Its My Bag Man!

Hutters in Totters

admin — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 11:39:14 +0000

A little late with this post, but to be truthful, the internet access was actually better on the continent than here in the UK.

We visited Totnes on our arrival back in the UK to see my son and his partner and spent a couple of lovely days with them on the Friday and Saturday. Sunday saw Mel and Hutters disembarking from an intercity train at Totnes station, and we spent a lovely few hours eating a nice lunch and drinking a little beer. By a little, I mean enough to get Mermy and La Rose quite squiffy and possibly a danger to motorists on our cycle ride back the 3 miles to our campsite. Still, we arrived safe and well and continued to drink into the night so as to avoid lunchtime hangovers, which I always fall prey to if I sup in the daytime.

Thanks A and M for coming over and sharing a lovely afternoon with us.

Mermy and La Rose

Some Piccies

admin — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 15:01:27 +0000

Flickr for the first lot of Maroc pics

Love and Peace
Mermy

Out of Africa (Been waiting ages to use that title!)

admin — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 13:58:02 +0000

A very long time since I blogged and we have done so very much.

I have been bed ridden once again with a bladder/kidney infection and once again on antibiotics. I swear that I will, if not cautious, become immune to the buggers. I did try to see if I would get better without them, but fierce fevers, a temp of 40 degrees and Rosie almost crying with worry, persuaded me to take them again.

On the travel front, we went to Marrakech which we disliked immensely due to the dirt the noise and the fact that every single person in the city has the sole object of removing money from you by any means. Add to this fact the large Club Med in the heart of the Medina full of bullish American and German tourists and you start to get a picture of a sort of disney world without a hygiene certificate.

We went from Marrakech up to Casablanca and stayed for a few days at a site we really liked on the way down. Not French owned like so many, but family owned by Morroccans who are the most charming family we have met and this is where I was ill. When Mohamed the owner found out from his son Hisham that I was ill he came to visit and see if he could help and his wife sent over a Vegetable cous-cous for us which I was sadly unable to eat, but Rosie enjoyed. The guide book does not rate the site very highly due to poor facilities, and I admit that it is getting a bit tired and needs some revamping, but the warm and friendly welcome makes it 5 star in my book.

We left the site early to head up to what was to be our final stop before leaving the continent, and that was Asilah, a pretty little fishing port on the north west coast. Asilah used to be very run down and dirty, but the Moroccan foreign minister who was born there, saw how bad it had become and with the help of a local artist, set up a big international arts and music festival there, every August. The effect on the town was remarkable and it is now one of the prettiest and cleanest medinas we have seen. All the houses are painted white and blue and there are fabulous murals all over the town. We wandered through the little alleyways and bought our last few gifts from the pretty little gift shops before returning to our motorhome which for the grand sum of £1.80 we had parked right on the edge of the beach facing the sunset. A very nice way to remember Africa.

The last day was a huge anticlimax for us. We travelled up via Tangier to get to our boat in Ceuta and we had two occasions of youths trying to climb onto the roof of our van whilst moving and one occasion of kids trying to break the windscreen with stones. We eventually caught our ferry back to Algeciras and got parked up for a rest.

We decided not to stay in Spain, and so we drove the 450 kms to Quartiera in Portugal. We spent 3 nights there and used the time doing laundry, cleaning the van and sorting our trailer out after the roads of Morocco. Now tell me, is it only me that thinks that the Algarve has about as much to do with Portugal as Guantanamo bay has to do with Cuba? I will prolly get clubbed to death by a septuagenarian with yellow shorts and a niblick, but it has to be said. Anyhoo, we then drove up to Almera on the outskirts of Lisbon where we are now parked and both Rosie and I have colds! This even though the weather is actually warmer than it was in North Africa.

I hope to write another shorter blog before we return to the UK on the 1st April.

Love and Peace
Rosie and The Merman

Ebay fun

admin — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 09:48:57 +0000

Check out this great advert we found on ebay this morning, we laughed like drains!

Honda C90 cub

Mermy

Touareg ‘aint just a 4 x 4

admin — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 20:01:27 +0000

So much has happened since I last had the chance to sit at the old remington traveller and bash out a blog on the worn keys….

Rosie and I left Essaouira which clings to the fact that Jimi Hendrix stayed there in 1969. Everyone there knew Jimi Hendrix when he visited, including the 40 year old man we met who was taught English by Hendrix, even though he would have only just been born. Also they all tell you how he wrote Castles in the Sand whilst looking at the deserted sea castle just down the coast. (He wrote the song in 1967, two years before he visited.)

We liked Essaouira and liked to wander through the Medina and see the sights and smell the…..whatever the smell happened to be. We will go back for a visit before we go home.

After Essaouira we went down the coast to Sidi Kouaki where the huge firm beach is perfect for sand yachting, so that is what we did. The campsite we stopped at, was very much to our liking, with no electric, water pumped from a well once a day and bread delivered by an old man on a donkey every morning. The day we left to go to Imesouane, which is a surf spot and a sleepy fishing village, I developed a urine infection. We stopped at a chemist shop en route and stocked up on anti-biotics and codeine, and I then parked up in Imesouane and I went to bed for 4 days.

After my recovery, we stayed another few days, eating fresh fish straight off the boats and chilling out at the campsite which is owned by ex world no 2 windsurfer Jamie Lever and his girlfriend Ann Sophie, a super lovely couple.

After we left Imesouane, we headed down to Agadir to find a supermarket and stock up our now empty cupboards. We did not like anything about the place and after a noisy night at a parking de nuit, we headed south to find the desert.

We drove solid all day till we passed the gate to the Sahara at Guilmem. We then continued to the village of Tighmarte which is wierd and quite amazing. The village is set in a huge Palmerie which is a palm forest in the middle of the desert, and although the campsite was closed, we met a Saharan call Faouzi who took us to his home and gave us mint tea and let us park outside his house for the night.

We met a genuine Touareg Caravan master who still travels across the Sahara with a caravan of 25 camels to trade in Mali. They only travel at night and sleep during the day when it is too hot. He showed us his Touareg passport issued by the UN which allowed him free access across international borders.

After our stop in Tighmarte, we headed over to Plage Blanche, where the desert meets the ocean. We were hoping to sand yacht on some of the 50 kms of beach, but there was no wind and so we contented ourselves with walking on the beach and collecting stone to bring home and polish.

Today we left the Sahara after getting up in the jet black night and driving hard to reach Tiznit. We are currently parked in a nice new campsite with concrete floor and we will get the chance to brush a few kilos of saharan sand from out of every locker and crevice. The stuff gets everywhere!

Love and Peace
Mermy and La Rose

Fancy a date

admin — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 09:42:58 +0000

50mph winds, rain, hail, flooding, and that is only one day. I know I get no sympathy from those of you wading through the snow back home, but that is the point. You are at home and we have travelled 1568 miles as the crow flies and probably double that by road, to sun ourselves in Africa. However, the people, sights, and pleasure we are getting from our trip makes the bad weather less a chore, and we know that soon it will be hot as we head for the Sahara.

First we are going to take a week in tourist hell (or heaven, depending on the viewpoint) at Agadir. We may get a bus up to Marrakesh for a sightsee whilst we are there. Then we will be going south. An English expat that we met yesterday was dumbfounded at the suggestion of going south of Tiznit as in his words “There is just nothing there” well, that sounds right to us.

Love and peace
Mermy and Rosie

Oualidia

admin — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 13:01:53 +0000

23 degrees, not a cloud in the sky and we are parked by the lagoon in Oualidia (pronounced wah-leed-ya) a small almost sleepy, if that adjective can be used to describe any town in Morocco, fishing village between El Jadida and Essaouria. Famous for fresh seafood and for oysters, the latter delight we will be trying before we leave.

As soon as we arrived near the beach, we were pounced on by a couple of guys who it transpires are the local guardian and a local fisherman. The guardians are in my opinion a vital part of travel by motorhome. There is no official camp site here, so they get a piece of waste ground or parking spot, and give 24 hr security for a very small fee. We sleep safe and they get a couple of pounds. The former is a fisherman who for 150 dirham, about £13 pounds, will cook fresh seafood outside on a portable grill. As much sole, sardines, salad and bread as you can eat for two for a very reasonable price.

We are going for a walk to the lagoon later to see if the broad sand is suitable for Sandyachting, although from a distance it looks a little soft. Here is a piccy I just took from the roof of the van looking over towards the town.

Another piccy of the fisherman preparing our lunch!

He has a website HERE

Here is a nice little texting tool that I came across.

Send free text messages!

Please enter a cell phone number:
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Free SMS

Love and peace
Rosie and Mermy

Update to the update.

admin — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 20:00:27 +0000

Oh how long since the last blog entry. So long in fact that I hardly remember that long ago.

We are now sat in a campsite at El Jadida between Casabanca and Safi and about 125 kms from Marrakech. We just left a lovely friendly site right next to the roaring Atlantic Ocean in El Mansouria, about 30 km north of Casablanca and about the first point that we are feeling ok about Morocco. The northern part of the country seems at a loss for identity, and does not know if it is Europe or Africa, but as you travel down that sense changes with every town you pass. That said, we are still a long way from Camels and sand, and are still very much in agriculture and greenery.

We were warned about the expense of booze here, owing to the fact that it is a moderate Muslim country, so we stocked up with a little bit for our journey. 4 litres of brandy 20 litres of wine and 20 litres of beer. Nine days into Morocco and we might have wildly underestimated our requirements as we have already gone through seven litres of wine and a bottle of brandy as well as 24 cans of beer.

Some of you might know that Rosie and I like to bird watch and we are excited about the amazing wealth of bird life here in Morocco. We were sat having a coffee at a motorway service station and three Crested Larks were hopping around in front of the mer-torhome. We have seen cranes and eagles, and have been woken in the morning twice by what can only be described as Clangers, we cannot see them but the comedy song sounds a little like the swanee whistles we sell on our stall. We took a walk and spotted four or five birds that are not even in our European bird guide.

The roads in Morocco are fantastic… for about fifteen minutes after they are laid, and then they deteriorate into potholed monstrosities which are designed to destroy shocks and keep the speeds below 18 mph!

I am able to blog now, thanks to a superb little modem which we managed to acquire second hand from a nice guy in Mohammedia. It is an LG cellular modem and we are getting unlimited mobile broadband for £18 a month. I think the coverage is quite good so we should mostly be within blogging range.

We went to walk on the beach today and decided that this is a great place to sand yacht, so we are staying for a little while to blow the cobwebs with some x-sailing. All we need is a decent breeze and we are good to go. The tides are also perfect for the next few days.

I will post pics asap that is to say as soon as pics are taken.

Love and peace for now
Mermy and la rose

They come in threes.

admin — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 16:35:09 +0000

I am writing this blog with my pda. The laptop should be back from the menders tomorrow or Tuesday after having a new logic board as Apple call it, or a motherboard as we know it. I think that I was to blame for the board overheating, but shhhh! don’t tell apple. Anyhoo, I remembered that I had my old M5000 phone with wireless, windoze, and the all important qwerty keyboard for proper typing, so I dug it out of the cupboard and away we go.

So to recap the story so far. We damaged our awning in Benicasim, which we had fixed in Murcia by the top blokes at Caravanas Murcia. We then had our starter motor and our laptop break so we got the former fixed by the guys down at the local garage for €210 which given the current exchange rate is about £210! Our puter is in the capable hands of the apple shop in Alicante and they have pushed us to the front of the queue.

We are staying here in Santa Pola till the 3rd or 4th of Jan and then trooping down to Morocco.

We had a nice gentle xmas day, spending the day bird watching at the bird reserve at La Marina with a picnic lunch, followed by a walk on the beach. The evening was a duck on the barbeque and too much brandy.

I hope all you fine people had a grand xmas and are planning an equally grand new year. I will be wearing my kilt.

Love and peace
Rosie and the Merman

Grrrrrrrrrrr

admin — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 12:01:25 +0000

In Alicante, computer broken, awning repaired and now the starter motor has gone kaput on the mertorhome.
We are just going to rent a car to do loads of running around.

Love and peace
Rosie and the merman