My "Saharagelber" 300TD » casablanca

Troubles again with our Visa

Jurgen — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 20:02:35 +0000

Today we got up early, it was darn hot last night. The fan lasted till six o’clock, then the jumpstarter was empty and from then on it was too hot to bare again. After all, it would have been better to sleep on the roof in the shade and outside with a bit of wind.
We were a bit grummy this morning, cause in the room across there was a family with a small daughter. They woke up at 6:50am and when they were packing the room they let her talk very loudly and had no notion of other people they held awake this way.

The way you see it the most, full of people, sometimes 7 persons (2 on the front passengers seat).

Marrakech, Morocco. They drive sometimes a couple of million kilometers here, one Taxi driver said.

Before we left Marrakech I searched for a shop where I could buy something to hold the stool on the roof, because we had to travel the rest of the journey with that huge unhandy stool I bought.
Next time we’re in Marrakech we will try to find our way a bit further away from the big touristic Djamaa el Fnaa square.
Close to the parking lot we bought 220liter vegetable oil and left Marrakech. When we were at the embassy we had to show a receipt, which we did not get. No receipt? Then no passports. ‘You DID receive a receipt’ they said stringent.
‘No passports back!’ Then we had to wait, important people were told about our problem and we had to wait and wait. They asked Melissa in and out and then we both had to come in. They were mad at us for not having this receipt and we were mad at them because we didn’t get one!
I told them we had to get it back, not our problem that THEY made a mistake. The we finally were told we could get it back, but not today, it will be tomorrow. Great.
So, we went back to this crappy camping again, ironically named ‘Oasis’ I guess. Well, it was such a nice place anyway, we loved to stay there, *Sigh*.
Then Ramon got sick, he started to throw up and we’ve put him to bed early when he was able to sleep.

We bought a boatload of vegetable oil in Morocco

Cheerio!

Problems with Visa and heading for Marrakech

Jurgen — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 21:58:21 +0000

Today we heard at the embassy we had to wait for the visa for one and a half day, but I read on het Internet they are able to issue them on the same day, asking and begging did not help, this seemed to be the procedure.
We didn’t want to be disappointed so we decided to head for Marrakech and forget about this as soon as we could. Which was easy, because Marrakech was one of our favorite places in Morocco and we wanted to show it to Ramon.
The road between Casablanca and Marrakech is somewhat boring, some parts were nice though, sometimes you drove in between the big bold mountains, some parts were beautifully red colored, and now and then the colourful combination of these red stones and the green trees.
We passed the Oued Oum river and some smaller rivers.

The boring camping in Casablanca, named “l’Oasis”, pretty ironic if you ask me.

If you need to change the engine, you just don’t tow the bus, but do the replacement on the highway itself and having someone getting the parts you need, awesome!

The taxi’s are green over here.

The 100k milestone!

The place were we’d hit the 100k milestone in Morocco.

After a while we entered Marrakech, parked our car at a guarde parking lot and started exploring Marrakech and find ourselves a hotel. It was darn hot over here and we decided to buy some orange juice, especially Ramon needs those vitamins. As we walked on the square they all started to scream and wanted us to buy the juice at their place. We stopped at the first one but decided to buy a one juice at one person, so we distrubute it equally. The two other guys we laughing and we’re happy we did this, the first one ended up with selling just one juice and wasn’t too happy with it
We had some experience with the moroccan way of trading but today we got fooled again, they did not tell us what it costed but ‘helped’ us by picking ‘the right coins’ when they ask to show them what you have, acting as though they will help you out with the foreign coins.
So we paid, 5 at one place, the other 3 and the third one 4 dirham, well, whatever .

At the Djamaa el Fnaa, in cosy Marrakech. It was damn hot that day!

Ramon getting a henna tattoo

Djamaa el Fnaa

Ramon wanted a henna tattoo so one of the woman agreed with 100 dirham to create one. They offered a small free one at Melissa’s arm but this small one got bigger and bigger and we ended up with paying for both the tattoos.
No freaking way! We got an agreement. I kept on saying no and we did not feel guilty, we know that trick
Then we ate some food at the restaurant with the view over the Djama el Fnaa square and went into the old medina to hotel Essouira, where we slept on the roof some years ago. After trying to book a room they told us that they need our passports, which were at the embassy in Casablanca… There was no way to book us in because this is a strict procedure and they could get fines for it. We had to go to the police station and arrange some papers stating that we are who we are, which would cost money too (of course) So there we are, in Marrakech and no place to sleep. We decided to ask the next one, paying directly and see if we could arrange something.
2 hotels furthers we asked the guy and explained our problem, he told us after thinking for a while it was no problem, he only had a room for four persons, which costed 200 dirham (around 16 euro’s), so that’s no problem, we were in, without the hassle of going to the police station.
We went to the car to get our stuff, we decided to take the jumpstarter, the 12V-220V converter and the 220V fan, because it was darn hot in that room, 35 degrees in that room is no exaggeration!

Typical hotel in Marrakech, the old medina

Driving to Casablanca

Jurgen — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 20:54:38 +0000

Today we departed again, although, that was the plan. We bought some bread near a tiny village next to the camping. It was a big mess, waste everywhere, small children running around, some old mud houses and starved dogs. I was able to buy some vegetable oil here at this small shop, so I bought as much as possible. When we wanted to leave we spotted some baby ducks in the small streamlet close to the camping. They were alone, probably taken by the stream. We spend three hours to bring them back to their parents but failed in the end.
So at five o’clock in the afternoon we headed for Casablanca, there we had to get our visas for Mauritania, as it was unclear to us if we could get them at the border, we read it was not possible and would not take the risk.
We took the route from Azrou via Khenifra, Kasba Tadla, Oued Zem, Khouribga to Casablanca. We found an utterly ugly camping l’Oasis, somewhere close to the embassy, whch was good. The camping was just some place in the middle of the busy city, surrounded by walls.

On the road again, heading to Casablanca.

Morocco is beautiful!

W123’s all around!

Somehow our clocks were 2 hours ahead of time, we found out at the office window of the camping, so it was 22:30 instead of 00:30. This gave us some extra sleep, 7am in the morning is now two hours further away
We had found ourselves a good spot, away from the others. It was pretty quiet on the camping and we went to bed early, after we prepared at the sloppy toilets.