South Europe, North Africa and the Balkans in 1975 6x6 Volvo

[Raredog]

Storm

After nearly 3 weeks and 3700 kms vi are now at the southernmost part of Spain, right now we are using the free Wi-Fi in a laundry-place in Tarifa while watching our clothes spinning around.

We decided not to go to Portugal as planned, as we guess it would be just as cold, stormy and rainy, so we might take the ferry to Tangier-Med tomorrow – we hope that the weather is somewhat better at the other side

 

[Raredog]

3 days later

3 days later, camping on a small mountaintop, reading books, seeing old Colombo movies on the laptop and drawing, eating and sleeping the weather finally behaved.

We were at the ferry at 8.30 to catch the 9.00 o clock ferry, but it didn´t show up! The same with the next ones... No information at all!

At 17.30 we had to go to the toilet, when we came back they had chosen to open up another lane!
Had to keep Lisa on a short leash; She was nearly ripping the head off a really irritating ferry-operator, she said that we couldn't get aboard, because we wasn't at the car! But luckily some nice people let us in and we got aboard

 

[Raredog]

Morocco

The border crossing was somewhat confusing, it was dark, we had a narcotics-dog in the car, 1000 people around and a lot of paperwork in French and Arabic, which we didn't understand, but the custom officer was funny, he asked with a smile if we had remembered to declare the guns, referring to our zombie-car

Morocco is nice, people are kind, the weather is good, but you suddenly realize that you are a long way from home, when there is no white lines on most of the 6-8 lanes in the cities, there is donkeys and chickens everywhere and there is no toilets as we know them, there is just a hole where you squat, and no toilet paper - instead they use there left hand and a bucket of water...

It also became clear why they had those "max 6,5m" signs at the ferry!

 

[smlobx]

I like your comments about things being different in Morocco!
We have a saying here in the US "You're not in Kansas anymore" referring to the Wizard of Oz movie.
Please post more when you can!

 

[Sabre]

Great writing, beautiful photography, and a cool vehicle. Following along and looking forward to the rest of the adventure. Thanks for inviting us!

 

[Raredog]

Thank you very much for the kind words

 

[Raredog]

Helpful Moroccans

We are now south of Agadir and it looks like we are passed the worst tourist-traps. It is a beautiful road along the coast, but some places you feel cramped between the HUGE caravans filled with with extremely tanned elderly from France and Germany… It is insane how much they are towing of trailers, bikes, ATVs and motocycles! When you see them coming they look like burned leather with silver wigs (or raisins in Tupperware!)

As we normally are camping in nature by ourselves, we had just now discovered that camp-sites actually is great place to meet fellow overlanders – we met a really nice couple from Estonia, Maari & Heiki. They have traveled since September and are also heading for Senegal, so we decided to drive together

We had an somewhat strange puncture in the middle of the city; 3 guys was yelling and waving there hands and we stopped, then one of them said that we could go and as we got 100m down the street one tire had a huge hole in it… They were very helpful and all 3 of them helped change the wheel, of course it wasn’t for free, they got 50 DH.. A bit strange, especially as the tires are very sturdy and we haven’t had a flat ever – even in hard offroad…

There is still some things that we need to get used to; there are no parking-meters, instead there is brown guys in yellow wests, who wants some coins in exchange for waving their hands, traffic are actually flowing good, without being aggressive as in southern Europe, but you have to watch out for pedestrians, free roaming animals and people overtaking on the right side…

 

[Raredog]

Never alone!

We are starting to replaceour winter-pale skin with something more local-like. The landscape are dramatically changing here in Morocco; from beach to mountains to desert in only a few km.

We succeeded in finding a blank spot on the map and decided to camp there, no houses, no people, no fences, no tracks or anything else. But as we are sitting there enjoying the silence with a book, an old man comes riding along on his donkey! We “spoke” to him for 10 mins without ever understanding what he tried to explain…

 

[Raredog]

Moroccan Hospitality

Gas stations are not like we are used to, but at the bigger ones there is a few choices of engine oil in the shop, carwash is a “do it yourself with a pressure-washer”, we didn’t find the restaurant but it had a Mosque

Just as we thought we were alone in the world (together with Maari & Heiki) we met some Moroccans in their Landcruiser, going on a fishing-trip. They invited us to have tea and bread with them, very smiling and friendly, as all Moroccans

1½ hour we sat there and talked in a sweet mix of Arabic, English, French, Estonian and Danish

 

[Doc Foster]

Very cool vehicle, great pictures and interesting stories of your travels. I look forward to hearing more of your adventure.

 

[Raredog]

Endless nothingness...

Everywhere we park, and there is adventure campers nearby, they gather around the Volvo, but most of them think it is a Steyer-Puch Pinzgauer, so it was really nice to finally meet one in real life You can tell why people mistake them for the same car, although the mechanics are totally different, as it has an air-cooled petrol-engine and independent suspension.

The rest of the day we spent driving along on the beach, it was a bit of work for the engine in the soft parts…

Normally it is somewhat of a challenge to find a lot of off-road, but not in the southern part of Morocco! After 3 days without much else than sand, rocks and wild camels, we are now finally back on the tarmac! We are not that fond of canned food and army-rations anymore

We are glad that we have found someone to be traveling with, as the endless desert would be a somewhat scary place to have a break-down. It is really strange to have nothing but desert everywhere you look for so long.

 

[pmatusov]

Please keep it going!

 

[DetroitDarin]

incredible. Thank you for this thread

 

[toymaster]

Sweet ride. I'm enjoying your thread very much.

 

[twopoint6khz]

This is how is should be. Thanks for the write up.