SimonFitzpatrick
Vehicle Type
Motorcycle
Tangier Beer Fear. Oh Dear.
Date of update
Updates
Kif Me Quick.
Date of update
18.10.2004. Chefchaouen.
Oh deary me! Hashish...
19.10.2004.
Tucked away in a valley in the Rif mountains. It's Day 3 of Ramadan and the chit-chat from the street below my £7 hotel room is still chirpy. As a non-Muslim it's quite easy to get food and even beer, but you don't feel like stuffing yourself in front of people who aren't even allowed to swallow their own saliva from sunrise to sunset.
A Hill Of Beans. Please...
Date of update
23 Oct 2004. Casablanca.
Pictures of the Mosque. Ramblings from a bar.
My Two Mums.
Date of update
26 Oct 2004. El Djadida.
Having handed over a sizeable bundle of dirhams to Yousef - I'm not sure what for, but he suggests it has something to do with "friendship" - I get the hell out of Casa and rumble off down the coast to El Djadida. I ride around the town twice without seeing anything that looks like a hotel, so I aim for the beach and stand (sitting is for people that haven't just ridden 150 miles) gawping at the Atlantic and smoking fags. The sea is enormous and so is the sky.
Essaouirayougoingwiththatguninyourhand.
Date of update
27 Oct 2004. Essaouira.
Very nice. It's so touristy that I'm not the only European in town even though it's R'dan. Apparently Jimi Hendrix used to come here on his holidays. I bet he checked whether it was R'dan first. Sorry - I'm becoming obsessed.
28 Oct 2004. Essaouira.
Meisner see you - to see you nice.
Date of update
30 Oct 2004. Guelmim.
As I'm paying at a petrol station near Tiznit, a Honda Africa Twin pulls up next to me and Mr Thomas Meisner from Germany introduces himself.
I didn't think anyone actually rode AT's to Africa - they're so goddamn heavy. He's on his way to Togo, and he needs to be back home in December so he's been doing 500 mile days. My pathetic 150 a day makes me feel like an utter girl.
Problem Child.
Date of update
2 Nov 2004. Somewhere in the Desert.
Ho-hum. The obvious shot.
In the morning I can't get out of El Marsa quickly enough, but the ride down the coast of the Sahara would have cheered me up even if last night's pear sandwiches had given me dysentery. I stop and inch towards the cliff edge for a look. Huge unreachable beaches stretch for dozens of miles 250 feet below.
Ricard III
Date of update
31 Oct 2004. Sidi Akhfennir.
In the morning we go with Shiagar and Hassan to the oasis, for breakfast of dates fresh from the tree in a bedouin's tent.
Shithole (n); see El Marsa
Date of update
1 Nov 2004. El Marsa.
Woke up next to an endless Atlantic beach. There's nothing to beat a sunny Monday morning on the border of the desert and the sea, apart from a massive bacon sandwich with English mustard.
Half an hour down the road, Thomas and I officially enter Western Sahara. Or not, if you're the Moroccan government. We part company as he wants to make it to Dahkla today and my coccyx doesn't. All the best old chap! An excellent fellow on a mad mission...
Ain't No Fun Waiting Round To Be A Millionaire
Date of update
12th Nov 2004. Nouakchott, Mauritania.
A week is a long time in politics, according to Harold Wilson. Four days in a Mauritanian hospital is much much longer. If Harold Wilson was a hummingbird, a single beat of his tobacco-stained wings would equate to a week in politics compared to ninety-six hours of grainy Spanish TV with no sound, and being unable to get out of bed and switch it off.
Twat.
Great Expectorations.
Date of update
31/1/05. Nouakchott.
A very unusual New Year's Eve. Sitting outside in shirt sleeves, drinking pastis, whisky, Heineken and Vin de Pays d'Oc with French people. We eat lobster and duck and I make them listen to AC/DC all night.
Yer say yer wanna Revelation..
Date of update
It is explained to me over multiple drinks that only people who believe in God deserve respect. Jews, Christians and Muslims are all equals under God. (This is only a theory obviously). Atheists however are like weird monkeys. God-fearing types should avoid them. When I ask why it is that atheists in general are happy to respect the beliefs of others, but the reverse appears to be impossible, a stony "are-you-one-then" silence descends.
Anyway, motorbikes! Great, aren't they!!!
Enough Nouakchott Already
Date of update
13 Jan 05. St Louis, Senegal.
Senegal is the best country in the world. No - stop - don't even try to argue. It just is. Leave it. In the last couple of weeks at Auberge Sahara, several people had returned from Senegal in tears, whinging about the hassle at the border and everything else about which it is possible convincingly to whinge. The truth is that the border is a light exercise in patience, and St Louis is hectic, full of unthreatening chancers and home to the Bountyesque paradise that is Camping Robinson.
Bowel Control To Major Tom.
Date of update
19 Jan 05. NKT.
Take Imodium pills and put your helmet on...
Heeeeeere am I sitting on a tin can etc.
I blame Chinese beer.
21 Jan 05.
Father Dear Father (1972, Patrick Cargill).
Date of update
Tit Frenzy.
Date of update
5th Feb 2005. NKT.
The sight, yesterday, of a saucy girl in a bra on the back of a motorbike on the beach has sent Toby and I into a 36 hour spiral of Beavis and Butthead hysteria. You just don't see that sort of thing in Mauritania and I've been here 13 weeks. Louise (the female bit of Gary and Louise from Cornwall) coins the phrase "Tit Frenzy" to describe this unsettling phenomenon.
Gary and I are reduced to hot tears of helpless, moronic laughter this evening at every mention of the words "box" and "helmet".
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My Lobster Hell.
Date of update
4th Feb 2005. NKT.
I have managed to persuade Tiff that me giving her my battery is not the ideal solution to her exploded bike. Phew!
Uhhh? Parcel?? Sorry...
Date of update
6 Feb 2005. UPS Express Office, 23 Avenue Bourguiba, Nouakchott, Mauritania.
Givin' The Doc A Bone.
Date of update
3rd Feb 2003. NKT (sigh...)
It's out! I went to the hospital yesterday, as one does, and the surgeon said -
"OK, we can take the pin out right now if you like. That's right sonny, without an anaesthetic of any kind."
I enquired, more out of politeness than anything else, how much the procedure would hurt.
The surgeon and his assistant looked at each other. I could sense two very well controlled sniggers.
"Oh, there may be some slight pain" came the reply. I decided to go for the tomorrow-with-anaesthetic option. It's out!
Satan, Laughing, Spreads His Wings.
Date of update
My friend Johnny Mac is a photographer and recently took this, which may be the best thing ever...
Oh Lord Yeah!
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ps - I'm in Mali. It's great.