We only had about 150km to drive to reach Algeceras, the port where we would get the ferry to Morocco. We arrived there at about 11am. We got our tickets (97 euros for one car and two people) and boarded the ferry. The crossing took only about an hour and before we knew it we were in Africa! Officially, though, we were still in Spain, as Spain retains a couple of footholds in northern Morocco. We were in Cueta (pronounced Soota), which is quite attractive. The weather was beautiful and the sea was a deep blue. Cueta does not charge tax, and we were able to fill our tanks (and jerry cans) for 0.47 euros per liter. We then went to the border to officially enter Morocco. The process involved several "helpers" (they must have been paid, as they didn't ask for any money) and took about an hour. The search of our vehicles was cursory. We drove another 40kms to a campground on the coast near the town of Tatuon. Apparently some scenes from Star Wars were filmed near here, and we suspect that this is where Tatouine got it's name. We came across people wearing brown robes with pointy hoods. They looked startlingly like Jawas. . . Once in camp, we went for a walk along the beach. We met a Spanish family who live in Cueta and were spending the weekend at the campground. We talked with them for a couple of hours.

We drove across to the Atlantic side of Morocco in the morning on our way to Casablanca. The climate seemed much wetter than we had expected, and once we left the Mediterranean coast it became cloudy. The right front tire on the green truck blew out on the autoroute and within minutes of beginning the tire changing operation, a guy appeared from out of nowhere to provide "help". He was well-meaning, but unneeded. We changed the tire and drove on, giving the guy a few dihram. We arrived in Casablanca at 3pm, and unable to find the campground recommended by lonely planet, we drove south along the coast. We found one closed campground, and another that looked more like a rubbish heap than a campground. Eventually we stopped for dinner at one of the many empty coastal restaurants. The told us what was available, and they went out for groceries. After a long wait, we were served an excellent meal of salad, fried fish, lamb kebabs, and potatoes. We asked about hotels, and guide went across the street and introduced us to a guy who rents "Cabinas" during the tourist season. We decided to stay there for lack of anything better or cheaper. Tomorrow we will go into Casablanca to get our visa for Mauritania and hopefully Mali.

We awoke early and drove into Cassablanca, using GPS coordinates to home in on the Mauritanian Embassy. We submitted our paperwork and Witt went off to try to get our tire repaired while we waited for the visa to be issued. The sidewall of the tire had been destroyed and was a write off. I met a man named Amine, the owner of a medium sized local business, at the repair shop who offered to help me get a new tire. To make a (very) long story short, Amine spent virtually the entire day with me trying to find a suitable replacement tire. After looking at many tires, I finally purchased a well-used Michellin XC for $35. At this point we had received our visas and we were so tired of Casablanca that we left at dusk to drive the 60km to Settat. Amine was very interesting. He was well dressed, spoke excellent English, and drove an Audi. He was always on his cell phone conducting business, and missed a client meeting while helping me find a tire. I asked him why he was spending so much time helping me, and he told me that the Koran says that there are three groups of people you must take care of. Your parents, friends and family, and travelers (or people who know no one). In the end, he spent most of his day helping me. He also had employees running around the city searching for tires. I have seldom encountered such generosity directed toward a complete stranger.

We drove from Settat to Marrakech today, arriving at the campground at about 11am. We plan to stay here for a couple of days, as this is the last place we will find a supermarket, so we will need to plan our route from here and stock up on food. While preparing lunch, the tire that took so much effort to acquire yesterday spontaneously blew up with a very loud bang. So now we are once again down to one spare tire on the green truck. In a last ditch effort to correct the continuing shudder in the steering, Witt had all four wheels balanced. This seems to have corrected the problem. We met a French couple in camp who have just spent a month in Mali. They gave us some excellent travel advice and showed us their route on a map. Their help will be invaluable. For dinner we accompanied them into town to visit the market (souk). There are over a hundred food vendors there selling all manner of amazing food. It was a feast for the senses. We ate at a couple of different stalls. The food was prepared in front of us and was very cheap (all six of us ate for 130 dihrams, or about $15). Note that for those of you who think we are completely nuts, we met another French couple on their way to South Africa (in a Pinzgauer) in camp. She is pregnant and due in about a week. They are staying in Marrakech until the baby arrives, then they will continue on with their trip.

We spent the morning in camp washing clothes, doing minor adjustments to the vehicle, and making a run to the supermarket for more food. We also talked extensively with the Frenchman who was recently in Mali. He gave us about a dozen maps of the region, which we photocopied in Marrakech. We spent the afternoon in town, with Graham and Connie buying a carpet, and Jen and Witt buying inexpensive travel rings to replace the wedding rings we left at home. At least we now feel like we're married again! In the evening we ate in the market again (it's cheaper than buying food) and spent some time at the internet cafe. Connie had plenty of time to watch the cockroach crawl across her computer table while internet pages crawled across her computer.

We're enjoying the food and relaxation in Marrakech so much we decided to stay another day. A final trip to the supermarket and more repacking of the cars.

We departed Marrakech this morning (after yet another trip to the supermarket to resuppy our gin) and after navigating our way out of the city we headed toward a piste recommended by Frederick in camp. Tomorrow is the festival of Eid al Kabir, which involves the sacrificing of sheep. There was a lot of traffic on the road, much of it people heading home for the celebration. Many vehicles had sheep on them destined for tomorrow's dinner. We crossed over Tizi-n-Tichka pass (2260m), and after waiting for a minor bus accident to clear, we turned off on a side road toward Telouet.

After 20km the pavement ended and we continued along a dirt road, passing many villages. After about 30km the sun was setting and we decided to make camp where we were rather than continuing on to the promised campground at the end of the route. We pulled off onto a desolate plateau below the ruin of a Berber fort and made dinner. We were concerned that locals would bother us (asking for money, payment to camp, etc) and in fact one man made the 500 meter trek from the road out to the campsite. He said hello in Arabic and asked (in French) for a bottle of water. We gave him one and he smiled and walked off. I think the water was a pretense for coming to look at our camp. He didn't say much and was very polite, shaking all our hands (as is the custom) before departing. We ate our dinner, cleaned up, and went to bed under a clear sky with a bright moon.

After a cold clear night, we awoke to yet another sunny day. Witt took a short hike up the hill to the ruins while Graham made coffee. After packing up camp, we continued on our way at about 930am. We passed through several villages with the children running after the cars asking for sweets, pens, or anything they could think of. This behavior is the unfortunate result of previous travelers' generosity. Difficult though it was, we did not give anything out. By 11:30 we were on pavement again and set out for Zagora along a highway that runs vaguely through the Vallee du Draa. The landscape is incredibly barren, with rock-strewn hills and sparse vegitation. There is striking evidence of geological uplifting, with vast curved rock ledges running across the hills. The villages we passed through on the main road were at first eerily empty of people. Then later in the day, we saw people standing at the side of the road talking. Inevitably they were dressed very well, with men in long white or brown robes and the women in amazing colorful garments that contrasted with the surrounding reddish brown soil and buildings. We arrived at our destination in Zagora at about 4:30 and easily found the campsite recommended by lonely planet.

With the symphony of barking dogs, braying donkeys, a catfight and the obligatory 6am call to prayer, none of us got much sleep last night. We awoke and went to get our tire repaired in what seems to be a ritual we perform every few days. Once that was done and after a little shopping and some petit dejeuner in Zagora we topped off our tanks and headed for M'hamid and the start of our second piste.

Zagora is (or was) apparently traditional stop on the route to Tombocktu, for there is a sign in town which claim it takes 52 days to reach that desert oasis from Zagora by camel. The town also seems to be a tourist hub for those seeking camel, 4x4, or ATV trips into the desert. We arrived in M'hamid just before lunch. We were unable to stop in town to discuss our route without being accosted by tour guides (driving Land Rover 110s) offering their services. Apparently the widespread use of GPS by independent travelers has hurt their business. Unable to convince them that we did not desire their services, we turned to our own GPS and made for the first waypoint from Chris Scott's book (piste M4). As soon as we were far enough from town, we stopped for a lunch which was hastened by swarming flies. This reminded me very much of Alice Springs, Australia. Another guide came by on a motorbike from the opposite direction. He was less insistent and chatted with us for awhile. After I declined his generous offer of 50 camels for my Land Rover, he rode off. The first 10km on the piste were sandy, then the terrain became more rocky as Chris Scott promised. At one point we had to adjust course cross-country as the track we were following was veering too far to the south and too close to the Algerian border (only about 30km away). Gotta love that GPS. We re-gained the piste and followed it for about 50 km before making camp amongst some small dunes. Shortly after starting dinner preparations, a camel herder walked into our camp from the desert. Dressed in a tattered robe and headscarf, he certainly looked the part. His face was dark, weathered, and leathery and he spoke no French. We offered him a cup of tea, sweetened with an obscene amount of sugar as it is traditionally served here. He sat down and we attempted to communicate using sign language and our Moroccan Arabic phrase book. We gave him a cigarette, which he smoked, and then got up to leave. We all shook hands, then he walked up the crest of a dune, his headscarf blowing in the wind, and disappeared back into the desert. We finished our dinner and washed up, then spent a little time star gazing and strolling about in the sand by the light of the nearly full moon. I climbed to the top of a dune and could see for miles. There were no artificial lights to be seen, nor did we see or hear a single aircraft overhead.

It was so quiet last night that we could actually hear the hum of our refrigerator from inside the tent (the fridge is pretty quiet). We got a very peaceful night's sleep and awoke to another sunny day in the desert. After making coffee and museli for breakfast, Jen and I went off to climb a nearby sand dune. We broke camp and started driving at about 10am. We saw many camel herder's camps, with the children running sometimes hundreds of meters over stony ground to ask for "un stylo" or "un bonbon." It becomes very tiresome, but at the same time it's understandable give how little these people have compared to us. We stopped at a police checkpoint and chatted with the officer there. He told us he'd been stationed there for a year and a half and we were the first Americans he had met on the piste. He said that he didn't see much in the way of fresh fruit or girls out there, so we gave him some cookies and a few oranges. We couldn't help in the "girls" department, as we hadn't brought any extras along. We pulled off into some dunes for a rather gritty lunch. Another couple of hours and we arrived back on the tarmac near Foum Zguid. We drove a further 120km to Tata, where we sandwiched ourselves in with a bunch of European retirees in RVs. Morocco seems to be the Arizona of Europe, except that "Campground" seems in most cases to mean a walled in parking lot.

We left the campground at Tata this morning at about 10am and started another piste from Chris Scott's book. They've paved some of the route, which cut off some time, but we still had about 50 km of dirt track. The pavement ended in a village (Souk-Tleta-de-Tagmoute) and the track wound through town for what seemed like forever. We drove up a river valley full of palm trees and amazingly green grass. There were several villages and lots of people, and in marked contrast to the last piste, the people were very friendly, saying "bon jour" and "bon voyage" and only a few of the children asked for handouts. At one point a few kids jumped onto the back of our truck and went for a ride. They thought it quite funny when Connie climbed on with them. We climbed up 3500 feet on a switch-backing trail then wound across a plateau before regaining the tarmac. 80km later we were in Tafraoute. The town seems quiet and fairly low-key with few touts to hassle and loads of European retirees in RVs. The one campground in town, like in Tata, is a walled compound with RVs parked as in a parking lot. Just outside the campground is a large area of much more inviting bush camping. There are probably twice as many RVs out here as are in the campground. There is great opportunity here for someone to buy some land and put in a proper campground. We walked into town for an excellent Moroccan meal consisting of a traditional soup, a tagine dish, and dessert with sliced oranges topped with a bit of honey and cinnamon.

This was day 20 on the road since leaving Downton England! So, we woke in Tafraute surrounded by fantastic scenery. This town is like the little Moab of Morocco in terms of the vistas and we imagined that if we could open a nice western style campsite with running water and showers we could make a fortune. We went into town for breakfast at the Café Marrekesh, recommended by Lonley Planet. It was very good, serving bread with a local almond butter. Our goal for the day was to make it to Tiznit, from where we plan to prepare for our southward journey. After Witt and Jen sent some postcards, we were on our way. It was 100km through windy mountain roads, often with only a single lane. But it didn't take very long, and soon we were in Tiznit searching for camping. The one Municipal Campsite in town was packed to overflowing with RVs, but they managed to squeeze us in, and we felt back at home with the noisy French retirees and their cats and dogs! In the afternoon Graham rotated his tires and fixed a slow leak in one of the fronts. He also tried to figure out why the transmission was misbehaving, but to no avail. Witt went into town to get two wheels balanced in an attempt to halt Rafiki's front end shimmy. Connie went on a vegetable and fruit buying expedition, and Jen re-packed again, preparing for the long road South. We went to dinner at a local pizzaria which was tucked away in an alley, and was deserted, but very good all the same.

We spent the day shopping and sending emails in Tiznit. The campground we're staying in is another "walled parking lot" packed with (mostly) French retirees in RVs. Tiznit is not that great a place, and yet it seems like lots of them spend months here! The internet connection is brutally slow and it's easy to kill hours doing the most basic tasks. We hope to be on our way south tomorrow morning.

We hit the road this morning at about 10 am with the intention of driving the 500km or so to Layoune. The drive brought us into some extremely remote country. Eventually we hit the coast; it's good to see the ocean once more. We stopped to look at a shipwreck; this coast seems prone to them. We saw half a dozen wrecks before reaching Layoune, and we probably only saw a fraction of the coastline. The road is two-lane tarmac, but barely. With chunks of the roadside broken away or covered by encroaching sand dunes, there is only just enough room for two cars to pass. Oncoming trucks and busses provide extra excitement. We're passing many more police checkpoints now, and where before police were stopping local cars and waving tourists through, the opposite is now true. We usually have to provide our passports and "details" such as occupation and vehicle registration. The police officers are invariably well dressed and very friendly, chatting and joking with us. There hasn't been any hint of corruption, which we know we will encounter in other countries. We pulled into the deserted campground after dark and made a quick dinner of scrambled eggs with tomatoes, ham, and leftover rice, eaten with a baghrir, a Moroccan flat bread which we have taken to calling frisbees. They're not hard or anything, they're actually quite good, it's just their shape and size.

We crossed into the Western Sahara today, which was once disputed territory with Mauritania and is now disputed territory with Algeria. The benefit for us is that fuel is discounted by 70% in order to attract Moroccans to settle here. Graham's transmission has developed worrisome noises and he is concerned that he will have to procure a new one. He made a call on the sat phone this evening to our Land Rover expert Charlie in Superior to help diagnose the problem. This being a Land Rover with only 18,000km on the clock, we joked that Land Rover ought to send us a new transmission along with a technician to install it for us.

Graham is pretty certain he needs a new transmission. He and Connie drained and refilled the transmission fluid this morning, looking for bits of metal. He didn't find big chunks, but there were a lot more shavings than would be expected. Charlie's diagnosis is that the transmission's oil pump has failed, leaving it unlubricated.

Nevertheless, we set out for Dakhla at 11 am (it is Sunday and we thought that we would have better luck obtaining parts on Monday morning in Dakhla). The drive was similar to yesterday, 500km of scrubby desert punctuated by a cliff dropping to the sea. The big event for the day was several massive swarms of 3" locusts we drove through all afternoon. At times it felt like driving through a hailstorm. Cars had to stop periodically to clear their radiators, and you could see piles of dead bugs along the road where people had done so. We stopped three times to clear our makeshift headlight guards, which had become very efficient bug collectors, and to clean our windshields. The front of the car is coated with bug entrails and we were glad not to have to set up our tents tonight. We don't really want to touch the outside of the cars at all, and a pressure washer would be most welcome.

We're staying at a hotel owned by the parents of a friend (thanks Mohamed!) of Marcia's, and in typical Moroccan fashion we were welcomed with amazing hospitality. The manager at the hotel promised to help Graham and Connie sort out their transmission woes tomorrow. We had dinner at a local restaurant, and while it was more expensive than we would have liked, the shrimp were excellent. It could have come on a better night though, as all the legs on the shrimp reminded us of our locust plague. . .

A lovely movie of the locusts was shot by Connie!

We are still enjoying the hospitality of Mohamed and his family, staying another night at their hotel and enjoying the hot showers. Graham spent the day on the sat phone, on the internet and in the street searching for a new transmission. With the help of Aziz, he discovered that almost any transmission will fit in a Land Rover, but unfortunately he is very closed minded and wanted only a Land Rover transmission. He spent several hours under the car with a mechanic who was convinced that the transmission was fine and the transfer case was bad. After a lengthy discussion and poking around in the transfer case the mechanic agreed with Graham. Aziz managed to source an old Land Rover transmission that seemed like it had been sitting on the floor of the garage for 10 years.

Not wanting to continue to occupy the best rooms in Mohamed's hotel (which is what we were given), we told them that we would be leaving for a campground today. At first they seemed genuinely hurt, and it seemed as though they thought we would prefer to camp in a tent rather than stay at their hotel. We told them that we simply wanted to spend time at the beach, which they understood. We were invited to dinner that evening at the home of Mohamed's family, which we happily accepted for 8pm tonight. This afternoon we thankfully found a car wash with a pressure washer and gladly paid 40 Dihrams to have our cars washed of the bug entrails which had both begun to stink and attracted clouds of flies.

We drove out to the campground where Witt went for a swim and the others relaxed and read. When we arrived at Mohamed's home for dinner, we were treated to traditional Moroccan tea and couscous. Couscous here is the same as in the U.S., except that here the word implies that it will be served with stewed vegetables and meats. In our case the meat was camel and the veggies were onions, carrots, and potatoes. The food was served in an enormous bowl and everyone sort of staked out a portion of the edge of the bowl and ate from that area of the dish. Traditionally food is eaten with the hands, but both we and our hosts used spoons. The tea service continued throughout the meal, with a tea pot on a small pedestal containing burning charcoal. A bellows was used to fan the flame and heat the water. Once the water was hot, a single cup of tea (about the size of a double shot glass) was poured and then repeatedly poured from one cup to another to generate foam in the bottom of each glass. The tea was then poured and served. The tea itself is a very sweet tea flavored with mint. A bowl containing various types of delicious fruit was brought out for dessert. After dessert, we were presented with some gifts in accordance with Moroccan custom. Graham & Connie were given a handmade wooden bowl, called a "Gadha" , while Witt & Jen were given a pillow case, called a "Assarmi", made from camel skin which has lots of intricate designs painted on it. We talked about various subjects throughout the evening and left at about 11:30. We are very grateful to Mohamed and his family for the hospitality they've shown us.

Graham and Connie went into town to check their email and continue the search for the transmission. Jen and Witt drove out to an informal camp on the beach about 25km from Dakhla. The camp is a bit dirty and very windy, but the scenery is much better than the "walled compound" of the campground. The area seems to be a haven for windsurfers and paraboarders, who all head out into the afternoon winds to frolick on the water. Too bad there wasn't room in our trucks for more toys!
Graham continued to search for help on the transmission issue. He posted on the Sahara Overland forum (also known as the HUBB) and learned that a 'tranny' is a transvestite, and that Land Rover does not include them with their cars. Nathan Hindman (Pangaea Expeditions) was a great help, scouring the globe for a transmission. During his search he secured a promise from Land Rover Magazine to publish a story about the transmission mission and swap. Land Rover was very unhelpful, as was the main Land Rover dealer in Morocco. Graham's father stayed in contact with Land Rover and various shipping companies during the day which was also a great help.

Witt and Jen repacked their car to discover that it really can seat four, and the crew drove into town to check email, buy food, and have lunch. Witt drove to the "auto mechanic" section of town to try to sell the two spare half-shafts in an attempt to reduce Rafiki's burden. No one seemed interested, and especially not for the prices we asked. There are lots of older Land Rover 109s (from the 70s and early 80s) here and if he'd had half shafts for those, he probably could have gotten a good price. Most of the newer Land Rovers here seem to belong to the UN, which has a compound in town.

There is a local guy who lives on the beach near our campsite and catches fish for the tourists camped here. He seems very much like a Moroccan Rastafarian, and doesn't seem to care much whether he is paid anything for the fish. He gave us four 10" fish (we don't know what kind they are - we're calling them "mystery fish"). Klaus and Anna from Germany pulled into our camp area in a 34-year-old converted Mercedes truck (it used to be a fire truck). They plan to spend the next year driving through Africa along with their dog, Baxter. We invited them to dinner, and we all huddled out of the wind in Graham and Connie's 3-sided awning and enjoyed fresh fish and the last of the cheap wine we bought in France.

The quest for a transmission continued. Graham actually ordered one from a company in England (LEGS) and was soon told that they could ship, but not to Dakhla, because it is in disputed territory and the airport doesn't have customs. Closest place they can ship to is Laâyoune, which is 500km North of Dakhla, and the soonest it could get there is Monday Feb 16th. So it looks like the transmission may have to make it another 500km before it is put to rest. . .

Graham and Connie drove into town once again to check on the status of the transmission and buy food. No news was forthcoming about the transmission and we hope that is good news.

Witt and Jen repacked Rafiki trying to lighten the load and get rid of superfluous items. The repacking was a success until the afternoon winds came up and put a halt to it. The afternoon was spent reading, relaxing and updating the journal.

No one got any sleep last night, as the constant wind made the tents flap about causing quite a racket. The four of us drove into town in the morning to check any further developments on the shipping of the transmission. It's coming to Laâyoune on Royal Air Maroc, who claims it will be here on Wednesday afternoon, based on entering the air waybill number into their website. The British shipping company thinks it will be here on Monday, so we plan to hope for the best and set off back to Laâyoune tomorrow.

In the meantime, Witt and Graham headed off in Rafiki to spend the afternoon searching for a geographic confluence. Like geocaching, confluence visits are a new hobby spawned by the wide availability of GPS receivers. An example of a confluence is 40°00.000'N X 107°00.000'W. Check out www.confluence.org for more information on this rather bizarre pursuit. With nothing better to do with their time than search for a random point on the earth and photographing it, Witt and Graham drove about 40km through the desert, at times with no track at all, just following the GPS, in search of the confluence of 24°N by 15°W. They got to within about 25 miles of the location, but the going was slow (no one has thought to build roads to these points! I'm sure it will happen in time) and coming darkness and the desire for dinner forced them to abandon the hunt.

Graham and Connie decided to sleep inside their car last night in hopes of a good night's sleep. This morning they reported "Quiet but lumpy" while Witt and Jen in the tent experienced more "flap-flap-flap." We set off early this morning for Laâyoune, stopping for lunch of coffee and croissants in Boujdour. The drive was uneventful, and having already seen the scenery, Jen and Witt listened to some music on the way back north. We're staying at the same campground where we stopped on our way through a week ago. Jen and Witt had their first proper showers in several days, and Jen worked to get the tent to open completely flat while Witt rotated Rafiki's tires. Connie and Graham drove into Laâyoune to check the status of the transmission. The campground is still deserted, but the wind isn't as bad here and we can hear the surf from the beach.

We were all grateful for a quiet night's sleep last night. After making coffee, the four of us took Rafiki into town to check email and visit Royal Air Maroc. The word is that the flight arrives at 17:30, not 7:30am as we had been told. There's no official word that the transmission is on this flight, but we'll be at the airport this afternoon to check. With another day to kill, the four of us located another geographic confluence 27°N x 13°W and went off in search of it. This one was closer to town, and only about 7km off the nearest paved road. We followed the GPS and arrived at the appointed location just after noon. We took photographs (not much to see) and watched a goat herder give us a wide berth, surely wondering what the tourists were doing driving around in the desert.

We had lunch and used the sat phone to call our friend Alan in Colorado, who provided the phone and told Witt about the degree confluence project. It was six am in Colorado, but fortunately he was already up watching TV with his baby daughter. We drove back into town and spent some time at the internet cafe, then had some coffee, and went to the airport at four pm. The flight, we were told, was actually due in at 8:30, so we went to a pizzeria for dinner. Witt and Jen split the Primavera, which had onions, olives, tomatoes, corn, and green peas. Graham had a four cheese pizza, and Connie had "Fruit de Mer" which consisted of shrimp and calamari.

We then headed back to the airport where we learned that yes, the transmission is on this flight, but no, customs is not open right now and come back tomorrow to pick up your package. So back to Nil Camping once more and hopefully tomorrow will bear fruit (or even better a new transmission.)

We awoke this morning after a peaceful night's sleep. The wind picked at around 8am, but we didn't think much of it. We drove to the airport, with the expectation of being able to pick up the new transmission. We arrived on schedule at 9am. The man we were supposed to meet wasn't there yet; he would be in "in a few minutes." At nine thirty he arrived, but couldn't do anything for us because the customs guy was busy. At 10 am Graham was told he would have to pay 6000 Dirhams for import duties. Graham asked if, since he was exporting the transmission, he would get the money back at the border. The guy made a few phone calls and the import duty was eventually reduced to 250 Dirhams (which would not be refunded.) Next, Graham and Witt got into the customs guy's Mercedes and drove to the customs office in town. The office was a central waiting area (without chairs to wait in) surrounded by about 7 offices. We visited four of the offices in turn and sat while men (and in one case a woman) behind desks put stamps on various pieces of paper, copied other pieces of paper, and copied details into large books. After this was finished, Witt and Graham took a taxi back to the airport. Graham presented a heavily stamped bit of paper, and, after paying another 244 Dirhams for freight handling, we loaded the new transmission into the back of Rafiki.

While all this was happening, a full-blown desert sandstorm had developed. During parts of the drive back to our camp, visibility was reduced to only 50 feet or so. As an added benefit, driving a Land Rover is like actually being out in the sand storm, so we got to feel the full effect of grit everywhere. When we got back to camp, we discovered that the owner had used his wheelbarrow to transport all of our belongings that had been outside the car under Connie and Graham's awning into a building. The awning has three sides and roof, the fourth side is provided by the car. The three sides zip onto the roof section, which is held in place by a metal frame attached to the car. The bottom of each side is long enough to put heavy object or sand on top of to keep the sides in place. In a strong wind, the sides probably came out from under the stuff we had on top of them, leaving the awning to flap about in the wind. The owner had unzipped the sides of the awning and left them neatly folded for us. We loaded our stuff from the building into the car, thanked the man profusely, and headed for some bungalows just down the street. The bungalow is nice but sparse, but it's out of the wind, doesn't flap and has hot showers (or at least a hot dribble of water, which is pretty good.) Graham was understandably frustrated to not be able to get started replacing the transmission, and we spent the afternoon watching the only channel available on the TV and playing cards. We are very much hoping for a calm day tomorrow.

We were very excited to awake to clear skies and only a light breeze this morning. Witt and Graham immediately began the task of tearing apart the transmission. Briefly, this consisted of removing the floorboards, center console, and transmission tunnel, as well as the drive shafts (front and rear) and most of the exhaust system. We used heavy-duty ratchet straps to lower the transmission, bell housing, and transfer case assembly to the ground. The whole thing probably weighs about 250 pounds. We dragged it out from under the car and took the bell housing, transfer case, and gear change housing off the old transmission. Graham reached into it and pulled out several broken bits of gears as well as lots of metal shavings. The input shaft to the transmission was very loose. Graham was surprised it had lasted as long as it has. We then attached the transfer case, bell housing, and gear change housing to the new transmission, adjusted the gear selector lever as per the Land Rover manual, and levered the beast back underneath the car. We then repeated the process in reverse, using the ratchet straps to lift the assembly back up into the car. Getting it aligned properly was of course very difficult, and basically amounted to wrestle-mania, Witt and Graham versus the 500-pound (yes, it got heavier as time went on) Behemoth of Inertia. We eventually got it seated and bolted in, and with darkness upon us we stowed our tools. Jen had made us a wonderful dinner, which we were not quite too tired to enjoy. Then halfway through 007's Live and Let Die (subtitled in Arabic) we dropped into bed.

We got up early this morning to complete the installation of the transmission, and by noon had Graham and Connie's truck back together. This was fortunate, since today we were to complete our triumvirate of weather: Deluge of bugs (okay, not strictly weather), deluge of wind and sand, and now deluge of rain. We drove into town in the afternoon to try to send the old transmission back to the UK (Graham and Connie were charged a 350 pound core charge which can be refunded if the old transmission is returned.) Unfortunately no one in Laâyoune can ship something like this, and it looks like they will have to eat the core charge. It remains to be seen how we will get rid of the old transmission. We had dinner in town and are planning to leave for points south in the morning. We're very much hoping for no more car problems for awhile!

We departed Laâyoune early this morning to try to make our Saturday (the 21st) appointment with Artouro, who is to guide us through the formalities at the Mauritanian border. The drive was uneventful, and much less stressful for Graham and Connie with their new transmission. We filled our tanks and jerry cans at the last reliable fuel station in Morocco, both because fuel is more expensive in Mauritania and because we plan to turn inland and head for Choûm without stopping in Nouâdibou. We were aiming for a beach camp used by Michael and Sandy, whose website (www.expeditionoverland.com) has been very helpful to us. Navigating by GPS, we arrived at the campsite shortly after dark. It was right at the water's edge, and the soft sand made the going tough, but even heavily laden our vehicles made it to the campsite. Connie quickly whipped together an excellent meal of spiced couscous and we fell into bed listening to the waves crash on the beach.