The night started to be very sticky. For the first time since we entered Morocco over six weeks ago, I didn’t need my sleeping bag during the night.
Later during the night, I was woken up by drips falling onto my face. I found out it was condensation accumulating on the cooler roof-top-tent roof and sadly forming right above my face. A quick wipe with my shirt and I could sleep on again for a while.
This morning it was cooler and less humid. Quite refreshing. First on the morning agenda: a nice warm shower. The camping showers are on the other side of the campsite. Stood in the shower and had put shampoo into my hair just to find out, that the water reservoir for this shower had apparently just run empty. Damn. Quickly, jumped into my pants, checked the showers left and right of me. The only one that had water, the shower head was broken. I could live with that, as long as I had water.
Back at our campsite, freshly showered, we had breakfast. Since Abidjan and for the past 10,000km, I had been carrying a special cereal package for Alex. This morning he received it back from me for the first time of the trip. It was much more compact than before, partially due to bumpy roads so far and the high altitudes we encountered so far.
Water boiled for some coffee. Bliss. We then sat down to discuss the programme of the day and the itinerary for the next days. That all set, everyone continued with their business and I finished writing and published yesterday’s blog.

Then it was time to go to give our cars some R&R. We drove into town and at the outskirts we found a Shell station, that would change Eeyore’s oil and oil filter. Seven litres of Shell’s finest 15W40 oil went back into the engine. Trevor’s white Ford pickup was next. That engine needs very special oil, that Trevor had brought all the way from Portugal. With a bit of persuasion, the mechanic agreed to change the oil after all, although the oil had not been bought at this station. The mechanic struggled to find and then remove the oil filter, which you can access through the front left wheel arch after removing some covers. What a design! Sadly, the station had run out of diesel for the day, so we continued down the main road towards the city centre in search of fuel.

At a major crossing, I was whistled out by a grumpy police officer, who wanted to see my car papers. After checking everything, he wanted to fine me for my luggage on the ‘back seats’ that I don’t have at the moment. I pretended to speak only a little French and spoke English, throwing in “je ne comprends pas” more often and he pretended to not understand my English. At a certain moment, we both realised, that we both understood each other’s language after all. We insisted to write me a ticket for having luggage on my back seat. I asked how much it would be and he said he wouldn’t know. Possibly a bluff. With the ticket in my hand and my driver’s license in his pocket, I had to go to the police station nearby to pay my fine. The officer’s answer to the directions was not very clear and helpful. Alex and I turned around and drove back along the same route we came to find this police station, while leaving Charlotte and Trevor behind with the police officer, as Trevor had coincidentally found a shop right there, that could finally replace his broken mobile phone screen. In the end, we reached the same petrol station, where we had filled up earlier. I asked the attendant, if he knew where this ominous police station was. He didn’t, but asked two chaps standing nearby. In Wolof, the local language, they discussed how to direct me. They found a solution and explained that we needed to turn left at the pharmacy ‘Alhamdulilah’. We doubted that the pharmacy was actually called that name, as they often give nicknames to places here in West Africa. We drove back the same high street again and indeed found the described pharmacy ’Alhamdulilah’, turned left into a dodgy and filthy side street. For about one kilometre, we followed this street that was half submerged in what looked like old sewage. Then, on our left we spotted the police station and parked the car.

I was welcomed by a very polite officer at the entrance who asked a few questions, before telling me that I had to actually see the chef de poste and showed my his door. I knocked and a friendly young man opened and asked me to sit down. I gave him the ticket, I had received from his colleague at the crossing, and said that I would like to pay it. Also I asked how much it was. He looked at it, said with a very pressing voice, that this was a very serious offence, before cracking up at his own act. He asked for my nationality and then started to practice his German on me, before admitting that his English was actually better and used to be his first choice in school. He explained, that this rule, I was fined for, was introduced in 2004, but it didn’t make any sense and in a way apologised for it, immediately saying, that they had to enforce it although they didn’t make it. I nodded and, of course, agreed. With a smile he welcomed me again to Senegal and informed me the next time I might have to pay 3,000 cfa though. He scribbled something on the back of the ticket, signed and stamped it, before giving it back to me. We wished each other a good afternoon in German and I left. A very pleasant and unexpected outcome of this visit.

Alex had been patiently waiting outside with Eeyore. Trevor, in the meantime, had been messaging, that his phone had been repaired and he was ready to go. We tried to find an exit from the maze of narrow streets, all sand and none tarred. After turning several corners, because some streets were blocked by construction or vehicles, that I couldn’t pass, we eventually found a road that lead out and back onto the high street and back to the police officer. To his exasperation, I had to inform him, that I didn’t have to pay anything, after him asking several times, if I had paid. He called over his colleague to discuss the matter in Wolof, the local language. He then pretended to be angry and call his boss, who I just had seen and had discharged me without payment. Of course, we looked right through it, as his phone was never illuminated. At this point, Alex stepped in trying to help and claimed that we hadn’t eaten anything the entire day, were very hungry and were on the way to the centre to have lunch, which was actually true. We stood behind Eeyore. Suddenly, the police officer gave up, signalled me to the driver’s door and searched in his deep side pocket for my driver’s license, while producing two foreign driver’s licenses. Clearly, he must have been targeting foreigners today and some hadn’t yet returned to recover their license. The original ticket, to my slight annoyance, he didn’t want to return to me. Trevor being parked in front of his nose all this time, also had stuff, such as his cooler box and bags on the back seat of his pickup. Apparently, he had looked inside the vehicle twice and didn’t say anything about it. Alex and me had expected actually, that he would make a fuss now, after he had finished with me. But no, Trevor got away without this circus. Finally, after an hour wasting our time with this nonsense, we were on our way again to the city centre.

Hungry, we crossed the long bridge between the new and the old town. Turned right at the end and went to a very nice restaurant overlooking the river and the bridge. Trevor told us, that he quickly wanted to draw some new cash. There was an ATM just around the next corner, I told him. He went there, while we studied the menu. All of a sudden, he returned irritated. His bank card had been swallowed by the machine and now he had to try to get it back. As the ATM was a standalone one, Charlotte and Trevor had to drive to the main office of the bank to request the bank card back. That proofed not so easy. The person in charge and with the keys to this machine was currently in Dakar and only returning tomorrow. Disillusioned, they returned and also had a fine lunch. Alex and I were at that point already half way into our pizzas and salad.

Although the weather was not as nice as it was when Christoph and I travelled northbound, we walked around the old colonial city a bit and visited the main square. The sun had never really managed to peak through the clouds today. It is therefore slightly cooler but still very humid.

Afterwards we separated, as Trevor desperately wanted to have his car washed. When he returned to camp later it was blindingly white again. All the dust and oily hand prints had disappeared.
In the evening I sat with Martina and Volker, two German overlanders chatting as well as giving them information for their way further South.