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2007: From Cambridge (UK) to Zagora (Morocco) .. in the Sahara Desert!

An epic adventure through England, France, Spain, Gibraltar and Morocco.

It was completed, in great style, on time and without (very) major incident. You'll need to get the participants to tell you more about the minor ones ..

Meanwhile, though, check the full galleries for pictorial evidence. The rally succeeded in all its aims, raising very valuable sums for the chosen charities, but also ensuring that everyone had a lot of fun along the way.

The route took participants to Le Mans, Bordeaux, Bilbao (overnight), Madrid, Fuengirola (overnight), and then across the Gibraltar Straits to Tangier, Morocco. Visiting the exotic cities of Fez, Marrakesh and Casablanca, over the High Atlas and around the Anti Atlas Mountain range ..  to the dunes of the Sahara Desert itself.

Culminating in a fabulous cocktail charity party with the cream of Moroccan society in exotic Tangier. This was held at a spacious private house on Sunday 29th July and featured a Moroccan barbecue, cocktails, Gnaouas from Mauritania, a Djembe band and a further live band. Again, check the Galleries for photographic evidence of this most stylish event.

The whole event took 10 days from departure to return. Thanks go to all who took part, to our sponsors, to the crews, to the many new friends made along the way (especially in Morocco), and to all who helped promote this once-in-a-lifetime event. Thank you!

To get the real flavour read the log of the trip ..

" DAY 1 Sunday 22nd July 11am 

After meeting up at Four Wentways, Cambridge, the rally suddenly came to life with the realisation that these cars pulling into the car park, fully loaded with every accessory imaginable(fridges and bull bars included), containing a good mixture of people all after the same goal of driving through the Sahara.

 We left England on the 2am ferry in pouring rain and enjoyed this terrible weather all the way through France until we reached Bayonne on the Spanish border.

Within 59 miles of entering France, the Ant Hill mob and Professor Pat Pending took the wrong turn and nearly ended up in Disneyland Paris!! Fortunately they quickly corrected their route and caught up with the rest of us in Le Mans. On rapidly leaving this dull and wet city we raced on to Bilbao through Bordeaux, still in torrential rain, where The Slag Bros. in the Boulder mobile (Chris and Matt) got totally lost to the extent that they drove 120kms further than the rest of us by the time they caught us up in Bilbao at 10pm at night.

We managed to find two hotels in the capital of the Basque country, separating the party and sneaking Alan and Richard into our suite as no other rooms were available.

 Jay and I with Phil, Nigel, Stuart and Paul went to the other hotel to have a well deserved drink with all the other crew members. Whilst there we took some photographs of each other only for Ed to be arrested by the Bilbao undercover police for being a suspected Eta terrorist! We simply could not believe what was unfolding before us and as he was taken away I followed, being the only Spanish speaker in the rally to try and get him off the hook. After the police officer taking his ID and making numerous phone calls, and with me explaining that it was I that took the photos and that we were tourists, a very worried and nervous ED decided to utter the only Spanish words he knew, "grand cojones", (big Bo**ocks to the layman!) The police officer looked at me incredulously and I frantically told the officer that the tourist was an idiot but harmless, we he agreed and let him go. Not a bad start to the holiday eh? 

DAY 2   24th July 

We rose early and raced through Spain in increasingly high temperatures to lunch outside of Madrid then onto Fuengirola, an awfully long drive, not reaching there until 11pm that night. We very luckily managed to find a hotel, and after a quick shower we got some food and drink and Chris,Matt,Jay and I went clubbing until 3am.Great night! 

DAY 3   25th July 

After 2 hours sleep we set off to Algeciras to the port and managed to get the fast ferry that should have taken 1hr, took 3 hrs.

Once disembarking in Tangier the bulk of us went straight through the customs, mainly due to the fact that I gave the customs officials a few Euros, but without any notice Ros, Chris and Lloyd were taken from their respective cars and taken to the police station, under the premise that as they were going to the Sahara, are they taking monies for the Sahawis and Polisario who are at war with Morocco.

They were quite ruthlessly interrogated, particularly Ros.

Whilst we were trying to get to the bottom of this, the Moroccan police refused entry to the Ant Hill mob as they did not bring their car log book with them.

I was luckily met at the port by my brother-in-law, Abdelsalem, who is fortunately well-respected at the port and after 4 hours of negotiation managed to get all into Morocco where we rapidly shot off to Assilah to have dinner, camp, swim and relax away from the Moroccan officials.

I later found out that the King of Morocco was in Tangier so security had been tightened dramatically.  

DAY 4  26th July 

We set off to Fez at around 9am and after a long very hot journey, 40 degrees plus, walked all round the old city through 1500 back alleys to a fantastic restaurant and was treated to pure Moroccan hospitality.

We left Fez some 4 hours later and drove to our overnight stay in Ifrane. It felt that due to the port experience, the extreme heat and tiredness a mini mutiny broke out where a couple of the cars wanted to cut the rally a day shorter, which I did to keep a happy camp and changed the 6th day itinerary.

We had a large meal and relaxed ready for day 5. 

DAY 5  27th July 

We left Ifrane at 6am and headed south over the middle Atlas mountain range to Errachidia where the houses and landscape changed dramatically, not only temperature wise, upper 40"s, but the houses were built within forts as we were now on the border towns of Algeria.

After a quick fuel stop we left Errachidia, the door of the Sahara, and drove through a large canyon, very remote sandy areas and a dried up river bed lined with palm trees for about 150 miles. The heat was now around 50 degrees and our voices started to change as our throats dried up and our eyes also suffered due to the same problem.

We reached the sand dunes of Merzouga in the heart of the Sahara Desert at about 4pm. 

 We were lucky to find a hotel right in the dunes the Nassar Palace, and immediately drank copious amounts of beer, dove into the pool and opened a bottle of superb Minervois.

After lunch Alan ,Richard, Chris and I decided to drive the G4 Discovery and Chris"s BMW 3 series through the 200m high sand dunes, the BMW getting stuck within 100m and having then to get the G4 Disco to stop having fun and rescue us .Towing us out soon proved disastrous as the Disco also sank rapidly. With the help of some Berber tribesman, sand ladders and Richard shovelling we released the Disco and Alan then set the Disco up so that we could winch the BMW free. In temperatures of 52 degrees the winch overheated, packed up and the old fashioned method of constant pushing, shovelling and sand ladders got the beemer free.

Giving up on this we decided the best 4x4 were still available so I booked 20 camels from the tribesman and we carried on for 2 hours to see the sun go down on a long and tiring day.

Back at the Nassar Palace we watched Saad join the Djembi band ,had dinner and settled down for the night. 

DAY 6  28th July 

We all rose early at 4.30am to watch the sun rise over the dunes, and set off through 150 miles of desert to Ouarzazat then to Marrakesh, going over the High Atlas mountains.

This proved nearly deadly as the 2 automatic Mercedes, mine and the Ant Hill mob"s brakes failed on the narrow mountain roads, with shear drops on either side, for about 4 hours!!

Once on the flat they came back, all safe thankfully, Jay and Saad white as ghosts. Apparently this occurred because they car temp. was nearly 100 degrees ,the outside temp. 50 degrees and the brake fluid was boiling due to not being able to slow down on the gears.

Saad came up trumps in Marrakesh in finding us the Mansour Ergchebbi Congressional Palace 5 star Hotel for only 35 pound for the night. A saving of 220 quid per person, as they wanted to help our quest with the charity, and this was their donation.

After a swim and drinks we headed into the incredibly busy, smelly city and watched the mystical nightlife of this vibrant metropolis.

Unfortunately we got separated and Lucie fainted, likely due to the intense heat and lack of food and water, and she went back to the hotel with Ros where she made a good recovery and had a much needed sleep 

DAY 7  29th July 

As there was a worry as previously mentioned that we would not get back to Tangier in time by some of the crew we avoided Essouria and went via autoroute straight back to Tangier , taking only 5 hours driving time.

I managed to get everybody into the Miramonte Hotel and my sister arranged the party to come forward the one day as we were now ahead of schedule.

Colin and Brenda, after a long arduous journey from England , managed to get to the party in time, only to find though that Colin's pre-booked and paid for hotel the El Minza had reallocated his room due to the kings jubilee celebrations, having his party the same night as the other monumental event, our party. We managed to get Colin booked into the Intercontinental thankfully.

A few people left the party early as they wanted to get away a day early because of the port, which was a shame as a fabulous party was arranged and they missed the Gnaoas and mishwi and djembi band  which finished around 3.30am. 

DAY 8  30th July 

At 9am all crew except for the Ant Hill mob , Jay and I set off to Spain. We decided to relax and sunbathed and had a nice meal before getting the 7pm ferry back to Tarifa.

The crew that left earlier stopped in Estepona at around 5pm, Tony and Joules decided to push on, and had to unfortunately limp home as their suspension collapsed on their BMW, possibly due to the 3 ton of Moroccan earthenware,  and we followed suit, staying in a hotel and enjoying a chinese in Estepona. 

DAY 9  31st July 

Jay, Brenda and I decided to shoot off to Madrid at about 8.30am and stopped for lunch to wait for the others to catch up. Unfortunately Madrid being a large city, the others went through and got stuck in heavy traffic, taking 3 hours to meet up with us again.

Unconciously we ended up leading again and pushed onto Bayonne. Unfortunately Jay and my mobile phones were cut off as the networks thought they may be stolen, Jays bill being in excess of 200 pounds and mine between the 2 I had was over 420 in just 9 days. This made it impossible to keep in contact with all the crew until we sorted the networks out in France.

We did however manage to find each other in Bayonne and I found us all relatively cheap accommodation at around midnight.. 

DAY 10  1st Aug 

We all pushed on the next day for Calais and made it back to Blighty for a couple of days recovery. 

Funny thing,is the moment I got home, I would have welcomed the journey straight back. "

Karl

What the adventure entailed .. 

*Updates September 2007*:

Check the growing list of sponsors on the Links page .. join them!

Check the additional advice for rally crews on the Essentials page.

Were you there? Did you miss it? .. the pre-rally party in Cambridge?  The party featured performances by The Kings of Swing, with full PA and lighting provided by SAS Productions (both are sponsors - details can be found on the Links page). There was a fabulous set from a local DJ, an auction of some two dozen items .. pictures on the Gallery page.
 

Who is organising the rally? ..

What is needed to take part ? ..

Which charities are being supported ? ..

Where does it take place ? ..

How do I find out more ? ..

* Download Cambridge Evening News Article (March 2007) as a .pdf file (109 kb)

Some of our principal sponsors (for a full list see the Links page) : -