Dreamt of bangers and mash last night . Was rudely
awoken by the 5am call to prayers. Yup, this has definitely started to
lose its appeal. It seems different here, a sort of Karioke, as a whole
heap of Tom Jones wannabees wail for about an hour and a half. Bloody
awful really, especially as its between 5.30 and 7am. Anyway, we are off
to Atar today following the railway to Choum. Had a quick stop in town
for the usual essentials: fuel, bread and Coco-cola and after one or two
police checkpoints, asking for our insurance and carnet, we were off.
The piste turned out to be tarred for the first bit and Rob naturally
got bored with this so tried to head off onto the original track. We
were soon stuck in the sand but with minimal digging and more tyre
deflation, we were out. It was meant to happen actually, as we could
hear this humming in the distance, which turned out to be the famous
iron-ore train. It fetches up 2.5 km long, which makes it the longest in
the world. There are a few passenger berths or you can sit on the roof
for free. The driver was most confused as to why we were there and not
on the tarred road. We decided to follow his advice and headed back to
the tar road for a bit longer. Stopping at a small village to re-join
the piste and deflate the tyres a little more and within minutes we were
soon surrounded by what felt like thousands of small children demanding
gifts. Somehow, we managed to escape after various threats and demands
for our furry mascot dog, Brian. The piste after that was pretty good, a
little rough, a little bumpy, a little sandy, all the usual but quite
easy to navigate, as long as you keep the railway line on your left.
Don't cross over it, as there are landmines on the Moroccan side.
Excellent! We stopped for the night in a gorgeous spot in the middle of
nowhere. I made a batch of onion bhadjis. Gotta get creative with these
veg, you know! |
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