The northern part of Morocco is very similar to Spain. The same bleak mountains, the same orange fields, where mostly Moroccans work. Ok, in here we can’t see any Hungarians or Moldavians trying to hitchhike home, because they didn’t earn as expected from the orange harvesting.
Proceeding south, there are less and less villages and orange fields, and more and more people wearing hutpeople costumes. This costume is traditional around here apparently, although it’s possible that they only heard how much they could earn if they get in as an extra to a Start Wars episode and they are waiting for George Lucas to appear.
In Morocco there1s a checking point after every 25 kms. Aravind did the Budapest Bamako twice already, he explains. This officially dressed people actually don’t have anything to do, they just exist. They stop us, ask who we are, we answer. From then on they decide whether they will be able to make money from us, and in case yes, they decide how much. The trick is that only the driver has to pay attention, they tell the story with the help of an interpreter, and the rest doesn’t even listens to what they say. If everyone pays attention, the officer could think that something important happens, and Euros would keep rolling in front of his eyes. The trick worked, we were nowhere asked to pay bribes. The max. was when one of them asked a traveler list from Attila, and asked him about his family, all this is the freezing windy night of course.
Many of the teams cross the Atlas Mountains. Our Ikarus wouldn’t be able to handle those roads, so we take another route towards Algeria. The terrain becomes more and more desert like, and the villages are further and further from each other as we proceed towards south. The drivers don’t want to risk a break down on the shitty roads, so we take back from our speed. we manage a 45 km/h average. According to the GPS, by 5AM we’ll be in today’s finish.
Morocco is Prussia compared to India. The towns are clean and organized, there are streets, the trash is little. People use the right side of the road; none comes towards us in the same lane. There is less animal on the roads, and there’s a shepherd with them. There are road signs and they even have boards for holes in the road!
It gets dark. We make a decision: we drive until the drivers hold on, then we’ll get some sleep and early morning to reach the rest of the teams. It starts to be freezing colt outside. In the driver area it’s ok, but at the back at the beds it’s almost freezing. How nice to have an AC inside! There’s cold wind blowing outside. We reach a village. I have coffee on the main square. It feels like when Obi meets Han Solo. Gyula switches to robotpilot, while the others slowly-slowly fall asleep.
