Rallye Aicha des Gazelles du Maroc 2013- Part 1

A week since the race finished and back 4 days from Marrakech. What a week that was, smaller than last year on daily surprises but bigger on emotion.

This blog like last year is written retroactively as we are given only a temporary address during the rally and allowed only 200 words per email. We did however do a daily interview for French Radio London which was following us. You can hear Jamila’s and my impressions on their website.

THE START

For the Moroccan teams, the Rallye Aicha des Gazelles started in El Jadida on the Atlantic coast  Sunday 17 March 2013. The Moroccan channel 2M was there to interview us before the start

I’d arrived in warmish Marrakech Friday night and had taken possession of “MY” car on Saturday.

I would like to mention now that this blog, while primarily in English will be loaded with French and Moroccan words. Anything to do with the car will be in French, anything to do with the scenery like “douar” for village and  “Oued” for usually dry river bed will be in Moroccan.

So Alain, the owner of the Toyota, had put new “injecteurs” in the car ( which at first I mistook for new “ejecteurs”), new brake pads and basically my 21 year old Toyota was like new. It had taken us a while to come up with the décor for the car but it was Ian in the end who suggested the poster of a lovely Moroccan movie by Nassim Abassi called Majid. We had the slogan : “A life without a dream isn’t worth living”.

On Sunday I happily arrived at the Mazagan Beach Resort to meet up with Jamila and the rest of the Moroccan, Canadian and American teams. You have to admire some of these women who arrive for the first time straight from Montreal to Casablanca on a night flight and start driving a 4 wheel drive in Morocco.

It was great to see Jamila again although she looked somewhat exhausted : she’d had flu the week before and a ton of work up until Saturday night. 
The “stickage” of the car was due on Monday but due to risks of rain, it happened Sunday afternoon.

The Rallye Aicha des Gazelles has a fair amount of official sponsors. We, however, had few despite Jamila’s best efforts. Not easy to get sponsors in Morocco ( and quasi impossible in the UK where the rally is not known).

In bed relatively early, we woke up at 6.30 the next day. The adrenaline was starting to build up, this same adrenaline which would see us drive and navigate for 12 hours pretty much every day for 8 days until 2 seconds of inattention compounded by ignorance terminated our race on the final day.

On Monday morning, the organisers installed the tracking system on all the cars. This enables them to know where we are and at what speed we drive. It also enables you, family and friends to track us and our progress daily.

 Nassim Abassi, the producer and director of the movie whose title was decorating our car joined us in El Jadida

ERFOUD

After lunch, Jamila and I drove off from the beach of El Jadida to Erfoud in South East Morocco.

 Uneventful drive, half motorway, half busy roads but beware the police check points. They’re everywhere. Still, the gendarmerie had been told to expect 300 gazelles to head off towards Erfoud. We smiled and waved, they smiled and saluted, no problem.

In Erfoud we joined all the French and European gazelles for a briefing at 9pm Tuesday. Most French Gazelles had travelled from Paris Trocadero to Barcelona, boarded a night boat to Tangiers and drove down to Erfoud. Some of them already looked exhausted.

Next morning, we had to drive to a specific place for “l’etalonnage”. This is where the organization controls your kms, compares your odometer with theirs and gives you a coefficient.

Lunch in Rissani 

already hard at work

( unfortunately no time to order a lovely Medfouna as we had done in December during our training) and Prologue in the afternoon. For those like us who have already participated in the Rallye, it’s not a big deal. We didn’t do very well but we didn’t care as it does not count in the overall classification.

In the evening we gave up all technology : our phones, our ipads and computers for the next 8 days.

START OF THE COMPETITION

Thursday saw the official start of the competition.  The second check point was tough to find, hidden in an oued.

Last year, Jamila had been desperate to avoid oueds as they can be tricky to drive in when wet but this year, we used them a lot to go round areas we might not wish to get stuck in. They add in kms but help you with speed and even if speed is not of the essence, checking at all the check points is.

I can’t remember much of the day except that for the first time, EVER, we checked at all the check points and were back in the “bivouac” or camp by 6.30pm. We  were elated. In terms of distance we had done quite well as well.

at a check point

Friday’s parcours was very long but again, to our utter amazement, we checked at all the CPs.

What a difference with last year! All due to our training with Benoit last December and Jamila's hard work.

MERZOUGA : FIRST DUNES

Saturday was going to be a day driving the dunes of Merzouga. This is where we had practiced navigating (Jamila) and driving (me)for half a day in December 2012. Whereas last year I had been so petrified about driving in the dunes that I’d got a migraine and avoided them altogether, this year we felt good, not overly confident but good.

There are 3 choices on that parcours : the “X” one, toughest, the “Y” one, less tough but not easy and the “Z”one for those who’ve never driven in the dunes.

With our new found confidence, we decided to gun for the “X” parcours.  We got to a good start and were very surprised to join the top teams looking for CP 2X. There were 2 ways (probably 3) to go about it and both were a complete struggle. We spent 2 hours trying to go beyond a dune with the sand getting softer and softer. Eventually we took the strategic decision to give up and do the “Y” parcours. Better do most CPS in the average course than spend all day trying to find an alternative way to 2X, clocking a lot of Kms in the process.

that was fun

And thus it was that by the end of day 3, we were 16^th in the classification out of 120. Considering we’d finished 83 last year, we were very pleased with the work accomplished. To be honest, most of it was due to Jamila’s amazing new navigational skills. No more arguments like last year. I followed her instructions, paying attention to the difficult terrain in front of me while she kept her eyes on the horizon and the compass.

hard at work with our old maps

FIRST MARATHON

The following 2 days were our first marathon. Mixed terrain with stones, crevices, ravines, sandy oueds most of those 2 days, we checked at all the CPs on that first day. However we were stopped in a douar chatting with another car ( Geraldine and Sophie) when a moped driving at high speed hit a young girl and drove on without stopping.  This happened behind our cars and the first thing we knew about it was when a couple of children were screaming. I thought they were playing but Jamila got out of the car and saw the girl uncounscious. Jamila thought she was dead and rushed back to the car to call the medical assistance. We are not allowed phones but the Iritrack system  ( by satellite) allowes us to call for mechanical  (yellow button) or medical (red button) assistance. There’s a 3^rd button (blue) to call headquarters. In her panic, Jamila couldn’t remember which colour was what and pressed all the buttons, jamming the system. We then asked the other gazelles to press their buttons further jamming the system. Anyway, when we at last understood what to do, the medical assistance decided to send in the helicopter.

In the meantime half the village had gathered and we were very keen to explain that we had not caused the accident. 20mn later, the helicopter landed and the doctor on board took charge of the situation. The girl had regained consciousness and he felt there was no lasting damage. We found out the following day back at camp that the organization of the rallye had decided to send an ambulance to take the young girl to hospital.

 We left the douar and decided to set up our camp with 4 other cars in a sandy stretch. We had a lovely evening. Geraldine and Sophie had been given a bottle of excellent calvados which we enjoyed after dinner. Jamila and I had noodle soups warmed up on our camping gas and Julia and Celine had brought saucisson and bread and wine. What a picnic!

under the stars

Next day was going to be a bit of a disaster for us. 

early morning after our night on a sandy stretch

Instead of being given the usual lattitudes and longitudes points or the course and the kms, we were given an inverse course. So we knew where CP6 was and were told where CP8 was and had to work out where CP7 was. Julia and Celine had studied it during their navigation course and told us what to do. Good! Once we’d checked at CP6, we were heading North and then back South for CP8 and then back North for CP9. It looked a little curious but hey, you can’t always guess the organisers’intentions.

We all arrived pretty much at the same time at CP6. Usually Jamila takes a while to organize her maps. To be honest, it takes a huge amount of patience to organize the different maps we’re going to use throughout the day. Anyway, that day, Jamila was organized and we left CP6 soon after checking and before our friends.

Ahah, look how fast we were! Heading North, we were going to cross a douar surrounded by small dunes, soft sand. So soft that we “tanked”. Bogged down. Got the shovels out and started shoveling, helped by a couple of young village girls on their way to school. We gave them pens to thank them and proceeded shoveling on our own. We were absolutely exhausted so that when a young man showed up and started shoveling, we did not have the energy to refuse. As a gazelle, you are not supposed to be helped other than by other gazelles but there were no other gazelles ( something which should have alerted us that maybe we were not going in the right direction). We gave him 15 dirhams ( $1.5) and he got us out.

At last in the douar, we met up with the driver and the cameraman of the Moroccan channel 2M who were filming us that day. The cameraman pointed to the right where he was going to film us but oh no, our course was to the left. He insisted, to the right, no no, we’re off to the left. So his driver and he followed us through a mountain pass ( we were very pleased with ourselves to have found this mountain pass) for 15kms when we stopped as I needed to have a wee.

The driver (who has a GPS) came to see Jamila; he is not allowed to help but all he said was : “are you sure of your course?”. Jamila took the map out and we recalculated. Same course, different direction. We should have headed South, not North.

Anyway, it took us 7 hours that day to check at our second CP, which was CP7. All our friends had taken the time to verify their point at CP6 and realized their mistakes. They’d all arrived at CP7 by 10am, we’d arrived by 2pm. Below is the live video of us :

http://www.2m.ma/Media/Videotheque/Videos/Videos/Rallye-Aicha-Des-Gazelles2/2013/Rallye-Aicha-Des-Gazelles-Mercredi-27-Mars

The organisers who’d seen most teams in our group drive by in the morning were totally bored and rather pleased to see us! They even gave us each a bottle of coca cola! Being lost and late has its rewards!

After that, it was all fairly straight forward and we checked everything except the last CP(10). It was getting dark and we felt we’d spend a lot of Kms looking for something in the dark and it was much better to go straight back to camp where Julia and Celine were waiting for us, extremely apologetic. But really, it isn’t their fault, we are all responsible for our own calculations and driving.

To compound a rather poor day, we got to camp and couldn't open the trunk. Jamila had to perform some gymnastics inside the car to open the trunk from the inside ;

Not Jamila's favourite picture

 

there she is

LIFE AT CAMP

From 16^th, we’d moved to 24^th. Too many kms. But still we were feeling buoyant. The advantage of going back to camp early (ish) was that it gave us time to socialize with other gazelles, in particular the Moroccan teams ( and the Canadians who’d been in El Jadida with us). There were 7 Moroccan teams although out of 14 gazelles only 4 were truly Moroccan. Even Jamila who was born in Morocco actually has a French passport. It gave us time to enjoy the truly very good food cooked by the Moroccan cooks for us and this year I also enjoyed a glass of wine pretty much every evening.

The showers are basic and it can be a struggle to get warm water. Also and curiously they’re mixed, forcing us to dress and undress in the cubicles.

Last year we’d used 2 tents, one to sleep in and one pop up one to use as a dressing. But this year with 4 bivouacs planned instead of 3, it required too much effort to set up two tents and we slept in the pop tent only. Pop up tents are great to unfold but I could never fold it properly in the morning and ended up shoving it forcefully between the rear window and the spare tyre. 

All the Moroccan teams have their own press attache, the usually cheerful Yacine who also conducted an interview most evening with Jamila and me for French Radio London.

We're on!!!

C'est parti! On est inscrites.

Et on est l'equipe 176. As my friend Veronique says, it's a good number.

Jamila called me 30mn ago. We are so excited. I think we can still barely believe it. At the end of the rallye 2012, we would have said "never again, too hard."

But we're back and feeling good about it. We had a great training with Benoit, hopefully the car will hold, I'll probably be still scared driving in the dunes but hopefully less scared than last year.

Next week I'm off to Casablanca for a press conference. We've invited Costcutter. We're still hoping they'll support us again.

Now we need to think decoration of the car. We want to be noticed by the media ( for our sponsors 's sake).

I shall be asking around for ideas.

Merzouga November 2012

Monday 26 Noember :
I pick up Alain's Toyota Land Cruiser in Marrakech. Even though navigating the streets of Marrakech in a big 4x4 is no picnic, I grin widely. I love that car. The exhaust pipe is still emitting a thick black smoke. Everybody (by that, I mean every man) has an opinion as to why : " It's the regulating pump", "it's the filters", "it's a diesel, what do you expect?", "it's Allah's will!"
Anyway it seems that black smoke is better than white smoke. If your 4 wheel drive emits white smoke, be worried, be very worried.

Tuesday 27 Nov :
I pick up a friend, Hassan, owner of Hamadaa du Draa in M'Hamid, at 8.15am.
600km to Merzouga, through the Atlas Mountains. Hassan is with me to help with the driving but as he's partied all night, he decides to go to sleep. He wakes up near Rissani before sunset and starts driving. I am grateful that he is driving the last 8km of piste in the dark. I am not yet used again to driving in the middle of nowhere in the dark!

Reunion with Jamila and Benoit, our trainer. Jamila, her friend Bushra and I are sharing a room, and a bathroom with no doors. If you like your privacy in a toilet, I do not recommend Auberge du Sud in Merzouga.

sunset in Erg Chegui

Wednesday 28 :
Breakfast at 7.30am outside in a tent. Cold but not too bad.
We plan our day. Mostly it's about navigation. There will be some "Herbes a chameaux" to drive through but not much difficulty for the driver.
But first thing first :

checking the tyre pressure.

According to Benoit, a pressure of 1.5kg should see us through for most of the rally. However, in the dunes, I must come down to 1kg and even 800g.

Thursday 29 :
Today is DUNE day. I'm feeling a lot of trepidation.
Something under the car has been leaking through the night. Benoit quickly establishes that it's the brake fluid. Rear brakes. Hassan thinks the rear brakes haven't been working for the last 2 days. I'm glad I didn't know that.
Benoit doesn't want to waste time at the mechanics in Rissani and decides to stop the fluid from reaching the rear brakes so there's plenty left for the front brakes.

a manly job

Yes but how do you stop the rear brakes rather than the front brakes? Benoit makes a decision...
I take the car for a little spin to check it's all in order. Unfortunately, Benoit stopped the fluid from reaching the front brakes. And as I don't have rear brakes, well, the result is that I drive straight into the parking barrier :

trying to repair the barrier!

After this we decide to all go to the mechanics in Rissani and get the whole thing fixed. And amazingly, it is in 1 hour and 15 euros later.

We also decide to eat a "medfouna", a culinary speciality of Rissani : Madfouna in Moroccan language means "Buried" and it is quite similar to Calzone and Sausage Rolls with spicy meat and vegetables tucked between the crusts.

It's now dune afternoon; it is decided that Jamila will sit with Benoit in his car for navigation purposes and Hassan with me. Hassan, " l'homme du desert" has never been inside the dunes of erg Chegui. Well, with me as a worried driver, he's in for a treat. Somehow, he is a calming and reassuring figure. In the middle of the dunes, when I'm hyperventilating, he decides to put the radio on and insists on translating the love song currently playing. At first I suggest he f* s off but he insists and I end up laughing my head off.
Jamila, in the meantime, is seriously learning to navigate with the map and the compass. 

Benoit : "Jamila, ecoute moi. Mais ECOUTE MOI!"

Friday 30 :
More navigation. Long distances with only the car compass helpful.
Jamila and I are astonished at how little we knew about navigation for the first rally. No wonder we were always lost. Benoit has been brilliant. We're not the only gazelles he's training.

Saturday 1 Dec :
We find out it's been snowing heavily in the moutains. Jamila and Bushra's way back to Meknes is blocked and unfortunately so is the Tichka pass, which is my way back to Marrakech (on my own this time as Hassan goes back home to M'Hamid).
I head off to Agdz where I can decide to drive towards Tichka and hope for the best or drive the long way to Agadir to take the motorway to Marrakech. 
In Agdz by lunch time, I'm told the Tichka pass is still closed. So it's the long drive to Agadir for me. At first, it's more piste than road and it's very lonely. Mountain after mountain of stones and the odd palm tree. Barely a soul until Taznakht. Things improve after that and I just drive with barely a stop to Agadir and Marrakech.

READY FOR 2013!!!

HERE WE GO AGAIN!

Jamila and I have put our names down for 2013!
After all the hardship and the frights, we want more!
Alain of Baroud Terre du Dud is lending us his car again, we're relying on Helene in Casablanca to get us organised before the rallye, and we're going to train with Benoit in Merzouga end of November.
We don't want this anymore :

Although it's highly likely it's going to happen again!

And we don't want to get lost anymore :

It does look like our old sponsors will be following us again and we hope to add new sponsors :

Costcutter is opening a new shop in Marrakech in La Massia

So how was the rally?

TOUGH!
So that was already 1 month ago that Jamila and I spent 8 exhausting days rallying in the Moroccan South where we had heat, rain, lightning, totally disorientating experiences, but thankfully limited mechanical problems. We loved our Toyota Land Cruiser, rock solid. While all around us cars disintegrated, ours  held on.  Jamila had to repair the exhaust pipe once with a bit of string and I had to keep an eye on the tyres (2 flat tyres were repaired with anti puncture product which lasted until the last day) but otherwise it was all going well.

Jamila and I before the rally

us during the rally. spot the difference!

Waking up every morning at 4 wasn't the hardest thing as sleeping in a tent is not actually the best way to a good night rest. That said, the 2 nights we camped outside the camp with no one to wake us up, we did rest until 6am. The one night we spent in the dunes was the most magical. Only 4 of us, 2 cars, and no one and no noise around us. We made soup on our little camping gas, ate our French army rations and slept OK.

It was unfortunate that Jamila and I struggled to put the navigation theory into practice. Reading a black and white map and trying to relate with what we saw on the ground proved very difficult. 

time to calculate the next point

We did get better but it was slow and frustrating progress. I think a lack of confidence in our navigational abilities was the problem. When I look on the website at our trajectories, so often we headed in the right direction to then go off or turn round. For those friends and family who followed us thanks to the tracking system on our car ( which meant that while Jamila and I might feel we were utterly lost, they knew exactly where we were. This explains why we are not allowed phones during the rally!), it was rather frustrating, so we were told, and exhilarating when we found our way to the check points. 

found the check point!

The scenery is magnificent, with a combination of sand and rocks. Managing the tyres is necessary. 

And then we hit the dunes...Literally in one case. The first dunes we came across were not even big but because it had rained, they were muddy. Sure the sand is harder when it's wet so in theory easier to drive but it sticks to the tyres like mud and when you sink in, you're stuck. The gazelles are encouraged to help each other ( no one else will help you) but when there's no other gazelles near you, then you're on your own. The journalists are around and come to take pictures of you (smiiiile while you're struggling with your shovel), and then if you're not in the middle of nowhere, the bedouins come with a view to help you ( illegal) and get paid. In the case below, there's a Berber sitting not very far but not too close telling Jamila what we should do. Still all the hard physical work has to be done by us. We even had to use the jack to lift the car out of the mud and shovel sand underneath the tyres to make a sort of flat area.

Am I fed up?

In the second set of dunes, we started well. Gazelles are not allowed to follow each other except in the dunes. The most experienced gazelles set off first and the rest of us follow their tracks. This is where the word solidarity takes all its meaning. The first day in the dunes, we were able to go round all the big dunes to get to our checkpoint but the second day, there was no avoiding the big dunes. We had to take them full on. I'm afraid I have to admit that I was quite frightened despite Jamila's encouragement. 

going well

not so well

We all helped each other, pulling and pushing. Jamila was amazing. As I was the driver, she was the one walking all over the dunes to tell me what it looked like on the other side of the dune ( despite following tracks, you cannot assume that even the experts don't make mistakes), keeping the right direction, shovelling and pushing, not just our car but the other gazelles' cars.


Thursday night, after 8 days without phones and ipads etc... we got them back. First call home. No answer. It's 10pm in Morocco and I didn't know that while we were battling our way in the Moroccan desert, clocks had changed in England and it was 11pm back home. Did manage to wake up Ian while fireworks were going on at the camp.
Friday we drove to Essaouira for the final party on saturday.

the beach in Essaouira

we did it!

genuinely very happy

The left front tyre gave up on us on Sunday and we had to change it but by then, guess what? We had a male friend determined to do it for us. Way to go!


so how about next year?

Not long now

Only 2 days left before I set off for Marrakech to join Jamila, 4/5 days before we take the road to Erfoud, the door to the desert, 7 days before we must present ourselves and our vehicule for inspection, and exactly 9 days before the official start of the rally on the 22 March.
To say that Jamila and I are getting nervous is slightly understating it. We are READY to be reunited with our lovely Toyota Land Cruiser HDJ80.
We've been spoiled by friends who have given us free hotel rooms. Ahmed Nait of Travellink got us 2 nights at Hotel Chergui and Faical of the Moroccan Office of Tourism in London got us 1 night at the Xaluca Hotel. They're both 5 star hotels in Erfoud. And of course, in Marrakech, we're staying with my lovely friend Heather of Villa Dinari.

This rally takes itself extremely seriously and is full of regulations, things we can do or not, objects we can take and those we can't have for fear of elimination. We even have to give the organisers a cheque for about €1500 that they will keep if we are found cheating.

Three weeks ago, Jamila and I met in casablanca for the compulsory navigation course :

We were given 1960s black and white maps of the region we will be travelling in and told how to find our course to designated points.

I'm pretty sure the North is over there!

And then you grab your compass and hope you're going in the right direction, following the right course.

To make things simple, as you know, there are 3 Norths:

Grid North: the direction of a grid line which is parallel to the central meridian on the National Grid.

True North: the direction of a meridian of longitude which converges on the North Pole.

Magnetic North: the direction indicated by a magnetic compass. Magnetic North moves slowly with a variable rate and currently is west of Grid North in Great Britain. 

In Morocco, Cm (Cap Magnetique) = Cv ( Cap vrai or true North) + 2.

Right now, I have forgotten what it means, in concrete terms, for us and for finding our way in the desert.
Will ask in Erfoud.

Where do we have to go now?

  DECISION TIME :

The pain in my heels, although less than before thanks to my numerous sessions with Mark at Physio4life is still here however, so Jamila and I have made the decision she will be the navigator most of the time and I will be the driver, simply because it is our understanding that the navigator spends a lot of time walking ahead of the car, finding the way.

We are asked to use bio degradable soap and shampoo. I only found 1 company making them : Faith in Nature which you can buy in Health Stores.

MARRAKECH BIENNALE :

I can't resist the pleasure of putting a picture of myself with Vanessa Branson (sister of Richard and creator of the Marrakech art Festival) and the hero of all reading teenagers, Anthony Horowitz ( creator of the Alex Ryder serie):

I am also wearing the Rallye Aicha des Gazelles T-shirt which does not make me look thin but never mind!

I was interviewed by David evans, rally editor of autosport. The interview will appear this week or next week in autosport.com.

COMMUNICATION :
I will try to update my blog on a daily basis during the rally, except during the marathons because we sleep in the desert, not in a camp.

40 days to the start proper of the rally

After all the excitement of actually driving in the desert (see previous blog), I am back in the park and at the gym training to be fit.
Things are not quite going well on that score as I've been suffering from plantar fasciitis for over 5 weeks now and this has prevented me from walking. Plantar fasciitis is a pain in the heel caused by too much exercize ( or no enough and being overweight) and despite seeing the physio twice a week it's not getting better in a hurry.
However no walking doesn't mean no exercizing :

There's always cycling in Richmond Park.
Yesterday the air was cold and pure, a day before it started snowing again and Charlotte and I went round the park in 56mn ( we lost time walking up one of the hills!).

Jamila's taking a course in sophrology which Wikipedia says is : Sophrology is a personal development method that is designed to reduce stress and promote mental and physical well-being, through easy-to-do mental and physical exercises that can be done any time and anywhere.
Basically it's to remove negative energy and leave only positive ones.

So when we're stuck in the sand, at least one of us will be serene about it!

We are pleased to have new sponsors : Costcutter in particular is helping us.

The nice thing about preparing for the rally is plenty of friends helping in different ways, like Ahmed Nait of Travellink booking us a free room at Hotel Chergui in Erfoud before we start camping, my friend Heather of Villa Dinari accomodating us and keeping our equipment, Charlotte giving me free massages (and a survival blanket), and all those friends who are helping financially.

Downloaded the Rallye's technical specifications which sent me into a frenzy of emails to poor Alain about making sure his car complies to the 20 sheets of exhortations from the organisers. We got an email about being on time for the "flocage des gilets". I had never heard of the word "flocage". The good thing about it is that Helene, our coordinator and great help in Morocco hadn't heard of it either. Anyway it's about putting your sponsors's logos on your vests ( pink this year), in case you were wondering.

Went to the Hajj exhibition at the British Museum. The Hajj is the trip to Mecca that every good Muslim must try to undertake once in his/her life. It attracts 3 million pilgrims every year.
It's a very interesting exhibition which also shows extracts from an IMAX movie called Journey to Mecca, in the steps of Ibn Battuta. Ibn Battuta was a 14th century Moroccan traveller who undertook the Hajj journey 3 times. The IMAX movie shown in an IMAX theatre is astonishing as it transports you to today's Hajj and for a non muslim, this is the closest you'll ever get to feeling what the pilgrims feel and undertake.

At the British Museum it's on a small screen so it's not as impressive but it's still very interesting.

Next week I'll meet Jamila in Casablanca for the compulsory navigation course. I just read on Twitter that the Moroccan American writer ( and friend) Laila Lalami will be in Casablanca at the same time for the "Salon du Livre". Not sure I'll have time to see her but will try.

And then off skiing in Austria with the family.

Beautiful snow today. Will go to the gym