Norway-Africa

Since we dropped the camp site in Dakhla, we went the previous night into the city to get a Hotel. No international brands were represented, so we took the best we one available, called Saharah Regency. Not any anyway very fancy and we could see that someone had slept in these beds already before us. The border to Mauritania was far away and we started very early and started the car 04:45 to be at the border at 09:00. The advice was to fill up all the Diesel (Gasoil) we could carry, since there was not going to be any filling station for the next 1000 km.

As we drove throught the darkness in the morning it was not much to see outside. Dawn came closer to 07:30, and the sun was touching the horizon around 07:47. As we arrived at the border passing an hour later, it was already a long line to trucks and trailes, not very organized. This is the thing you must anderstand. There is nothing that really is coordinated or planned. So here is the receipy:

• Get hold of a white exit Fiche from one of the police officers
• Get back into the car and fill it in
• Be lucky enough that you are in the right line picked by a official
• Drive through the gate, and they will check your passport and that you have the Fiche willed out
• Park the car in the middle of the street
• Take your passport and Fiche with you, and go to a building to the left with a long line
• Deliver your passport and filled out Fiche, and wait for your name to be called
• Answer a few questions, and get back into your car
• Drive 10-50 meters to the Customs, and show your green pass you got when you entered Morocco
• Get a stamp, and maybe a dog will search your car for drugs
• Drive 100 meters
• Go into a white small booth the get your licenses number registered
• Drive 5 meters
• Show all your papers and passport to the Military Official

Once you are out, you are basically in no mans land. This is the offical DMZ (demilitary zone) of Western Sahara. Here there are no laws, no regulation, no help. Some people are wondering around trying the exchange money, sell mobile subscriptins or other goods. There is also a huge scapyard here as there is illegal to import old cars to both neighbouring countries. They do need spareparts though, so this is a huge stockpile.

Going through on the Mauritanian side was a breeze. The Rally already had a representative waiting at the border and just routed us through for going straight to the Bivouac (camp). Here the government had given us VIP service, and we had our own border control station.

Also we put up camp, in a hot, windy and isolated place. We soon had sand everywhere. And our moist tents from the beach camping previously acted like a dust magnet.

We settled the night with the rest of the rally with armed guards on all sides by the Mauritanian army.

You may see one of their cars on the top. A Toyota pickup.

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The night went smoothly, but I heard and saw a military vehicle approaching on the beach close to midnight on its run. Luckily the guys had already gotten our Fiches and they passed by. Woke up early to pack up our gear and get going before dawn. Today we decided to not check in at the race and just go directly to see the sights as there is supposed to be two shipwrecks on the beach as we go to Dahkla.

The car is running just fine. The noises we heard came from a rusty break disk.

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The day to Laayoune went fearly quick on paved roads. We started out looking for the Blue rocks painted by a Belgian artist in 1984, but it was still so dark outside that this project was skipped, and we continued towards the city of Guelmim.



Stopped at a supermarket that pretty much had anything except beer. After that it was pretty much main road from north to south towards the southern provinces (that is what Moroccans call Western Sahara). The territory was annexed by Morocco after the Spanish withdrew in 1975. Approaching the “border”, the police checkpoints where shorter between, and we had to start handing over Fiches (something that we had read about, but not experienced so far). We arrived in Laayoune in the afternoon as the first car and went to check out the race hotel by the sea. It looked like the run down buildings seen in the original Miami Vice series as the location of a drug lord. Completely run down and not even a sign on the front door. Bjørn started to bet me if we were at the right location, so I had to go inside to take a look. It was completely empty except a guy sitting low behind the counter asking me if we had a reservation. No furniture nothing. This was also the night it was stated in the race book that it was perfect to sleep out in the desert. Therefore we drove back a bit and tried to look for a secluded place to make camp in the desert dunes. Near the hotel it was not a lot a big dunes, so we didn’t really see a perfect place that was completely hidden.

The best place was towards the beach and the sea and not inland. We drove down and put up the tents just minutes before the sun settled and ate in the dusk. Shortly afterwards we got a visit from two men strolling towards us on the beach in green army clothes asking for a Fiche and wishing us a good night. It was kind of windy the whole time, and I fell asleep with the roaring sound of the big ocean waves hitting the beach and the wind flapping the tent.

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The night in yet another hotel bed is luxury compared to what we planned for.

This day’s race to Tafraoute was promised to be a slow, lazy and cosy day. Far from it! It became the day we arrived until now the latest at the finish line. Then again it was spectacular and the first day we went off road.


It was truly an astonishing experience to see probably the most beautiful oasis the whole of Morocco. Arrived at sunset and slept in the official race hotel in Tafraoute. The first city we have seen a lot of people and activities going on driving through it. Tomorrow will be another long stage with more than 800 kilometres, taking the BudabestBamako (B2B) rally into Western Sahara.

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The Midelt Ouarzazate was again going to be a challenge for many teams. The destination was the Hollywood of Morocco were amongst movies like Kingdom of Heaven was recorded. We started off by driving the main road N4 out of Midelt towards our destination to avoid some of the snow problems from the previous day.

The task was to cross the High Atlas mountain range, and there are usually enough snow covered mountains in Norway, so that is something we have seen before. There was one sight that we kind of wanted to see today, and that was the dam of Bin el Ouidane, so when we saw a road that looked to go in that direction we kind of skipped the main road and headed in that direction. Further studying the map told that reaching the dam was not going to happen. Anyhow we made a very good choice it seemed. We climbed slowly towards the peaks of 2800 meters. After that we headed towards the main road again and Ouarzazate.



Arriving at the film set in front of the fortress, we were supposed to set up camp, and to a big surprise the temporary office of some mechanics. Anders told them about some noises that we hear from the direction of the front axels. It took like 2 minutes before the car was up in the air on a jack and torn apart. The really knew what they were doing. The big open space was windy, the night temperature forecasted to a -3’C. No specially good place to put up a tent, and the fact that Bjørn still has a fever drove us down towards the city again and the Ibis Hotel where we spent the night. This starts to feel like touring Morocco on first class.

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We checked out after a good night sleep at the Marriott Hotel and headed for the first race destination in Morocco, Midelt. During the previous day, Bjørn has been getting a cold and has gotten fever and we are still having some issues with the car. The plan was to arrive early in Midelt to fix this. After a little while we started the climb through the Middle Atlas range, and was this a surprise?

During the last evening when we experienced rain in Fes, the mountains had been transformed into winter wonderlands. Imagine then all the local cars that are only having summer tires.

This meant that the roads were closed, and we tried different routes. This picture is taken by a road block in Ifrane. Rumours say that The modern town of Ifrane was established by the French administration in 1928 during the protectorate era for their administration due to its Alpine climate. Ifrane was conceived as a “hill station” or colonial type of settlement. It is a resort town set high up in the mountains so that Europeans can find relief from the summer heat of tropical colonies.
Anyhow we couldn’t get through and headed in another direction to see if this road was open. Here we had to stay for 40 minutes while the road was being prepared.
Finally we got through.

This road took us through the famous cedar forest of the Barbary macaques monkeys.

We drove on, and climbed even higher to above 2000m. This started to look more an more like home, and the Hardanger mountain passes of Norway.

At three o’clock the car was parked outside the Hotel, with snow and rain. Even if this should have been a short trip, truly we are getting surprises all the time.

The next camps are going to be purely camping, so no updates from us then.

NB: I forgot to start the tracker in Fes. That is why there is a gap in the map.
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Since we completed the Marathon in record time, we suddenly got an extra day in Morocco. We quickly decided to have this extra day in Africa, then instead staying in Europe. The ferry took across the Mediterranean sea to the Spanish enclave of Melilla at 0600 am.

It was a chaos at the border, but after approximately after one hour we were through both border control and customs. The Moroccans (especially the officials) have been nothing but nice and helpful. In Nador we filled up with diesel, got some money and headed out towards the sea and FES. This was a short but exiting detour to our first destination which was Midelt.

Stopping for some breakfast

We stopped for some breakfast after a little while. Seems like a beach house that is more active during summer. Here we had an egg, bread and cheese.

Going just some kilometres we had another stop at a marked. It looked liked you basically could buy almost everything you needed, and probably a lot was imported from Spain. They had live chickens, fish, fruit, bread, tools, hardware, utensils, clothes and whatever. This was actually quite fun just go around a look. Of course we didn’t go out empty-handed. We bought toilet paper, bread and the best Fina (Norwegian: Klementiner) ever. We bought a plastic bag full of them.

The trip went further towards the Er-Rif mountains and the road towards Fes. The trip took us from sea level to 1700 meters and newly snow. A dreadful weather had just passed in front of us, since we encountered trees that had fallen across the road, mud and gravel that had been carried along with water and streams.

Coming closer to Fes (which is still above 1000m), we came over several markets and some interesting passengers.

The time spent driving took a lot longer than planned, and we arrived in Fes in rain. Going camping was not something we voted over, and it seemed risky to just park the car anywhere. Therefor we came to the conclusion that a finally good night sleep would be a welcoming thing and stayed at the Marriott Hotel in Fes.

Some of us kind of collapsed on the bed immediately.In the background you can see one of the caretakers fixing the door handle that just fell of. It was a very nice stay that recharged our batteries.

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