 Our map-reading and navigation skills had been tested to their limits by Moroccan medinas and highland roads but as we arrived at the southern fishing town of Tiznit we figured that we could relax slightly. If we could simply keep the sea beside our right wheel and the desert under our left we should – in approximately 3,120 kilometres – arrive safely at our destination.
The friendly Berber villages of the mountains were already far behind us and now we were entering an area of stony hamada desert, uninhabited apart from the occasional camel herder’s encampment or lonely fisherman’s shack.
We had filled our jerry-cans with fuel and water for the desert crossing but the 1300cc VW engine had been feeling the strain of the steep climb over the snow-capped Atlas peaks and, with the increased load, we listened intently for tell-tale signs of trouble. At thirty-four years old the venerable Beetle might already have been considered deserving of a more relaxed retirement when talented mechanic and self-confessed ‘petrol-head’ Pete Sandford decided to outfit her for one last adventure. With an overhauled engine, a set of flaring wheel arches, big desert tyres and a snazzy yellow paintjob Pete had given her a whole new lease of life as ‘The Sandbug.’
On the road just ahead of us, in a barbarous-looking Volvo with flames painted over the wings and a bikini-clad Barbie doll mounted on the bonnet, Adam and Vegas were setting the pace. Behind us were Yasmin and Georgia (aka Team ‘Beta-Bells’) in a Vauxhall estate, which boasted a set of rally tyres that would come close to doubling the total value of our little convoy.
As part of what has been called the ‘ultimate banger rally’ we were doing our best to get our aged, and already somewhat road-weary, vehicles from the UK through France, Spain, Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania and Senegal to The Gambia.
The Plymouth-Banjul Challenge (www.plymouth-banjul.co.uk) is the brainchild of Devonshire stockbroker Julian Nowill who describes it as ‘the poor man’s answer to the Paris-Dakar.’ The main rule of the PBC stipulates that competing vehicles should cost less than $180 and the team preparation budget should be no more than $25. Luckily the PBC handbook acknowledges that ‘some rules are made to be broken’ and these figures are seen as no more than guidelines. Even so, you might imagine that few would be prepared to undertake a 5,600km, 3-week odyssey into ‘Darkest Africa’ in a vehicle that most people would not trust for a run to the shops. But every year so many competitors – in cars, trucks, vans, buses, ambulances and even ice-cream vans – apply that the organisers are limiting entry to PBC 2007 to two hundred and fifty vehicles (departing in four separate groups).
Far from being just a scatter-brained road-trip, the challenge has become a major fund-raising operation for The Gambia: all cars are sold off at public auctions and this year more than US$240,000 was donated to community projects, charities, schools and hospitals in this impoverished West African country. Many teams also raise funds independently for favourite charities (the Beta-Bells collected almost $9000 for a local hospital).
The Plymouth-Banjul is not a race or even a competition in the strict sense of the word. There are no prizes for arriving first and the only glory is in being there at the finish and in working as a team to help other members of the convoy to reach their destination.
The Sandbug had already suffered what would be her worst trauma of the entire trip just six hours out from the UK. As we scrutinised a shattered valve – in -6ºC on a December night in Bordeaux – it had seemed that we were destined never to reach the African sun. But helpful local mechanics had got us back on the road by the following afternoon and we avoided the Pyrenean snows to make it through Spain just a day behind most of the other vehicles.
 Then came Morocco, where the lion’s share of the PBC is located, and we allowed ourselves a sigh of relief. At least we had made it to Africa, already a reasonable achievement in a vehicle that had been in a heap of tea-chests on Pete’s driveway just six weeks before. Everything that lay ahead of us now was a bonus.
We bypassed Tangier’s labyrinth of lanes, draped like a tangle of fishing nets around the old port, and fifty weird and wonderful vehicles began to fan out across what is certainly one of the most diverse countries on the African continent. Some headed southeast towards the Riffian Mountain town of Chefchaouen, with its ice-blue alleyways and highland atmosphere perhaps the prettiest in Morocco. Others steered due south, making a beeline for the ancient medina and famous tanneries of Old Fez.
The Spanish hills had already proven that the Sandbug was not geared for ‘mountaineering’ so for now we stuck to the coast road and headed towards the lovely Atlantic fishing towns of Larache and Asilah. ‘The Beta-Bells’ and ‘Team Bigfoot’ (in the flaming Volvo) joined us and in the shadow of Asilah’s old fortress we celebrated our arrival in North Africa with a feast of lamb tajine, richly stewed and served with apricots and dates.
In a week’s time we would be leaving the Moroccan frontier town of Dakhla in convoys of five or six vehicles to take on the desert sections of Western Sahara and Mauritania. We could afford few rest days if we were to complete the entire challenge within three weeks but we had promised ourselves an extra day to soak up the unique atmosphere of Marrakech. It would be my seventh visit to the city that I still considered one of the most exciting in the world. Negotiating Marrakech’s swarming traffic is never simple however and, as we approached the bleating taxis and jostling motorbikes of the Ville Nouvelle, Pete extended one of his rare invitations to let me drive the precious Bug.
We made several unsuccessful attempts to penetrate the old city before I finally spotted the unmistakable landmark that is the Koutoubia Minaret. Legend has it that when the Koutoubia was built (eight hundred years ago) the city bled so much that the great walls were stained permanently red.
The heart of the city has always been the Djemaa el Fna. It seems strange that this perpetually raucous, clamouring square should have been known as ‘the Assembly of the Dead’ but throughout much of its existence the walls around Djemaa el Fna were decorated with the salted heads of rebels, bandits, criminals…and pretty much anyone that the sultan took a disliking to.
While such gruesome adornments are a thing of the past, the excitement and bustle are undiminished and the Djemaa el Fna is still known as the greatest never-ending festival in Africa. Contortionists and child boxers mark out their pitches alongside story-tellers, scribes and traditional-healers. Several of the PBC vehicles had already managed to ease their way through this swirling mass of humanity and elderly water-sellers and chleuh boy dancers had paused in their work to applaud the colourfully graffiti-ed Citroen 2CVs of the Barcelona contingent.
As the streetlamps around the Djemaa flicker to life, Africa’s greatest festival becomes the world’s biggest barbecue. Smoke flares around swinging lanterns, making the chain of orange-juice carts look like a wagon-train barricade. Dozens of groaning tables are piled high with couscous, fish, chicken, harirah (meat and egg soup), vegetables, rice, tajine stew, fresh bread and succulent kebabs.
 Throughout its history Marrakech has been famed as ‘the gateway to the desert.’ The swaying date-palms and soaring walls were said to bring a tear even to the eyes of the tough Tuareg traders as their caravans arrived from Timbuktu and Sudan with their cargos of salt, spices and slaves. Berber nomads came here to gaze in wonder at the thronging crowds in the great marketplace and in the remote villages of the High Atlas the elders still believe that he who sets eyes on the miracles of the Djemaa el Fna will never want to leave.
For us too, it was hard to leave Marrakech and even the Sandbug seemed reluctant as she struggled over the snowy passes of the Atlas. But then began the long, winding descent back to the coast. Our toughest days of driving still lay ahead. There would be long days when we moved almost constantly from sunrise to sunset and there would be few opportunities to sleep in a bed again until we arrived in Banjul. We would camp at night wherever we found ourselves, buying provisions from local fishing villages and leaving the scraps out at night for the desert jackals.
Somewhere near the Moroccan fishing town of Tan Tan we were overtaken by the revved-up desert-flyers of the real Paris-Dakar. They had been making considerably better time than us since their own ferry crossing into the Moroccan port of Nador but this year their rally had started only in Lisbon. So, as hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of space-age engineering roared ahead into the dust we looked for consolation in the fact that our tortoise-like procession of ‘clapped-out bangers’ would run on for eight hundred kilometres beyond the chequered flag of the Paris-Dakar.
|
"He who dies with the most experiences wins"
return