(14) 21 March. Off Road Towards......Algeria

Coming in through the window of my hotel room along with the warm night air is the sound of scooters and buses and the lilting tones of Arabic- the general hustle and bustle of Er Rachidia, the southern town in which we are spending the night. We arrived here early this evening hot and very,very dusty after a day driving around on a high plain of the Atlas Mountains. Oh, and the car is causing problems.

What can we say about the day's adventure, eight hours crossing the Plaine de Snab in the region of the High Atlas without a piece of tarmac in sight? There were the wadi crossings where the sound of screaming engines and the smell of burning clutch accompanied our efforts to climb out of dry grey river beds. There were the long, stony and bone jarring tracks over the wide and stony desert landscape with not a tree in sight and only the toughest and hardiest of shrubs growing. And there were the open skies and sense of total isolation save the occasional local who might laugh with us or point us on our way. And with all this a group of like minded people - who only days ago had never met - in knackered old cars getting to know each other and work with each other in order to get those cars through it all. It was a good day.

Our day had started as the sun rose above the mountains warming off the chill in the campsite. We set off after breakfast for the small town of Beni Tajite across the plain, our five two-wheel-drive cars and two four-wheel-drive cars that had joined us later last night and kindly agreed to travel with us and help if needed. Yes, yes, but what of our trusty Audi I hear you say? Well, apart from various scrapings on the ruts and bumps of our route and the occasional scraping of the front grill and exhaust going into and out of steep slopes she has stood up well. But towards the end of the day - and within our destination in sight across the fields - she started playing up. An intermediate loss of power was diagnosed by one of our fellow travellers, Ian - an ex Audi mechanic (just how lucky is that?) - as the engine only firing on three cylinders. Not fatal but much reduced performance, especially in the low gears we needed. We would need to investigate further.

Car problems notwithstanding, our day finished with a quick refuel stop at Beni Tajite. It is not that far from the Algerian border so it was deemed sensible to not hang around, especially as some of the locals seemed to be paying undue interest in our group. We then largely retraced our steps from yesterday evening to get to Er Rachidia where we found a hotel with the help of Zacharia, strangely enough one of the owners. We were glad to wash the dirt of the day off our bodies and head out for a quiet dinner before hitting our beds ready for tomorrow's drive west and a night in the desert.