I’m coming down Mogador mountain in the cloud, and I realise the gearbox is failing...
Now at the bottom of the mountain, is a place that can only really be called “****ville”. It’s dark and dingy, there is crap in the streets, it smells, not really a tourist area at all..... And it is here I eventually loose all drive as I roll up to Ahmed’s garage, where of course no one speaks even a word of English. I of course speak no Spanish, or Arabic. Communicating here is very difficult, much harder that in the French speaking regions. I really wish I had brought a phrase book.
After much pointing we understand that the gearbox is kaput, and I say fix, well I hope that is what I say... Cause you just don’t really know... They point me to a hotel, and indicate the repair will take two days. The hotel is probably the worst I have ever seen, I just sit on the floor in the corner, because there is no way in hell I am getting on one of those beds.
Not impressed, even after all I spent on him, Leroy the Land Rover is definitely not bullet proof.
The next day I walk a bit further, and find a semi decent cafe where I have brekki. Fantastic Coffee, OJ, and some kind of buttered flat bread I have not had before. Part of it tastes a bit odd, I try not to think about what it could be.. This is not a town where white boys usually hang out, people are openly pointing and staring. One of the Islamic banks point blank refuse to serve me, the teller is muttering something about infidels. I’m pretty sure she won’t speak English, so I take great pleasure in telling her to her face that her mama was a big green and yellow lizard, and then I do my best Lizard impression, not even a hint of a smile...
Back at the workshop the boys are about to start work, before they start, they bring out a big block of hashish, and a huge pipe. Everyone has a big puff, and they start work. At this stage I think I want to actually see myself getting take to the cleaners, so politely decline.
They work well and purposefully, for stoners. By about 2pm they have the box out, and they seem to indicate that we should be using EP80 in our gearboxes, and that our oil is too thin for Morocco. There was no external damage to my box, and it was full of oil, so I have absolutely no idea why it failed.
Then we get a taxi, chuck the gearbox in the boot and head to the nearest big town, Tétouan. At some point I realise we are driving in circles, and I wonder if they are trying to sell me, I wonder what the going rate for a white boy and a land rover gearbox is?
Eventually we pull up at a motor spares dealer, and he tells me in English he can get me a brand new gearbox for 2000 Euro. I say I don’t have that much, and ask him if he knows someone who will tow me to the border. The price drops to 1200 Euro, I confirm that the box is new, and agree.
He says I need to take a taxi to collect the gearbox, it’s a hundred kilometres away, and the taxi will cost 200dh, sounds fair and I agree to that too.
We drive for a bit, and I see a sign that says Chaoen (Chef) 96km. I’m happy with that, as I have been to Chef, and it is nice.
I phone Phil at Dunsfold for some technical advice; he tells me what gearbox serial numbers I am looking for.
We reach Chef and keep driving. I remember reading the chapter in Chris Scott’s book, places in Morocco you do not want to visit, and realise I am heading straight to the badlands in the heart of the Riff mountains, where nearly all the hash consumed in Europe is grown and processed. I wonder why there would a new land rover gearbox there, at this point I have not worked out that drug lords use land rovers to tend their crops which grow on steep mountain slopes...
Then another taxi tries to run us off the road, seriously! The men in the other taxi are screaming and pointing at me. One of Ahmed’s cronies looses it, opens his door, and throws his shoe at the other taxi. Shoe misses, and we stop and back up to retrieve the shoe. The other taxi does a U – Turn and comes back. Now I am really bricking it, no good can come of a street fight here. The men approach and pull out a block of hash, which they obviously want to sell me. Ahmed pulls out his own block of hash, I guess it was the Moroccan equivalent of Crocodile Dundee’s that is not a knife, this is a knife. We all laugh our heads off, and I wonder if they have heard of Crocodile Dundee.
Three hours later we are still driving, I’m pretty sure I am about to disappear forever, and start texting my last known location to the guys so that the police can find my killers and save Leroy the Land Rover from a horrible fate ferrying “adventure” tourists to and from their camps...
Then we arrive in a town where all the vehicles are white land rovers, I breathe a sigh of relief, this is a perfectly reasonable place for a land rover gearbox to be. We meet Mustapha (Kingpin), and put my gearbox in the back of his 90. The taxi driver is told he can’t come with, and I notice him nervously locking the doors the second I get out. We go to a large industrial complex that smells strongly of Hashish. I guess Mustapha tells his priest that he is in Forestry, but it sure as hell wasn’t trees that they were processing at that compound....
We get taken into a warehouse where there is an old 4 cylinder Land Rover 110, and a 200tdi Rangie Classic, but no new gearbox. I then realise he is planning to pull the gearbox out of the old 110, it’s not an LT 77S, but it should get me home. I’m quite happy that I can negotiate a lower price, because this is an old rubbish second hand box, and I was quoted a new one.
The mechanics, his, not mine, pulled the box out of the 110 in like 30 minutes, then spent another 30 minutes swapping over all the stuff that wasn’t the same, like handbrake lever, handbrake drum etc.
During this time I was offered tea. Taking tea from a drug lord is a bit of a lottery I guess, but I figured if I was going to get taken out, I may as well be calm about it. The tea did calm me down, and I started to really enjoy the evening. I had 3 more cups..
Eventually it was time to pay, and to cut a long story short, there was no renegotiation, well there was a bit on Mustapha’s part, the price now went up to 1350 Euro’s. I decided to be a man and stand my ground, this caused a huge shouting match between Mustapha and Ahmed. It was now about 12:30pm and we were parked outside a cash point. Then some idiot came down to tell Mustapha and Ahmed to shut up because he was trying to sleep. He came up to the Land Rover really purposefully, yanked opened the door, saw who it was, and nearly wet himself. Ahmed, Mustapha and I all screamed at him to F Off simultaneously, and he just disappeared into the night... It was just a bit tense in the front of Mustapha’s 90. The shouting continued for another 10 minutes, and we were getting nowhere, I decide to stop standing my ground and just pay the man, I just wanted to get back to “****ville”.
Then I went to get the money from the cash point, of course I had hit my daily limit, and could only come up with like half. Mustapha was really really really ****ed, I thought his head would explode, that dude really needs to drink more tea.
But Ahmed came to bat for me, and presumably said not to worry I would pay, eventually I shook hands with Mustapha, promised I would pay, and left him looking not exactly calm, but not too upset.
Then another 4 hours back to Tétouan in the taxi, and thank god for that tea, cause if I had actually been able to keep my eyes open I would surely have needed new under pants.
Then we got stopped by the police in Tétouan for blowing 3 slightly red lights, and now of course the taxi is full of hashish and stoners.... 10 years in a Moroccan jail is now also a possibility. That cost me a 200dh bribe, cheap at the price. Then the boys took for me for roadside kebabs (Baguettes with grilled cubed beef (brochettes) and Fritas (chips) all in the baguette. With ketchup and mayo, awesome..) Got back to “****ville” at 4:30am. Found a slightly better hotel, slept till 6:30 when the stress of going to the ATM woke me up. Went and got all of Mustapha’s money, but nothing for Ahmed.
Rocked up at the garage at 9:30am, just as the guys started to fit the box. Just as well I had all of Mustapha’s money, because he turned up 5 minutes later with his enforcer. Seriously, look out in the video for the gorilla in the pin stripe suit.
Mustapha was pretty helpful, he just sat there drooling over my Land Rover all morning but giving the mechanics advice when needed. He noticed every detail from the Terrafirma big bore shocks to the roof console, and everything inbetween, and every time there was a nod, a thumbs up, and an envious look. Anyway he has all my money now so he can damn well pimp his own landy, actually I would love to see what he has done with it, maybe I’ll go back for a visit
That afternoon I got hold of the guys, and they had also had enough and were due through that evening, which was brilliant because if I could borrow 500 quid for Ahmed, I could save spending a third night in “****ville”. Boy was I happy to see the guys turn up after not having seen a single westerner for 3 days. Ray lent me 500 squid, and I paid Ahmed and was gone.
All up, gearbox, labour, taxi, bribes, over £2000.00. And it gets worse, I had a brand new genuine Land Rover Disco transfer box fitted 5000 miles ago, and well they have that too. They were only prepared to do a straight gearbox and transfer box together swap, well I guess they can spot a new transfer box too.
As it turned out we missed the last ferry out of Ceuta, so spent the night in the cars in the ferry terminal, too exhausted to put up tents.
The guys were in a real hurry to get home, and they just drove and drove and drove. I bailed at Bilbao, as I was convinced Leroy’s new gearbox would not make it through France. It was whining a lot and leaking oil. I think they drove for 25 hours solid. I then spent 3 days at a hotel in Bilbao waiting for the Ferry, where I fell in love with 3 more Spanish Girls....
On the ferry I started showing symptoms of something very nasty I picked up in Spain, (from the food, not the woman ) Anyway, I was so sick I needed two injections, in the ass... Yeah very funny!
Footnotes
Hello my friend, you can’t go this way..
In Chris Scott’s book it says the locals will tell you roads are impassable (when they are fine) in order to “extort” money from you. So when a local came up to me screaming in French and waving me away from the road that nearly killed me, I assumed that she was one of them, especially as right after she waved me away she made the international give me money sign.
Thinking about it now, there was a sense of urgency in her voice that the others who told us further along our route that we would not make it, didn’t have. And there were plenty of those characters, but every other time we made it with no real difficulty. So trust your gut, if you really sense danger, proceed anyway, but with more caution, it’s probably okay, but you never really know.
Navigation.
For all my navigation I used the Garmin, never even looked at a map. What I did was choose the routes from Chris Scott’s book, then trace them with the route tool on Mapsource over Olaf’s free Morocco Topo map, and then send the routes to the device. (I use a Nuvi 550, but any Garmin that takes custom routes will do) I would say I only made 5 wrong turns on the whole trip, and on 4 of them I noticed within a 100 meters. The other one I drove about ½ a mile up a riverbed before realising.
Navigating in the towns is harder, as the GPS and the roads don’t really tally up. Your best bet it noting the names of the next towns on your route and looking for signs.
Our off road route is available to download from the forum in a Garmin .gpx file, and you are all welcome to use it. The planning spreadsheet can also be used, but I suggest if you follow our route, which is basically a collection of the best routes from Chris Scott’s Morocco Overland book, then you should buy the book too, as there is loads of info there that is not in our planning. The page numbers of the routes detailed in the book are noted on out spreadsheet for cross referencing. I would also suggest re reading about the route the night before you do the route so you don’t miss anything.
Going Lone Wolf
Would I do it again, knowing the gearbox was going to fail? Absolutely! Although we had fun in the group, my adventure only really started when I went Lone Wolf. Travelling Solo is just a much more intense and rewarding experience, and I’ve heard this said by quite a few people who have done the same thing.
Besides, being in a group would not be much help in a blown gearbox situation, towing me back to England was never even an option. The Gearbox had to be sorted in Morocco, and wherever I went, Morocco or even Southern Spain, getting taken to the cleaners was always going to be the only outcome. Getting it done in two days was actually a great outcome, all things considered.
Pictures Below…
Crossing The High Atlas.
“Beached” in a safe place after nearly falling off the mountain, stress beginning to show.
The mountain after digging a rut, building up the downside, and clearing the loose gravel.
Nearly there.
Stuck at Erg Chebbi
Nomad’s view of being stuck at Erg Chebbi.
Strapped up and ready to go.
Just exited the lagoon at Plage Blanche, great video of this.
Mustapha, “Forestry” Kingpin
Mustapha’s people, 2 of Ahmed’s mechanics, and me. Donor Land Rover 110 in background.
Ahmed, far left, me, and his mechanics, in his garage.
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Morocco is an awesome place, In terms of amazing scenery, variety of challenging conditions, and just interestingness. The only downside was the kids begging, seriously a pain in the bottom, and ironically caused by previous expeditioners driving through and chucking out sweets and pens...
If anyone does want to give, rather give to the local charities, or if you do have pens/writing materials, drop them at a local school, they are easy enough to spot.
Anyway, apart from it just being an awesome trip, many adventures were had. These adventures I will remember far longer than any other holiday, or even this trip, had the adventures not happened. This is the story of those adventures.
I originally planned this trip with Rich (Woods 767), and we decided to just go hard with the off roading, and not bother with any dedicated sightseeing, as we figured we would see more of the culture by going to remote areas than going to tourist markets. Pretty soon the convoy had grown to 4 vehicles.
Crossing the High Atlas, the hard way.
Our first day “off road” we were crossing the High Atlas, using all the most challenging routes we could find. This was our first encounter with the Ninjas (fully veiled beggars), and we were just a bit freaked out. They chase the cars, and when they catch you, they start screaming at you in French, all very scary. I was out in front when I came round a hairpin bend, to find half the road missing. Normally in this situation, you just stop, backup, and find another way. However, the bit I was on was loose gravel, and on a fairly steep negative camber, and I felt the back of The Land Rover beginning to slide towards the cliff edge, and of course the rocks hundreds of feet below. (Okay maybe it was only 50 feet, but it still would have hurt..) I spotted a “safe” beaching place the other side of where the road ended, but obviously I needed to give it some gas, and say a little prayer to Jah, in order to get myself there! You will see in the video me driving up at an angle on the cliff side, then beaching myself in a little land rover sized crevasse. After much bouncing and liberal use of the waffle boards, the guys managed to get me turned around and facing back the way I came. It was then that I was sure I was going to die, or at the very least, spend the rest of my life on that cliff. Unfortunately when you are that scared you forget about the video camera, so no good video exists of the site before we had rebuilt it.
Wasn’t really sure how I made it across the first time, and neither were the guys. We wondered about aimlessly for a while, and I suggested Trevor drive Leroy out, as he was the oldest and had the fewest years to loose. He didn’t go for it. Eventually between us, a plan emerged. We built up the downside slope with rocks and waffle boards, more for my piece of mind that anything else, as no one really expected the rebuilt slope to support the weight of a fully laden Land Rover. The real stroke of genius was digging a rut in the upside of the slope, to take the weight off the downside wheels, as well as holding the upside wheel in place. This process took 4 grown men with 2 spades, 4 hard sweaty hours to do, that cliff was damn near solid rock.
This probably would have worked by itself, and if we had been in Wales, I may have just tried it, but with no air ambulance, and questionable hospital care, we were taking took no chances. My winch was then anchored to an upslope tree, and Rick was to keep it tight while I edged across. We rigged up a block and tackle with 3 strops, 2 snatch blocks, and Ricks winch cable, and anchored it to the back corner of my roof rack. Simon and Ray kept that tight to stop the back slipping off the cliff. You can piece most of this recovery back together with the still pics which I will also edit into the video. It was an anti climax in the end because it felt so safe, but in the circumstances I was more than happy with that.
Erg Chebbi Adventure.
The second adventure, wasn’t really life threatening, I may have mashed the land rover and got a headache from being pounded in the head with a loose fire extinguisher, or possibly a fridge. It was much less scary than the first adventure, and we got to get one over on some cheeky nomads, which was priceless.
Trevor and Ray were lost at Erg Chebbi, and Rick had gone to look for them. I was by myself in a sea of sand dunes, and bored as heck. I thought I could get up onto the smallest of dunes and with my increased radio range could co ordinate the rescue. I was driving along a flat ridge on top of a dune, when half of it suddenly disappeared, and all of a sudden I was just about capsized. Giving it gas would have been stupid, so instead I just got on the radio and said “Guys, I’m in a huge pile of S**t!”
All of a sudden there were like 15 nomads there, and they made it very clear that if I tried any of my “western trickery” recovery techniques I would mash “Leroy”, and go home on a flatbed. They said they said seen it happen loads of times, and that they would dig me out , the nomad way was the only way, and what would I pay ? I offered them 200Dh, about 20 squid, which seemed fair for a bunch a nomads with nothing better to do
They wanted no less than 1000Dh, so I said no worries then, I knew some dudes that would do it for 8 rashers of bacon from my fridge.This time Leroy was definitely going over if moved, and using the roof rack was not going to do the job of keeping Leroy level, we bent it trying. (Don’t buy any Patriot Racks on eBay for a while 
Then another stroke of genius from Rick, well at least I thought it was. We put two high lift adaptors in the down side rock slider, then attached straps to those, then ran those straps over the roof rack to meet at a pivot point on a shackle, which in turn was anchored to the winch on Rick’s 110 which was parked at right angles to me. That kept Leroy level while I slowly winched myself towards Trevor’s Disco, which was in turn strapped to Ray’s vehicle.
Easy peasy, rounds of applause from the nomads, who probably went home wishing they had taken the 200DH.
We then bounced the 4 remaining cold drinks from my fridge, and found an awesome Berber camp to stay at.
As Rick had killed his batteries with the winching, he went out for a solo drive to “re charge his batteries”, while we drank Whiskey Berber (tea) with the Arabs.
2 hours later when Rick was not back, I wasn’t worried, Rick can look after himself better than the rest of us put together. But Trevor was panicking, so went out to try the radio.
He came back in even a bigger panic, and relayed the following message from Rick. “I am stuck, repeat, I am stuck, I think I can recover myself, but I have run out of (static), I repeat I have run out of (static)...” Then radio silence. Now I was focused on the “I think I can recover myself” bit, while Trevor was focusing on the “I have run out of....” bit, so I was calm and he erm wasn’t..
Anyway, to put Trevor’s mind at ease, I went to the nearest high point to have a chat to Rick, as I have a much bigger aerial than the other guys, and Rick has a big one too
So I just got his latitude and longitude, so that I could find him if he didn’t recover himself, and headed back for dinner. Unfortunately Trevor was too panicked to have dinner, and he went to look for Rick.I just drank more tea. Rick came back about an hour later after rescuing himself, and Trevor about 15 minutes after Rick. The mystery of what Rick had run out was then solved..... It was Beer!
The next morning I went to fix my starter solenoid in Merzouga, as some of the guys were tired and wanted a lie in. Found a great guy called Ebrahim (who speaks no English) in Merzouga, who has a garage that is considerably busier than Dunsfold DLR. That place was great, met Climbing Mike from one of the land rover forums I use, he blew in in his tricked out Disco with shredded tyres. Took some paragliding spots from his GPS to give to Rick, Mike if you are reading this, Rick says thanks, he had some great flights.
Also met some nice Frenchies who really liked my 90, and a bunch of Scottish students who had ripped the wheel off their rental car while “off roading” it in the desert. I said it’s a rental, just take it back. They were reluctant to do that it was the third one they had broken. If you guys area reading this, you are even bigger morons than me, respect
Then scooter man was back with a solenoid from the nearest big town. Unfortunately it was the wrong solenoid, and after a tea, a nap, and some lunch he was off again. Gotta love Africa time.
Eventually a new solenoid was fitted, and I was good to go.
That evening we continued on our route only to find the road blocked by the military, who said the way ahead was impassable due to shifting sand dunes. So we found a harder route through a mostly dry riverbed. We probably did 20 kilometres in this river bed, and the whole way we were constantly harassed by these little bastards on scooters. There were about 4 of them, and they kept telling us we would not make it, and around the next corner there was a big problem. The offered to take us an easy way for 600dh, to which we said no thanks, we came to do it the hard way.
Every time we lost them in terrain the scooters could not manage, they would appear around the next corner, just like pesky little fireflies, it was dark by then. Eventually they were offering to lead us for free, and even when we refused, they just road in front of us to lead us to there desert camp. Rick was trying to knock them off there scooters with his bull bar, but they were too agile. By the time we got to their camp it was around midnight, and we were so worn down we just stayed there.
Next day we blasted through the Sahara, the crew were up early, and we just killed it. The vehicles took a beating though, the Sahara is pretty hardcore, nice soft duney bits, interspersed with the nastiest corrugations you can imagine, they will shake the fillings right out of your teeth. But, all very beautiful.
At this stage it emerged that I needed to be back at work a few days early, so early the next morning I went Lone Wolf.
Didn’t seem like a risky thing to do, Leroy was bullet proof, I had spent thousands on him. He had a low mileage “recon” by Dunsfold 200tdi engine, brand new genuine Land Rover disco transfer box, good second hand checked over gear box from Dunsfold, and he had had a 48000 mile pre trip service at Dunsfold (despite only have done 10000 miles since his rebuild). In the service everything had been checked, and all the fluids and oils replaced. The obligatory trip gremlin had surfaced and been dealt with, I thought, and Leroy and I should have been able to go anywhere!
Getting on the road at 7am means you can travel at a sensible pace all during daylight, and also have enough time to stop for breakfast, to take in the scenery etc... So 3 hours later I was feeling on top of the world when I stopped in the middle of the Sahara for bacon butty on a toasted Moroccan flat bread, with of course some Reggae Reggae sauce, awesome.
Some weird 6th sense told me not to turn of the engine when I stopped, but I just put than down to post replacing the solenoid jitters, and I put my faith in Ebrahim and shut it down.
Ebrahim, you *&%$%£, where did you get that solenoid, North Korea? I wasn’t very stressed, I knew someone would come by eventually, the Sahara is like a motorway these days, French tourists everywhere. Couple of hours later Gee (not Guy) came through with 6 RAID Maroc rally cars in tow. They pulled over and all the Frenchies were out, snapping pictures of the stranded land rover with great glee, all very embarrassing.
He gave me a crash start and I made it to the nearest town, which happened to be Foum Zguid. There I found a tailor called Kamal, who spoke some English. He took me to a Mechanic who spoke so little English I still don’t even know his name, but he was just the bodge man I needed. Had his hack saw out, cut some unnecessary junk off the starter solenoid, soldered some bits on, and hocus pocus it worked, and has ever since. Kamal fitted me out with a turban, and some Arab threads, and I was off again.
I was still wearing the turban and videoing myself singing the Cure’s “Killing an Arab”, while the same song was blasting on the stereo (I call it desert karaoke) when I came unexpectedly upon an Army checkpoint. I only had time to drop the camera and deleted the incriminating video and turn off the stereo, before the soldiers were at the window. They seemed highly bemused by my turban, and I gave them some ice cold Miranda’s from my restocked fridge, so friends for life... I also made friends with their dog, and he ran after the car for about 3 miles after I left, I might go back to Morocco with a trailer full of dog toys, thinking migrator ducks maybe, Rich dog lovers could buy them for 50 quid each, and I could take them to these poor dogs who have never had a toy in their lives.... but then maybe the dogs would start chasing 4x4’s, like the kids do, so maybe it’s a bad idea...
That night I stayed in a hotel, and had my first restaurant quality Tagine, amazing. While at the hotel, I fell in love with a Spanish girl who was visiting too.
The next day I blasted through the rest of the Sahara to Tan Tan, which is a rubbish little town where the police have really bad attitudes. (I later hear the other 3 guys all got fines while in Tan Tan – Stop signs in Arabic really do look just like gibberish...)
Give the whole place a miss and stay in the hotel/campsite on the piste detailed in Chris Scott’s book.
Next stop was the tidal beach at Plage Blanche. According to Chris Scott’s book you should not start this run more than an hour after low tide. So I arrive on the beach at an hour to high tide. Randomly turned on the radio, and there was Rick, they had already made it to the other end. I told him I was going to wait till the next tide and go then, but he said just blast it at 60mph, and I would be there in 10 minutes. As his judgement has always been great, I went for it.
A minute later I was doing 70mph along the beach. 5 minutes later I was stopped on the beach with steam pouring out of the bonnet, I guess running on beach sand is hard for cars too
Now there is no danger of drowning on the beach, even if I had got stuck below the high water line Rick would have had time to come back and rescue me. The danger is at the far end of the run where you cross a lagoon. It was 6 inches when Rick did it, but rising fast.When I got there, the shallow channel was about bonnet high, and the rest of it was maybe roof high. It was coming in fast, and if I stuffed it, there would not be time for a recovery, just an escape. Maybe I would finally get to test the funny little orange hammer that is supposed to break the windows when you are drowning in an upside down Land Rover
But it all worked out okay. Rick pointed out the shallow bit for me, and I just gassed it. To make it up to Leroy I got him a hot water jet wash in the nearest town.
I was done with camping by this stage, so I left the guys again to finish the piste to Sidi Ifni, where I stayed in a lovely Spanish hotel, and fell in love with a Spanish girl. By now I was really keen to get home to the dogs, and so I picked up the pace, and by the next eve I was just 5 miles away from the Spanish Border at Ceuta, and coming down a huge mountain that was just sitting there in this big fluffy cloud, I was feeling quite euphoric at this stage.
I haven’t decided whether to delete the expletives from my video or not, but if I leave them in, you will probably notice the point in the video where I’m coming down Mogador mountain in the cloud, and I realise the gearbox is failing...
Now at the bottom of the mountain, is a place that can only really be called “****ville”. It’s dark and dingy, there is crap in the streets, it smells, not really a tourist area at all..... And it is here I eventually loose all drive as I roll up to Ahmed’s garage, where of course no one speaks even a word of English. I of course speak no Spanish, or Arabic. Communicating here is very difficult, much harder that in the French speaking regions. I really wish I had brought a phrase book.
After much pointing we understand that the gearbox is kaput, and I say fix, well I hope that is what I say... Cause you just don’t really know... They point me to a hotel, and indicate the repair will take two days. The hotel is probably the worst I have ever seen, I just sit on the floor in the corner, because there is no way in hell I am getting on one of those beds.
Not impressed, even after all I spent on him, Leroy the Land Rover is definitely not bullet proof.
The next day I walk a bit further, and find a semi decent cafe where I have brekki. Fantastic Coffee, OJ, and some kind of buttered flat bread I have not had before. Part of it tastes a bit odd, I try not to think about what it could be.. This is not a town where white boys usually hang out, people are openly pointing and staring. One of the Islamic banks point blank refuse to serve me, the teller is muttering something about infidels. I’m pretty sure she won’t speak English, so I take great pleasure in telling her to her face that her mama was a big green and yellow lizard, and then I do my best Lizard impression, not even a hint of a smile...
Back at the workshop the boys are about to start work, before they start, they bring out a big block of hashish, and a huge pipe. Everyone has a big puff, and they start work. At this stage I think I want to actually see myself getting take to the cleaners, so politely decline.
They work well and purposefully, for stoners. By about 2pm they have the box out, and they seem to indicate that we should be using EP80 in our gearboxes, and that our oil is too thin for Morocco. There was no external damage to my box, and it was full of oil, so I have absolutely no idea why it failed.
Then we get a taxi, chuck the gearbox in the boot and head to the nearest big town, Tétouan. At some point I realise we are driving in circles, and I wonder if they are trying to sell me, I wonder what the going rate for a white boy and a land rover gearbox is?
Eventually we pull up at a motor spares dealer, and he tells me in English he can get me a brand new gearbox for 2000 Euro. I say I don’t have that much, and ask him if he knows someone who will tow me to the border. The price drops to 1200 Euro, I confirm that the box is new, and agree.
He says I need to take a taxi to collect the gearbox, it’s a hundred kilometres away, and the taxi will cost 200dh, sounds fair and I agree to that too.
We drive for a bit, and I see a sign that says Chaoen (Chef) 96km. I’m happy with that, as I have been to Chef, and it is nice.
I phone Phil at Dunsfold for some technical advice; he tells me what gearbox serial numbers I am looking for.
We reach Chef and keep driving. I remember reading the chapter in Chris Scott’s book, places in Morocco you do not want to visit, and realise I am heading straight to the badlands in the heart of the Riff mountains, where nearly all the hash consumed in Europe is grown and processed. I wonder why there would a new land rover gearbox there, at this point I have not worked out that drug lords use land rovers to tend their crops which grow on steep mountain slopes...
Then another taxi tries to run us off the road, seriously! The men in the other taxi are screaming and pointing at me. One of Ahmed’s cronies looses it, opens his door, and throws his shoe at the other taxi. Shoe misses, and we stop and back up to retrieve the shoe. The other taxi does a U – Turn and comes back. Now I am really bricking it, no good can come of a street fight here. The men approach and pull out a block of hash, which they obviously want to sell me. Ahmed pulls out his own block of hash, I guess it was the Moroccan equivalent of Crocodile Dundee’s that is not a knife, this is a knife. We all laugh our heads off, and I wonder if they have heard of Crocodile Dundee.
Three hours later we are still driving, I’m pretty sure I am about to disappear forever, and start texting my last known location to the guys so that the police can find my killers and save Leroy the Land Rover from a horrible fate ferrying “adventure” tourists to and from their camps...
Then we arrive in a town where all the vehicles are white land rovers, I breathe a sigh of relief, this is a perfectly reasonable place for a land rover gearbox to be. We meet Mustapha (Kingpin), and put my gearbox in the back of his 90. The taxi driver is told he can’t come with, and I notice him nervously locking the doors the second I get out. We go to a large industrial complex that smells strongly of Hashish. I guess Mustapha tells his priest that he is in Forestry, but it sure as hell wasn’t trees that they were processing at that compound....
We get taken into a warehouse where there is an old 4 cylinder Land Rover 110, and a 200tdi Rangie Classic, but no new gearbox. I then realise he is planning to pull the gearbox out of the old 110, it’s not an LT 77S, but it should get me home. I’m quite happy that I can negotiate a lower price, because this is an old rubbish second hand box, and I was quoted a new one.
The mechanics, his, not mine, pulled the box out of the 110 in like 30 minutes, then spent another 30 minutes swapping over all the stuff that wasn’t the same, like handbrake lever, handbrake drum etc.
During this time I was offered tea. Taking tea from a drug lord is a bit of a lottery I guess, but I figured if I was going to get taken out, I may as well be calm about it. The tea did calm me down, and I started to really enjoy the evening. I had 3 more cups..
Eventually it was time to pay, and to cut a long story short, there was no renegotiation, well there was a bit on Mustapha’s part, the price now went up to 1350 Euro’s. I decided to be a man and stand my ground, this caused a huge shouting match between Mustapha and Ahmed. It was now about 12:30pm and we were parked outside a cash point. Then some idiot came down to tell Mustapha and Ahmed to shut up because he was trying to sleep. He came up to the Land Rover really purposefully, yanked opened the door, saw who it was, and nearly wet himself. Ahmed, Mustapha and I all screamed at him to F Off simultaneously, and he just disappeared into the night... It was just a bit tense in the front of Mustapha’s 90. The shouting continued for another 10 minutes, and we were getting nowhere, I decide to stop standing my ground and just pay the man, I just wanted to get back to “****ville”.
Then I went to get the money from the cash point, of course I had hit my daily limit, and could only come up with like half. Mustapha was really really really ****ed, I thought his head would explode, that dude really needs to drink more tea.
But Ahmed came to bat for me, and presumably said not to worry I would pay, eventually I shook hands with Mustapha, promised I would pay, and left him looking not exactly calm, but not too upset.
Then another 4 hours back to Tétouan in the taxi, and thank god for that tea, cause if I had actually been able to keep my eyes open I would surely have needed new under pants.
Then we got stopped by the police in Tétouan for blowing 3 slightly red lights, and now of course the taxi is full of hashish and stoners.... 10 years in a Moroccan jail is now also a possibility. That cost me a 200dh bribe, cheap at the price. Then the boys took for me for roadside kebabs (Baguettes with grilled cubed beef (brochettes) and Fritas (chips) all in the baguette. With ketchup and mayo, awesome..) Got back to “****ville” at 4:30am. Found a slightly better hotel, slept till 6:30 when the stress of going to the ATM woke me up. Went and got all of Mustapha’s money, but nothing for Ahmed.
Rocked up at the garage at 9:30am, just as the guys started to fit the box. Just as well I had all of Mustapha’s money, because he turned up 5 minutes later with his enforcer. Seriously, look out in the video for the gorilla in the pin stripe suit.
Mustapha was pretty helpful, he just sat there drooling over my Land Rover all morning but giving the mechanics advice when needed. He noticed every detail from the Terrafirma big bore shocks to the roof console, and everything inbetween, and every time there was a nod, a thumbs up, and an envious look. Anyway he has all my money now so he can damn well pimp his own landy, actually I would love to see what he has done with it, maybe I’ll go back for a visit
That afternoon I got hold of the guys, and they had also had enough and were due through that evening, which was brilliant because if I could borrow 500 quid for Ahmed, I could save spending a third night in “****ville”. Boy was I happy to see the guys turn up after not having seen a single westerner for 3 days. Ray lent me 500 squid, and I paid Ahmed and was gone.
All up, gearbox, labour, taxi, bribes, over £2000.00. And it gets worse, I had a brand new genuine Land Rover Disco transfer box fitted 5000 miles ago, and well they have that too. They were only prepared to do a straight gearbox and transfer box together swap, well I guess they can spot a new transfer box too.
As it turned out we missed the last ferry out of Ceuta, so spent the night in the cars in the ferry terminal, too exhausted to put up tents.
The guys were in a real hurry to get home, and they just drove and drove and drove. I bailed at Bilbao, as I was convinced Leroy’s new gearbox would not make it through France. It was whining a lot and leaking oil. I think they drove for 25 hours solid. I then spent 3 days at a hotel in Bilbao waiting for the Ferry, where I fell in love with 3 more Spanish Girls....
On the ferry I started showing symptoms of something very nasty I picked up in Spain, (from the food, not the woman ) Anyway, I was so sick I needed two injections, in the ass... Yeah very funny!
Footnotes
Hello my friend, you can’t go this way..
In Chris Scott’s book it says the locals will tell you roads are impassable (when they are fine) in order to “extort” money from you. So when a local came up to me screaming in French and waving me away from the road that nearly killed me, I assumed that she was one of them, especially as right after she waved me away she made the international give me money sign.
Thinking about it now, there was a sense of urgency in her voice that the others who told us further along our route that we would not make it, didn’t have. And there were plenty of those characters, but every other time we made it with no real difficulty. So trust your gut, if you really sense danger, proceed anyway, but with more caution, it’s probably okay, but you never really know.
Navigation.
For all my navigation I used the Garmin, never even looked at a map. What I did was choose the routes from Chris Scott’s book, then trace them with the route tool on Mapsource over Olaf’s free Morocco Topo map, and then send the routes to the device. (I use a Nuvi 550, but any Garmin that takes custom routes will do) I would say I only made 5 wrong turns on the whole trip, and on 4 of them I noticed within a 100 meters. The other one I drove about ½ a mile up a riverbed before realising.
Navigating in the towns is harder, as the GPS and the roads don’t really tally up. Your best bet it noting the names of the next towns on your route and looking for signs.
Our off road route is available to download from the forum in a Garmin .gpx file, and you are all welcome to use it. The planning spreadsheet can also be used, but I suggest if you follow our route, which is basically a collection of the best routes from Chris Scott’s Morocco Overland book, then you should buy the book too, as there is loads of info there that is not in our planning. The page numbers of the routes detailed in the book are noted on out spreadsheet for cross referencing. I would also suggest re reading about the route the night before you do the route so you don’t miss anything.
Going Lone Wolf
Would I do it again, knowing the gearbox was going to fail? Absolutely! Although we had fun in the group, my adventure only really started when I went Lone Wolf. Travelling Solo is just a much more intense and rewarding experience, and I’ve heard this said by quite a few people who have done the same thing.
Besides, being in a group would not be much help in a blown gearbox situation, towing me back to England was never even an option. The Gearbox had to be sorted in Morocco, and wherever I went, Morocco or even Southern Spain, getting taken to the cleaners was always going to be the only outcome. Getting it done in two days was actually a great outcome, all things considered.
Pictures Below…
Crossing The High Atlas.
“Beached” in a safe place after nearly falling off the mountain, stress beginning to show.
The mountain after digging a rut, building up the downside, and clearing the loose gravel.
Nearly there.
Stuck at Erg Chebbi
Nomad’s view of being stuck at Erg Chebbi.
Strapped up and ready to go.
Just exited the lagoon at Plage Blanche, great video of this.
Mustapha, “Forestry” Kingpin
Mustapha’s people, 2 of Ahmed’s mechanics, and me. Donor Land Rover 110 in background.
Ahmed, far left, me, and his mechanics, in his garage.
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