The ambulance was rolled into Marrakesh on a flatbed truck with a broken differential housing and a busted universal cross joint. Five days later, the ambulance hobbled out of Marrakesh with a non-functioning speedometer and a f’d up transmission….
Dakhla sits on a 50km peninsula that cuts along the Atlantic ocean and is the last big city before Mauritania. Perhaps “big city” is a bit misleading. I should say…
Preface This writing was to be an introduction to how we came to find ourselves in Dakhla, Western Sahara; a place we expected to spend 24 hours in, and instead spent the next 33…
A “Freya Ad Daklha McCall” Facebooked us months ago. At the time, I imagined a local Moroccan lady with last name “Daklha” who had married a certain English Mr McCall. I guessed that she had westernized her first name to &l…
We departed from Dakhla at 8AM, January 1, 2012. Kunal was fretting about reconnecting with the other teams and reaching Bamako in time to catch his flight back to London…
Colin use to run a trucking company. Back then, he employed Hassan as the primary mechanic. According to Colin, when it comes to fixing trucks Hassan’s your man - trustwo…
With the Ambulance once again in the shop, the team was grounded. I really wanted to hang around the shop while Hassan checked out the car, but in Colin insisted that no…
Since we were waiting for Hassan to finish his …
Playing the waiting game is part of the rally: waiting at the border, waiting for help to arrive, waiting for the plane to arrive. Since our return to Dakhla, we’ve been w…
With Kunal’s visa clock ticking, we pushed harder for a follow-up with Hassan about the repairs. Colin made the call. To our extreme disappointment, we learned that the part we were waiting for was in fact not on its way. There was a miscommun…
With the only solution to our mechanical problem in sight being a shipment from USA, we were looking at another week of delay, minimum. Kunal didn’t have another week. Wit…
We’ve been here 12 days now, nearly 2 weeks. Losing Kunal really sucked but we are now even more determined to reach Bamako. The longer it takes to get back on the road, the more complex the job becomes. Our Mauritania Visa is due to expire on the…
Saturday, 7th January I realize if the ambulance isn’t fixed by Monday, I’ll have problems flying to any European country as my Schengen expires on 14 january. Flights to europe out of Dakhla are on Mondays and Fridays. If I have to fly out, I h…
As of 10AM this morning, UPS reported that our 20 lb shipment of car parts and pieces had arrived in Casablanca, Morocco. Getting a parcel from NJ to Casablanca in the span of 2 days is pretty impressive. I must extend a “Thank You” to…
We’ve been stuck in Dakhla for 17 days now. I wake up every morning to the maddening reality that the ambulance will idle for yet another day. On Wednesday, the UPS websit…
Day 21 in Dakhla. I checked the UPS tracker this morning and the site reported that the package for which we have been waiting was “abandoned”. This is despi…
UPS is clearly clueless about their operation in Morocco. Last Thursday, we called UPS about our package in light of that “abandoned” status. The agents at the…
This morning, a man from Casablanca phoned Freya with news that the package was at the CTM bus station in Dakhla. Amazing! I could hardly believe it. Would it really be tha…
Day 31 in Dakhla. Never did I imagine that I would be here this long be here I have been. Seems like things here just tend to drag on and on and on. The UPS package arriv…
Day 33 in Dakhla. I was pretty convinced that I’d be back home sipping latte’s and chomping on Chipolte chicken burritos in a temperature controlled office building by the end of the week. After the mechanic told us that the UPS package didn’t so…
Yesterday started at 6:00 AM - definitely th…