T2T day 7

T2T Day 7 17-Nov-2011  “Mr Coffee”

Rabat day 2

Miles covered: 68           T2T miles so far: 1,695               Punctures : 0    

Evening Meal: Roast chicken, Frites, omelette fromage

Road hours : 11:00 – 12:00 ( then a return 17:00 – 18:00 )

Having spent 2 days in the same place for reasons of acquiring visas for onward destination team T2T had the unusual luxury of time on hands.  We awoke at a more civilized 08:30 then set off for our local café for coffee and breakfast … and wi-fi.

So many devices on charge were connected to the café l’equitation mains supply Team leader Kev swore he saw the lights dim.  Life on the road in 2011 ladies and gentlemen.  Netbook, ipods, smartphones, digital cameras, head cam … all requiring a ready supply of electricity and an obliging host.  Happily for T2T the staff at l’equitation are happy to oblige.

First task of the day was posting the blog for day 6 and correcting an error on our map widget on the website.  Team leader Kev set at this task with his customary zeal and total focus.  Even the local TV channel mysteriously playing lift music on a loop in our café failed to throw him off the scent and eventually he cracked it as we knew he would. 

T2T needed to return to the Mauritanian embassy to collect the visa for which we submitted our forms yesterday.  We were advised to arrive early to ensure a good place in the queue.  We arrived 30 mins later than intended and were the first in line.

This was still a record for team member Jas who has very rarely been early for anything  Tales from the road, rumours of embassy opening time and war stories were exchanged in the queue with our fellow travellers which included local Moroccans, our new best friends from Latvia, some zany Dutch chaps and a smattering of Scandinavians and Herman the German who sported dyed pink hair and enough facial metal to supply a smelting plant for a few days.  T2T was once again on a tight schedule which wasn’t helped by that fact that the visas were meant to be available from 3pm, at 4pm the office finally opened and we managed to fend off the resulting rugby scrum for the door. Jas was pushed (shoved) forward into the breach protected by body armour of his (repaired) jacket. Had he had a helmet he could have done little more.  

We needed to retrieve our passports with visa stamps from the Mauritanian officials and hot foot (in heavy, inflexible motocross boots) up to the Mali embassy to submit our passports and ( we were reassured ) retrieve passports the same day !

As luck would have it we managed to get T2T passports returned and run the 100metres to the Mali embassy. A titanic sprint at (no where near) Olympic pace in time ( just ) to meet a Malian official just as he was preparing to go home ( 4.15pm ). Initially they had decided they were closed and it was a dejected team outside of the embassy. An eleventh hour u-turn by the officials -   “Welcome to Africa my friends – would you like to join me in some coffee?” 

After an interesting preamble about time and collecting visas on Monday, we agreed to join our Malian friend in some coffee in another office. We were introduced to an exotic looking lady who kindly accepted our donations for the coffee but didn’t actually offer any ... 

“Oh Mr Coffee, you’re so frothy !”

Most importantly we have two valuable stamps in our passports, against the odds T2T had prevailed once more Hurrah !

As an added bonus T2T were accosted by two young ladies who insisted on vogueing on Jas’ motorcycle

Jas had to choose which was to go ; luggage or ladies