Road to Morocco

Pictures

2007-07-14T15:16:00.000Z

Some long overdue pictures posted here and here.

Journey

2007-05-26T17:18:00.001Z

- Federico Garcia Lorca -

A hundred riders in mourning,
where might they be going,
along the low horizon
of the orange grove?

They could not arrive
at Sevilla or Cordoba.
Nor at Granada, she who sighs
for the sea.

These drowsy horses
may carry them
to the labyrinth of crosses
where the singing trembles.

With seven nailed sighs,
where might they be going
the hundred Andalusian riders
of the orange-grove?

Marrakesh and the end of the trip

2007-05-07T15:52:00.000Z

The trip ended in Marrakesh because that's where our flight was from. Nachi officially got his "stick licence" by driving all the way into the centre, complete with parking the car in a spot not much bigger than the car, by the Place Foucault (driving in Marrakesh is crazy crazy). And we stayed at the Hotel Foucault, where the concierge was a Berber of the North. The first night we were there, he shadily shifted his weight from one leg to the other and whispered in Nachi's ear -- "so you wanna buy a rug, cuz I don't just own this hotel, I also sell rugs." After Nachi explained that he's been offered rugs and really just has no use for one, he asked Nachi if he wanted anything else -- he was also the owner of the hotel.

On the first night, we went out and saw the Djemaa el Fna, which is a hot spot center of action. During the day, it is a full on market with snake charmers, henna tattoo artists, fresh orange juice carts, and the like. At night, it turns into a festival with story-telling and some of the most amazing (and cheap) food we have ever eaten. The transformation happens at about 5pm -- stalls are torn down and re-erected in different places. If you're not looking around at the right time, you could miss it. They do it like ninjas. The el Fna is amazing and like the book says, without it, Marrakesh would just be another Moroccan city. We spent the vast majority of our time in Marrakesh wandering around it and the adjoining souks (little workshops where you can see stuff being made) and Medina.

On the second day, in Dan's obsessive pursuit of the perfect sunset on video (sooo worth it), we spotted people with the hitch jumpers and started talking to them. They were a group of two girls and a guy from Leeds and the hitch had taken them five-six days. Apparently their main strategy was for the guy to hide and the two girls to look helpless and lost on the side of the road. In the next few hours, we bumped into herds of other hitchers (all of them had bought the jumper). One group told us that after getting to France, they found themselves caught in a snowstorm in Paris and decided to FLY south to Barcelona and continue from there (what?!?). As we talked to people, we learned that most people took a short bus or train ride -- we did nothing of the sort!

At one of the medina shops, Nachi asked one of the tobacco shop owners for Moroccan made tobacco (as a present for a friend). The guy called over another guy who called another guy who knew where to find a guy who might have had the stuff from a guy he knew, which is kind of how things work in Morocco. It's all through a chain of guys. 30 minutes later a couple of packets of Winston Lights "packaged" in Morocco for some ridiculous price (to pay the 12 middle men) materialized in front of us. Another funny thing is if you walk around by yourself, you never get hassled by guys trying to sell you herbal viagra and/or rugs, but if you walk around with someone they constantly throw lines at you, or, if you're Nachi, just yell out "Indiiaaaaan!"

This is our last blog entry about the trip, in chronological order. Hope you like it!

Essaouira and Zachary

2007-05-04T20:18:00.000Z

We arrived in Essaouira later that afternoon, a city farther up on the shore renowned for its winds. We parked our car in some shotty parking lot, where they wouldn't let you put the handbrake up -- in case they needed to push your car around to make room for others (we came back at night lifted the brake). After dinner, we roamed around the medina and got shaved a second time each. The barber offered to clean up Nachi's hair around the edges a bit, but proceeded to give a full-on haircut, which was actually pretty good. Dan was offered more Berber herbal viagra (it was a bit worrying). Then we met, Zachary.....

He was one of the many people who yelled "Indiaaan" as we passed, to which we were now accustomed, and simply yelled back "Shah Rukh Khan." Inevitably, Nachi made friends with Zachary; Dan hated Zach from the outset. He "guided" us into his shop, where he played drums and sang Hindi songs to us. His three sidekicks appeared and sang along. This part was cool. After some time, they asked us if we would like to grab a drink with them. Nachi assured Dan "it was cool," and we proceeded to a bar. On the walk, we were starting to feel like Zachary was a bit crazy and may have "drunk" quite a bit already. We offered to buy him a beer once inside, but he refused, constantly saying "bhaya" to Nachi, which means "brother" in Hindi. Our hostel closed around midnight, and we got up to leave, at which time Zachary showed his true colors and asked for money to cover two rounds of beers. Nachi thought this was absurd and took off, while Dan tried to level in French. That didn't work. Zachary followed and harassed us until we were almost home, in a very threatening manner. We lost him as we passed the Gendarmerie (the Police).

The next morning, we got up and walked out to the beach. We particularly liked a guy who had built a "windskate" (a windsurfer to ride on the sand). Nachi was really keen on kitesurfing so we went to get the gear. At the first place we stopped in, we found out two things, (a) kitesurfing takes a week to learn and (b) the gear and lessons are super expensive. Game over. So we went for a little drive and got pulled over by the cops for doing some ridiculous speed the car wasn't even capable of. So Dan tried to bribe the cops and sort of succeeded but then we got our money back. It was very confusing. In the end, we ended up driving back past the speed camera, careful to have it in second gear and 20 km/hr below the limit and wave to the shady cops. The following morning, we found a co-op windsurf rental place and hit the waters hard with some lessons. Dan embarrassed himself pretty badly, but Nachi acquitted himself handsomely. In the afternoon, we had some beers and drove off to Marrakesh.

Surfing at Taghazoute

2007-04-09T16:07:00.000Z

After the half-day with the quads, we drove west towards the ocean. The rest of the day was spent getting to Taghazoute -- the surfing paradise according to our guide book. We were on Banana Beach. In the morning, we realized how horribly the guide book had erred: there wasn't a single surfer in the water through midday or even the remotest sign of an equipment rental place. After inquiring, the Moroccans in the area were keen to get us equipment and ran off. As we learned through the trip, asking questions can be a mistake. Through a chain of quick commands, phone calls, and confused faces, your request will almost always be materialized, whilst you wait for some odd period of time. We just asked if there was a surf rental shop nearby and they were off! While we waited for a sign of reappearance, we sat along the beach. A kind man rented us a horse for 50 Dirhams each to ride along the beach for 15 minutes. We both did it: it was cool, and the horse went into a bit of gallop and moved fast. Dan had a bit more control but as a result a shorter ride since he was able to turn the horse around when he was supposed to be finished. Nachi, on the other hand, just went farther and farther until the horse felt like turning.

Moments after finishing, two shady Moroccans had materialized with surfboards and wetsuits. We quickly overpaid for poor equipment, as we were constantly reminded by other people for the rest of the day. We struggled to stand up for the waves. Nachi had three separate bruises along his neck -- possibly from jellyfish. Sore and bruised, we hopped back into the car to continue on to Essaouira.

Zagora and quading through the dunes

2007-04-09T15:46:00.000Z

We drove back to Zagora at night and got a room without much trouble. After going through the dunes during the day, Nachi had been quite keen on finding an all terrain vehicle (ATV) rental shop to take back into the desert for the following morning. After some interesting dialogue with the concierge, we found ourselves a man who would rent us ATVs (or quads as they called them). Cha-ching!

We signed up for a half day starting at 9am. Our guide took us into the desert and within the hour, we were launching ourselves through the dunes. The sand dunes in this part were much smaller and from the distance the quads looked like little toy racing cars, as they drove through the dunes slanted and sliding around, and slipping occasionally. Once the momentum was flying high, the quad would clear its wheels over a dune and land a couple meters down a little lopsided with a thump and take off immediately. Nachi got yelled at (in French) for accelerating over the mountains to clear air. We later learned that accidents happen in these dunes and about one person dies a year, while many others suffer injuries. In fact our guide had suffered a couple himself. This was cool and was thus far Nachi's favorite part of the trip. Nachi also tried to fishtail the quad out 180 degrees like our rental, but was unsuccessful. We decided we already had another fun ride.

Camel back and mountainous sand dunes

2007-04-09T14:13:00.000Z

As soon as we drove into M'hamid, our small car, which we named Gorgeous George, had been surrounded on all sides with some people offering us tours and others telling us we weren't allowed to drive on the street any further. We turned around and went back to the first expedition group we saw, led by Brahim. He proceeded to clean us out, but we did sign up for an amazing overnight adventure in the desert. Since we emptied our pockets for him, he promised us dinner that night. The wait for food took 2.5 hours, and all the time, Brahim told us lengthy stories in detail, and for all the build up the punchline or moral was always a let down (a bit like this blog). Every five minutes, Dan would translate a sentence from French into English for Nachi, and it always seemed like all the characters were different already.

At night, Brahim and his companion took us out to the campsite. We sat and listened to more stories over some tea, and then looked up at the most amazing sky -- full of stars and constellations. Laying in the cool sand with winds blowing from odd and changing directions and looking up was certainly one of the highlights of the trip. Nachi wanted to grab some torches and walk into the desert, so we explored our site and realized we couldn't find the way out. We felt stupid and went to sleep.

The next morning we took off camel back on Dromaderies -- Brahim wanted to show us the old M'hamid (the real one). Nachi's camel (which he named camel) didn't really want to go anywhere and would try to grab food while walking: he was also a bit of a rougher ride. Dan's camel, named Barry (same as Dan's bag), seemed a bit younger and liked to poop a lot. People in the old M'hamid were very kind: they showed us into their homes freely. It was obvious the people here were poorer than in the newer M'hamid.

For the afternoon, we took a 4x4 out into the desert. On the way out, we saw fields of Dromaderies -- with maybe a couple hundred. We stopped at sand dunes which were shaped like mountains. The shape comes solely from the direction of the winds, and our tour guide drew the possible wind patterns and entailing shapes in the sand for us. We rolled down the sand dunes, and Dan's camera almost broke as a result.

Er Rachidia and the drive to M'hamid

2007-03-31T19:38:00.000Z

After two nights in Fes, we got an early start down towards Er Rachidia, a one night stopover towards the sand dunes in M'hamid -- our final destination. Er Rachidia is a small town with fast Moroccans: as we first pulled the car over in the city, a Moroccan wearing an Armani shirt had already caught our scent and was attaching himself to the side of our car. After lying to us about the hotel we were hoping to find -- on the other side of town, we left him and drove off in a more or less straight path. Upon arrival to the hotel, our ninja friend had already rounded up some shady characters and appeared to help us park -- more pointing.

The next morning we took for M'hamid, which is part of the great southern oasis routes (according to our trusty guidebook). The drive is quite relaxing until Zagora, where the road halves in width -- but is still two lane. Most people drive down the middle at the usual speed and slam the brakes, when they see a car -- oh wait, that was just us. This drive also takes place through the mountains. Our favorite are the signs: (1) no passing in the opposite lane (???) (2) watch out for puddles (???) (3) Berber bull crossings (??). Each sign was preceded by a warning sign to inform you of an upcoming sign. On the topic of signs, another favorite of ours was the speed limit signs approaching cities in Morocco, which would change the limit within 5 meters -- we would see a sign to slow down to 80 immediately followed by another to reduce to 60 (truly making the first one pointless). Contrary to what you might think, Nachi was a stellar driver throughout!

The color of Fes is blue!

2007-03-31T19:20:00.000Z

After some crazy crazy driving around Fes (one of the four Imperial cities of Morocco), we found a hotel and decided to get a tour guide for the following day. His name was Amit although Dan refused to accept that and called him Mohammed all the time (he thinks Amit might be short for Mohammed). Anyway, we might not know his name well but he taught his one very important fact and reminded us about every five minutes all day: the color of Fes is blue! We think he thought we were stupid, and we wished there was a quiz at the end. Sometimes he would point to ceramic wall that was obviously not blue and would point to a small tile that was blue -- explaining that it was blue since that is the color of Fes! We had an amazing lunch which was pretty expensive but we could hardly walk afterwards so it was a victory.

Nachi fell in love with a Berber pharmacy even though (or because?) the shady pharmacist destroys your nasal passages with cloves ("it will cure the headache in your head, the headache in your stomach.."). On a roll that day, Nachi also gave a weaving girl a hand at work. We learned that the Medina (the old Arab town, with the windy streets), which is amazing, has 180,000 shops, 9,000 alleyways and a population of 500,000 people. One of the funnier things was the massive overuse of pointing to empty spots in parking lots, a big offender here being a parking assistant at the hotel. Two days in Fes were rounded off with a visit to a dodgy bar.

Chefchaouen - Fes

2007-03-30T11:29:00.000Z

We got back 2 days ago -- couldn't log into the blog for most of the trip so we've decided to split this up into a few separate blog entries.

The drive from Chefchaouen was definitely one of the highlights of the trip as it defined the concept of "Berber of the North". The road is a horror show because the entire way is peppered with drug dealers who try to get you to stop the car so they can sell you hash. These are not normal hash dealers: they'll tailgate the car and swerve into oncoming traffic to try to get you to stop and they work in teams! You'd think that by the 14th hash dealer they would have worked out that you either (1) don't want hash or (2) have already bought it from one of the previous 13 guys, but no. Dan took a hard left and lost control of the car, which fishtailed 180 degrees between a mountain and a cliff.

The guidebook said that the drive used to be dangerous but it wasn't anymore, but they were so wrong. Ketama, the midpoint of the drive, is packed to the brim with Berbers of the North. The guy at the petrol station was of course selling hash which didn't work, but we did buy 3 different kinds of power drinks there. Crazy Horse is cool, Unicorn-something is crap and sticky and Wild Dragon was super..

The drive from Ketama to Fes is 3 and a half hours and is very pretty. All the Berbers will tell you that you can cover the Chefchaouen - Fes distance in 2 hours ("easy.. buy the hash, the road will go faster..") but that's because the 2 hours is in Berber time. The drive takes all day. Watch out for the drug dealers. We reported one to the police. It wouldn't come as any surprise if the guy was selling hash to the cops (or rugs) as they were arresting him.

With love from Chefchaouen

2007-03-17T20:05:00.000Z

.. arrived in Tangiers last night.. after having had to walk another 11.5 km and getting our shortest hitch of all - 3 km to the ferry terminal - caught by another hitcher. It was very cramped and someone had to sit on someone's lap but the details are not important.

Tangiers is a little bit seedy in an old-port kind of way. The driving is crazy crazy. We ate a pizza and had a cigar stolen. In the morning we rented a car that only starts if the temperature is exactly 29 degrees Celsius. Anything below requires a choke stint, prayer and a lot of tenderness. Dan can't stick to the right - banged the side view mirror in the first 12 seconds - and Nachi struggles with the low gears on the manual. Together - almost a man, technically.

Now we are in Chefchaouen which is a very beautiful village with nice shops and friendly people, most of whom already know everyone, including us. And there is a cute girl. We're gonna go find her..

We´re alive.. southern tip of Spain!

2007-03-16T11:28:00.000Z

Because we´re sure that everyone is constantly checking our blog to see how we´re doing, we feel we have to apologise for not having had internet access this whole time. Here´s the story so far...

After getting a lift from ´Nice Guy´Steve to Southampton, we got picked up by a cool businessman type guy who took us to Portsmouth. That´s the only ride we´ve had in a flashy car, by the way. Then we chilled out there for a day and repeatedly bought electronic equipment. We won some lighters from a casino. At night we took the ferry to Le Havre in France.

Just getting off the ferry we found an English guy, Perry, who has a house near Limoges and who drove us 300 miles to a small town near there. This town was killer.. not a lot of action. We had a couple of beers and were just packing up to head over to a nearby hotel, when we hit it big with Hadrian and Lise. These guys were awesome! They picked us up about 8pm, gave us a beer in the car, and drove us 10km to a house party. We had a wild and crazy night partying it up with the crazy hippy cats from the Limoges area and passed out in the room of Maria, the ¨La Reine des Mouches¨(The queen of the flies) -- talk about kind hearted people!!

Naturally, we woke up the next morning with a massive hangover (Nachi more than Dan). They dropped us off at 9am at a little spot on the side of the street. We decided to try the sleep and hitch tactic, where we sleep with our thumbs out roadside. Nachi downed 3 quiches and a pastry to prepare. After what seemed like forever and a lot of roadside dancing (we felt better after the first 4 hours), we got picked up by a girl (solo!) who did something with kids; she took us to a gas station 43km away on the WRONG side of the road, where we got less than nothing. It was our new home.. At nightfall we hiked up this big ass hill to a little village where we found a fairytale tower with a fairytale little hotel. First shower in 3 and a half days.

The next day, we were determined to get the fuck out of this rest stop and decided to take any ride going anywhere! We got a ride going from an apprentice ski instructor hitting the slopes in Claremont-Ferrard -- not exactly south! We took it 2 hours east and got dropped off in the C-F. A guy who did chemistry in uni but randomly decided tree-cutting was more his calling took us a few km to Issoire, a very happening place. There, after standing roadside till it was dark and cold and lonely, we hit it big by finding two English truckers (who had come from Oxfordshire, doh!) at the hotel we crashed at, who, the next day, took us a couple of hours south (in the back of their truck) to Montpellier. It was very illegal! They locked us in and within the first hour of the trip we were having slight bladder issues. Fortunately, they pulled over to check, as the English guys said, that we hadn't died from a gas leak or anything. We grabbed a couple of beers and popped back into the locked back of the truck.

They dropped us off in Montpelier -- yet another shit show. We were at a roundabout with 5 exits -- about 3 of which could potentially be right or wrong. So an old guy pulled over and took us to a better spot on the highway with only one exit. Eventually after dancing some more and Dan checking out what was under every rock, a French guy took us to Pezenas. Lo and behold, roundabout heaven! Everyone we talked to said we should wait on different exits of the roundabout -- literally. We walked a bit and had some food and decided to wait on the exit where the least number of people would honk at us and tell us we were facing the wrong way. We hate roundabouts. Today was a big day, we hit 5 lifts. People were waving at us a lot which felt good. A funny peasant guy took us to the toll point on the freeway to Spain, where if we got a ride, we would be golden. But it was quite late and we had to consider a hotel, the closest one being 10km and a cabride away!! Just as we were contemplating packing up, we hit it big big big with Fanny. She was a cute photographer driving solo in a van. She was studying in French Polynesia, but back home on a break. She drove us to Narbonne, but more importantly sorted out the next chunk of our hitch: her dad is a truckie who drives to Barcelona and back every day! Cha-ching!

So her hard ass old man picked us up at the toll point at 6.30 the next day and drove us to just south of Barcelona. He told us lots of funny stories along the way. They were mostly about the wars in the region and the kids' medical histories, which was a bit weird. He had 6 kids -- his expression was "we made two, we adopted two and we're guarding two". Fanny, he said, was made. What a legend. Finally, in Spain! We were on hold with that prayer for a while.

At the trucker's stop in Barcelona, we met 3 German guys who had hitch-hiked from Berlin to Spain. They had left the same day as us and somehow managed to get down there faster than us, and took some breaks along the way. Basically this truck stop was our break to the big time as we met a team of Portugese superheroes who would take us down, in one monster 1300 km ride, to south of Seville, the worst place in the world (seriously). One of them didn't talk, at all. In Portugese or in English. Sergio, the Batman of the outfit, was an old school legend and risked his job (and Robin's) to take us in the truck.

South Spain.. Wow!! We spent 27 hours in one spot. The longest wait yet. We walked bags and all 8km around the area. The people were all very cool, but no one wanted to take us anywhere. We spent the night in a villa for 25 euros. Cheap and huge, but no hot water. The next day, we got out. A man in his thirties and his mother drove us 30km south to the highway exit for Las Cabezas. Then we hit it really big again with a 22-year old student, Murcia. He went out of his way a bit and drove us down to Barbate. He drove us around the beaches and so naturally we bought him a lunch.

Things started to turn sour a bit here. We got another short lift out of Barbate -- debatably a mistake. We stood roadside into the nightfall again, however there were no hotels anywhere. No one would take us no matter how desperate we looked. We walked 4 km to the nearest sign of civilization, Tahiville -- also home of more mean Spanish people. We thought there was a hotel there but it was closed. Everyone was VERY friendly and kindly pointed us in the direction of the 8 hour walk to Tarifa. One cool piece of information was that there was a hotel 10 km down the road, where we are now, writing to all of you with love. Along the way, carrying our 45 kg bags, we saw some bulls in the night, walking alongside us, within 10 metres. Almost the whole time we were walking through an enormous field of windmills, which was very X-Files-ish.

Dan's a bit worried about hitting the ferry in time so we're off -- probably walking the next 15 km. I love Southern Spain. We contemplated calling a taxi last night and taking a bus this morning but we don't want to give these deep-throat talking, random hand-waving psycho lunatics the satisfaction, so we're walking. It's very pretty here.

We're off!

2007-03-08T08:04:00.000Z

8.04 am. 'nuff said

30 hours and counting...

2007-03-07T02:39:00.000Z

... freaking out a bit. Where are the thick socks I had? Do we need a first aid kit? I want to take a bottle of hard liquor for the best and the worst of time -- is that gonna be too heavy? What if a camel eats Nachi? Am I a girl for doing this post? Ok, that last one is easy.

We hit 1000!!!!

2007-03-02T11:19:00.000Z

Yesterday afternoon, we hit our goal of raising 1000 pounds (all done in about one month)! The final donation of 22.77 coming from Nick Gould, a fellow at my college, Exeter, and also in my research group.

Initially, Dan and I definitely had our hesitations about setting the target to 1000 (more me than Dan), but you all have shown us through the kindness of your hearts hat we do have your support. Thanks to all who have donated.

Of our various attempts to raise money, one of the first was a trip to a London Bar in Covent Garden. Our plan was to just spread the word about the charity and see if people might be interested in donating. Feeling a bit weird about the whole thing once there, Dan went up to two guys and said something along the lines of: "Hey, you guys don't have to donate, but I just want to practice on you guys," to which he naturally got a response along the lines of "who the fuck are you and why are you talking to us?" Well Dan went forth, they gave us 90p. It seemed worth it then and it seems worth it now. About 30 minutes later, we gave in the towel for the night after raising about 5 quid. It wasn't the most effective strategy. Getting donations for charity is actually much harder than we thought.

To finish this entry off, thanks for supporting us in our first steps on our journey. We are leaving in less than a week (next Thursday). We'll try to keep posts coming regularly whenever we find internet -- telling of our latest adventures - so be sure to check back..

p.s. you can still donate
p.s.s. its still a great cause

Embankment at Night, before the War: Charity

2007-02-25T23:33:00.000Z

DH Lawrence (1885-1930)

By the river
In the black wet night as the furtive rain slinks down,
Dropping and starting from sleep
Alone on a seat
A woman crouches.

I must go back to her.

I want to give her
Some money. Her hand slips out of the breast of her gown
Asleep. My fingers creep
Carefully over the sweet
Thumb-mound, into the palm’s deep pouches.

So, the gift!

God, how she starts!
And looks at me, and looks in the palm of her hand!
And again at me!
I turn and run
Down the Embankment, run for my life.

But why?—why?

Because of my heart’s
Beating like sobs, I come to myself, and stand
In the street spilled over splendidly
With wet, flat lights. What I’ve done
I know not, my soul is in strife.

The touch was on the quick. I want to forget.

Shooow meeeee the moneeeeeeeyyyyy

2007-02-22T18:16:00.000Z

We're off in two weeks from this morning... and we need another 123 pounds and 76 pence to get to 800 -- from there, we have pledges worth 200 quid and that's the 1000 we aimed for. We only have a few days left, so dig deep, people.

Education is not only a basic human right but also probably the only long-term solution to those annoying little problems, like war, poverty, disease and the old-time favourites, stupidity and intolerance. Go on, buy a desk and some pens and paper for a little kid learning to read. It'll make you feel good :-)

Some baking action shots

2007-02-18T23:05:00.000Z

When our hands weren't messy, we took a couple shots of the cooking..

Dan working the batter

Me shredding chocolate

Dan laying the batter on the cookie sheets

Me working the chocolate mix

We're done and ready to bake sale!

Cookie and truffle sale at St Hugh's bop

2007-02-18T12:33:00.000Z

So we went to St Hugh's bop to sell some legendary truffles that Nachi made with passion and some pretty average cookies that I made with a pre-made powder (but I added a personal touch: two shots of Captain Morgan in the pre-mix). We raised about 60 quid -- neither awesome nor tragic -- and felt uncomfortable asking drunk people for money.

For me, a big part of this trip is about looking into some parts of human nature laid bare, that I don't know much about (and might not want to know much about). Last night we got a preview. A guy who, if there was a "dickhead of the year" contest, would be in with a shot at the crown, grabbed a couple of the cookies, stuffed them in his ugly face without paying, laughed and walked off and decided to push one of us on the way. Nice. But just as I was considering kicking him hard in the crotch and running away, his friend, who we hadn't met, came out of nowhere, apologised for him and dropped two pounds in the cup. What a ripsnorter.

The best and the worst that mankind can offer, all inside of 2 metres squared and 30 seconds. Welcome to the jungle.

Dan

Our first blog entry

2007-02-15T14:05:00.000Z

In March 2007, we're hitchhiking from the centre of Oxford to somewhere in Morocco, to help raise money for Link Community Development (www.lcd.org.uk), a UK charity that builds schools and trains teachers in Ghana, South Africa, Uganda and Malawi. And as a bonus, it'll be a kickass adventure, while having huge potential for misadventure as well, which is cool. Someone could get hurt badly. So we're going to keep a blog and maybe make a road movie out of it, just on the off chance that it's going to be a life changing experience or something wanky like that.