The journey has started - smile and wave boys, smile and wave!

March 11-13 2011

Chefchouan, Morocco

Arriving at Gatwick airport on Friday morning (11 March 2011) at 5:00am after a night of no sleep due to a heart thumping like it was keeping the beat with this turmoiled world of ours. Walking up to the checking-in counter I caught a glimpse of a group of backpacked youngsters sitting on the floor and amongst them I immediately recognised Ben and Randall from their Facebook pictures. There were tentative smiles exchanged and I chirped out a cheery “good morning guys!”, not recognising my own nervousness and ending up sounding very much like a schoolmarm on her first day in a new class. I cringed – embarrassed at myself, embarrassed with my age (I knew they would be young, but at five in the morning after a sleepless night, did they have to be quite so young?) and embarrassed with my trolley load of luggage – backpack (17.7kg), roll (4.4kg) with sleeping mat (self-inflating!) and tent (intending to do a Marlene Dietrich when it came to sleeping arrangements) and lastly, my day-pack – its weight (don't ask) colluding with gravity, while supporting Terence, whom I was immensely grateful to have there to keep my kite string anchored to the ground for the moment. As to the embarrassment, I can now confidently report that it turns out that everyone was as nervous as I – and more, everyone is younger – yes of course, much younger, but then so am I since I have my feet were firmly planted back in my beautiful Africa, and everyone had trolley loads of luggage – far, far more than mine. So all is good.

“Smile and wave, boys, smile and wave!” Pierre and Nici's frequent quote from 'Madagaskar' makes me smile a dozen times a day. A smile and a wave is what is required when the plane tries to land in Gibraltar on a landings strip that looked like a strip floating on the rough see, the waves washing over the edges not 20 metres from where the plane was desperately trying to find a foothold on land, tossed about in the gale force winds, being lashed with torrential rain. Not a comfortable landing under the impressively looming grey Rock of Gibraltar. But then, on the other side of customs and baggage collection (that is where I saw that my luggage looked like I had packed for a weekend trip compared to some of the boys with their four, five, six massive bags that almost required a trolley each!), there waiting for us, the bright smile of our intrepid leader, Mark. A warm welcome in a very cold, very wet Gibraltar. Off we went to meet our truck waiting for us outside the building, all the luggage quickly unloaded into the truck by an impromptu chain gang of willing hands, all in a hurry to get out of the wind and wet, and before long we were all ensconced inside the truck where, for the first time, we had an opportunity to have a good look at each other whole Mark went back into the airport to look for two boys who had not arrived. – It turned out they had cancelled at the last minute – after having come all the way from Perth to London, and then cancel an expensive year-long trip? Strange.

Looking around me at my fellow-travellers for the next 43 weeks, the first thing I noticed, oddly, was that someone was missing --Angela wasn't there – the first fellow-traveller I had met on Facebook. Funny how none of us had ever met -in fact all we knew about each other were the names on our joint airticket and yet I already missed her when she wasn't there - that vibrant she came a cross on FB. But Angela is joining us in about a month's time after she has organised that which had kept her from being with us in Gibraltar.

So, our little group is down to 12, plus Mark our leader and driver and Kyle, an exuberant, live-wire bon vivant who kept Mark company as they drove the truck from Istanbul across Europe after the last expedition and is now doing the trip for the third time, but this time only going as far as his home, Cape Town. However -- the individuals in the group I will introduce to you as we go along as I am sure you will enjoy meeting them as much as I did!

Smile and wave, boys..... Getting onto a ferry to take us across the ocean to Africa was probably a good indication of what an expedition like this is about. Then it was on, then it was off. Then we could go. Then there were no ferries going. Then we going to try a ferry port down the Spanish coast. Then we were staying in Gibraltar for the night. Then we were in the cue waiting to drive onto the ferry. And finally, at 4.45 the afternoon, we slowly manoeuvred our big bulk onto the ferry, was chained down onto the deck and made our way up to the warm, soft-leathered recliners of the lounge deck. Almost everyone in our group just sank back into that comfortable luxury and fell asleep, exhausted from the excitement and nervous energy of and sleepless night before. When we finally left the harbour, I was just so very grateful I had taken a Sea Legs tablet that morning in anticipation of the crossing, for I can assure you, there could not possibly be a crossing more turbulent than that one. The waves were crashing onto the windows where we were sitting on would be the third or fourth floor. Our soft leather recliners felt like water beds as we were tossed this way and that, forward and back and everyone literally held onto the arms to stay stable. A few were frantically fanning themselves with magazines and emergency instructions from the seat pockets to try to keep the nausea from overtaking them and across the aisle from me a young toddler was screaming blue murder at every adult a round it for bringing it into a place where it must have felt like a ping pong ball bobbing under a water spout. The 35 minute crossing took us just over an hour and the relief to reach the other side was visible on everyone's pale face. We all went back downstairs into the vehicle hold and flopped down in the truck, waited for the chains that had mercifully held the truck truck stable during the crossing to be released and, when the big diesel engines started up under us, and the truck started rolling forward toward the ferry doors, big smiles released the tension that must have been building up since each and every one of us signed on for this expedition. We were finally on our way!

Or so we thought... Smile and wave, boys...

We had of course landed in Ceuta, the Spanish enclave on the Moroccan coast, and we still had to get through the border post to enter Morocco. Well – I am sure there will be many accounts to come of the thrills and spills, the trials and tribulations and the agony and ecstasy of going through border posts during the next ten months of this expedition through the African continent, so let me not bore you with details this time, other to say we experienced all of the above.

By this time it was dark – and with the rain and wind still raging around us, there was a distinct apprehension in the truck as to where – and how, we were going to sleep that night. Mark told us afterwards how he and Kyle up front in the cab had considered introducing us to our first bush camp – which means setting up camp next to a road, but relented and drove us to a magnificently luxurious and comfortable camping site in a little part of the ongoing built up area along the coast, called Martil. (Of course it wasn't magnificently luxurious and comfortable, but itwas a camping site with facilities and a little restaurant where we did have a magnificently luxurious meal of couscous and chicken and vegetables and crème caramel – which none of us had had to cook over an open fire in the wind and rain and dark! Good call, Mark!)

A little aside here concerning our Intrepid Leader, Mark: Early days yet, I know, but I imagine to be a leader to a motley group of would-be adventurers, the provenance of which no one knows until the day they arrive tentatively at the starting point of the expedition, driving a massive truck – and believe me, it is massive – for 43 weeks across a very challenging continent and in most extreme conditions while keeping his passengers in one piece, physically and emotionally – such a leader needs on attribute more than any other: to be a consummate diplomat. Mark is that. Note the wise decision to herd his little troop into a safe have on stormy night one, and then his refusal to enter a debate on which is better: Marmite or Vegemite at our first breakfast the following morning... Kudos to you Mark!

On this first night in camp, I heard about the horrific disaster in Japan. We all felt so helpless -- cut off from the real world and no idea what is happening out there. I think this made us all think a little of what it is going to be like over the next year when we will often be out of all contact from the 'real' world where things continue as they do. Thank goodness for internet... We have been probably all been given a bit of a wake-up call as to the importance of staying in touch with loved ones and friends. All fine and well to take off for a year and disappear into the wild yonder, with the stars as companions and the newness of foreign places, new colours and exciting aromas to tittilate and stimulate, but in one way or another we are still all linked through love and caring and concern. It is therefore quite interesting too to see the quickness with which the different individuals in the group has already started to gel and settle in. We are reliant on each other for our survival. We have to work together to make the truck stay on the road, work together to feed our bodies and our souls. I could not help overhearing one of our group say that it would have been nice to have a little more diversity in the group. I wondered about this -- my first thought being that it is just as well that we all do seem so compatible as there will be ample diversity out there awaiting us, every region, every country, every daily encounter something completely different from anything most of us have ever experienced -- and no doubt will be commenting on it again soon. What is great though is that there is a wonderful dynamic in the group already and I think everyone feels a huge sense of relief for that. Being such a small group, but being in such a huge wide space out here, there is at the same time the feeling of safety being with others on whom you can rely but the welcome option of being able to leave the light circle of the fire and go be in solitude.

Yesterday was our first experience of a Moroccan town -- and there probably could not be a better town through which to meet the beautiful kingdom of Morocco than exactly this town of Chefchouan , nestling here against the foothills of the top beginning of the great Atlas mountain range. With its exquisite cornflower blue painted buildings (the blue coming from a local stone that contains this amazingly coloured blue mineral), narrow winding alleys, splurges of flamboyant colour of the Moroccan wood carving painters, the local berber rug dealers, the goat and sheep wool garments, the spice pyramids and abundance of fresh fruit and vegetables in the market, and of course the quiet moment sipping mint tea or the noisy laughter of the encounter with a group of young girls on their way to the hammam, the rug dealers trying to get you to buy the best kif if you are not going to buy that rug, the old men in their Ewok-meet-homeboy hoodies, -- ah! so much to tell, so much to share.

But, for now, I must end this session and go find a little warmth to thaw out and then I will be back soon with more!

Hamba kahle my friends!