Casablanca

After a decent nights sleep it is on to Casablanca to find Riks Bar for a spot of light refreshment.  The drive in isn't to bad and we manage to find the centre of the city without any major problems.  From there the route to the port isn't that bad. Chris nav is being aided by screen captures of google maps and the Riks Bar website acquired before we left Shkirat.  Bang on the money we round a corner and find the bar, along with 2 bored looking security guards.  These guards proceed to tell us that the cafe doesn't open till midday and apparently this one isn't the Riks Bar we want, The one we want is right, left, right, 1km just round the corner. Also we cant park here as its for patrons only. 
 
We proceed to follow these directions and end up going down streets that are rather narrow with no sign of another bar.  When we find a square we pull up and Paul goes to chat to a local to find out where we have gone wrong. Talking to Simon he points out that it probably isn't called Riks Bar as they have a different attitude to alcohol here and would be called a cafe.  After Paul finishes the discussions we find out we were in the right place and go stuff it and drive to find somewhere to have lunch.
 
We finally pull over in a posh looking area on the beach, were 3 policeman pull in after us. They have the badge to prove it. Above the word police we swear it says Deputy Dog and reckon on the back is written choking hazard, suitable for 3 year old's and over. They turn out to be fantastic. Two guard the cars and one patrols round the beach to protect us. We set ourselves up and have Chicken Curry, Rat Packs and Beans followed by a lovely fruit cake from Dean. Dierdra bough along some Christmas cookies but unfortunately we weren't able to have them. She opened the tin and found that it was a self bake kit and as we didn't have an oven we were out of luck.
 
Off on our way again we end up going down loads of side streets till we hit a major set of roads. These are of course grid locked. After probably 30 minutes with humour waning we decide to head back towards Rabat as that way we can pick up the toll road to Marrakesh. We find ourselves on a lovely road and start moving well till suddenly the road stops and we are suddenly on a sand track. WWD decide to see if they can see the motorway over the brow of the hill ahead and after chatting to a local we follow they as they assure us we can rejoin. We bounce our way over the ground till we meet a car coming the other way, where we negotiate to follow him. He promptly manages to take us to an underpass where we aren't able to join at this point WWD suggest using the winch to pull us up the embankment and force entry onto the road. Humour was low and pissy level definitely rising!!! we then follow this guy, as we might as well, back over a rubbish tip where a really gnarly local hops in his car to help out. We do some real off road and have tested the sump guard getting back to a tarmac road and finally we are back motoring.
 
After al this excitement tanking along the motor soon starts to get very boring. We break up the boredum buy overtaking each other and getting some camera practice in. At one point Chris decides to see how far out the car he can get so the Chester Hawlers can get a good pic. The problem with that is he is driving and for the car to keep going requires his foot on the accelerator doh! Apparently the picture is good though, so completely worth it!!!
 
We are getting updates from other teams and GG let us know one of the Irish teams are gaining on us. At which point the Germans arrive. We have no idea where they went to as we lost them on the way to the Tangiers ferry. As we are getting close to Marrakesh we decide to pull in for a break and driver change at which point the Irish bowl in to join us. Its great to swap stories and some of the experiences and once we have configured their radios to work on our comms frequency we are off again. We are all looking forward to getting to Marrakesh.