You don’t even know where I’m going. I don’t care. I’d like to go anywhere.

We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.

John Steinbeck

In the photo, my first meal in Morocco, Harira soup (as suggested by a newly made friend), chicken with rice and Coca-cola. No more beer in the next weeks.

The Harira is just an awesome meal. It will fill you up and it is extremely tasty.

Ingredients

Harira’s recipe is composed of the following ingredients but vary a lot depending on the regions and the cook:

• 300 gr of an amount of meat: (beef, lamb or chicken)
• 1 onion
• 250 gr tomatoes and tomato concentrate
• herbs (celery, parsley and coriander)
• spices (mainly saffron, ginger and pepper)
• 1 tea cup of lentils and another of chickpeas
• Salt
• 1 or 2 eggs and/or flour
• 1 or 2 Chili pepper
• a spoon or two of olive oil.

You can find the spices already mixed, as Moroccan spices mix.

Preparation

Fry the onions in olive oil until the onions start to become transparent.  Add the meat and when it browns add the tomato, the salt and some water.

When the water starts to boil, add the spices, the herbs, the lentils and the chickpeas, that were previously half cooked. Add water until it reaches your preference.

In the end add the beaten eggs and steer. This will thick the soup but you can also use flour.

You can also add rice or pasta like macaroni, if you like it.

You can serve with lemon and almonds on the side.

For more details, see Harira at About.com.

At the time of departure on the 28th of October 2011. Look how innocent and happy I am!

At the time of the arrival, the Fly and me on the 11th of January 2012. I have a much wiser expression on my face. It can only be because of the Flying South adventure.

Saying goodbye to the Fly, at CGFE’s warehouse in Dakar.

Saying hello to the Fly, at SDV’s Warehouse in Lisbon.

During the journey, I gave some serious thought about what to do with the scooter. Would I sell it at the end of the journey or would I send it back to Portugal? At some point, at the beginning of the journey (before Tan Tan), this was a variable that had some weight in my decisions: Could I go south until I had had enough, or should I return because if I went further south it turned out to be more difficult to return with the scooter. With such a slow pace, the distances just started to be too big to return by road. Coming from a small depression with a fragile state of mind, at some point, this even increased my sleep-deprived state and it grew to a size where I had to take some sleeping pills. They were the last ones I have taken until today, though.

At some point, I tried to ask my brother and my brother-in-law, if they could organize the transport of the scooter back home, but the prices were too high. The cost would be more than 2000€ because it was considered “Dangerous Good” and had to be closed inside a wooden box and stuff. A Piaggio Fly 50cc would cost around 1700€ back home. I could sell it at the end, but I had already a bond with it and I would like to keep it to remember the journey. The Fly was already a friend that shared important moments with me and some more were about to come. Then, I decided: What the heck, I will decide what to do when and where I arrive to my destination. Sell it, send it back or just leave it somewhere, it was not as important as to be on the road going south. That decision proved to be the correct one. I would have a lot of time to think about it (or not to think about it), and a weight was removed off my shoulders.

Nevertheless, when I arrived in Dakar, I looked for the Grimaldi offices. Grimaldi is a very well-known sea shipping operator that have those Europe to West Africa routes. When I found it, a very nice lady gave me the bad news. To send the Scooter with them would have cost me a lot of money because they would accept only complete containers.
Afterwards, she gave me two options.

The first option was to board the ship as a passenger and the scooter would go with me as luggage. I was immediately enthusiastic with this solution. Furthermore, travelling by cargo ship for 10 days would be a great experience. And it will be a great experience one day, because although I didn’t choose this way of returning, I wrote it down on my “must bucket list”. The price was good, much less then the 2000€ solution. The problem with this solution was that the ship was going only to the north of Europe, to Hamburg in Germany. In short, I had to wait almost a week for the ship, the journey to Hamburg would take me 10 days and then I had to come by train or road to Portugal. The cost would increase to an unknown amount and time would span to an unknown number of days. An original solution, though.

The second option was to contact a local company, doing groupage in containers, meaning that they put a lot of stuff inside a container, coming from a lot of clients, my scooter included, prepare a container and ship it to Europe through Grimaldi or other sea shipping operator. She gave me a business card of one such company and I went there. I found a small office and warehouse in the middle of the industrial area by the harbor. It didn’t look very organized, but I found the people very nice and efficient. The price was a little more than the price of Grimaldi first option, I reasoned that with a plane ticket for me on top of it, I could be in Lisbon in a couple of days. At the time I had some setbacks that I will explain in another post and I already had taken the decision of returning home in the following days. I took the decision to send it through this small company and pray that the Fly would arrive safe and sound at its destination. The plan was to put the Piaggio ”Rocinante” Fly inside a container in Dakar, ship it to Le Havre in France and transport it by sea or by truck to Lisbon.

In the end, the only problem I had was with the cost. Already in Portugal, when I exchanged some emails with the transporter about the delivery date of the scooter, they warned me that I would have some more cost in addition to the initial payment. I have to say that both companies gave me an excellent email support during the wait for the arrival of the scooter. In the end, I think that I also had some responsibility, as I didn’t detail with them the total costs when I ordered the service. There wasn’t enough time in my mind for such kind of detail at that moment. I had to make the decision very quickly about what to do. And that was exactly what I’ve done. You know what some people say: “It’s better any decision than no decision”. Also, they didn’t know very well the implication of such service in Europe. In the end I had to pay more 60% of the initial agreement, not to the Senegal company but to the European company. I had to pay some more for the transport of a “dangerous goods”, the handling at the European warehouses and to pay for the customs in Portugal.
The timeline was the following:

• I left the Fly in Dakar warehouse on the 22nd of November 2011
• The vessel shipped from Dakar to Le Havre on the 5th of December 2011
  (13 days later)
• The ship arrived in Le Havre on the 15th of December 2011
  (10 days later)
• The truck left Le Havre on the 28th of December 2011
  (13 days later)
• The Fly arrived at Lisbon warehouse on the 4th of January 2012
  (7 days later)
• After Customs and all paper work, I picked the Fly up at the Lisbon warehouse on the 11th of January 2012
  (7 days later)

In total, it took them 50 days to transport the Fly from Dakar to Setubal, Portugal. Much more than we both spent travelling from Portugal to Dakar by road.

I have to say that the scooter arrived in Setubal just like I left it in Dakar. No additional scratches and all parts where there: Two locking chains, the rear-view mirrors and the ignition key, as well as all the fuel inside. It was not working, though. Depleted battery or just plain stuck. It refused to start working. After a lot of kicks with the kick-starter, it just started to work. Also, some electric contacts were not functioning. The rear lights as an example. After a couple of days of usage and a pressure wash, it looks like it never left Setubal.

Back to Part 1

Mobile roaming

Mobile roaming can be a nightmare. Its an expensive service when you travel in Europe, but if go to Africa it’s like throwing gold to the garbage. If you can, don’t take a mobile phone with you. If you must have one, because you need to contact someone so they know where the hell you are, or because you feel more confortable for security reasons, only than, take one with you. But than, prepare yourself to a huge battle with it and all the mobile providers you will be working with during the journey. You will be missing the friends and family you left behind, and, without noticing, you will be calling or texting them just for that once. A good surprise will be waiting for you when you will return home and you will receive the mobile invoice. I know, because I was there. Some advices:

• Check if your mobile is carrier-locked before you leave. If it is, than unlock it or choose another mobile that it isn’t.
• In each country try to buy a pre-charged card , they sell them on the streets and it’s a great way to stay in a budget.
• You don’t have to know the prices in each country (It’s very expensive!)
• Don’t forget that you are paying also all the incoming calls you accept.
• Disconnect immediately all nice features you can find in the mobile, like each time you see the word “data” or “roaming” in the settings, just turn it off. Than promise yourself that you will not turn it on, not even for sending that very important email. Smartphones like iPhone and stuff, will try to “sync”, “backup” and ”update” and whatever they have to do, and you’re dead.
• Text messages have a size limit (128-160 characters, depending of the provider), if you think that you save money sending long messages, think twice. They will charge the cost of one messages for each one 160 characters in your message. And boy, each one it’s already expensive, imagine the price of a really big message, like the ones that GPS systems prepare with all the information about where you are and stuff. Useless and expensive.
• If you really have to call someone, make a very quick voice call, with a local prepaid card.

Services at the borders

When you arrive to some borders, you can have a bunch of “service providers” that will “strongly suggest” that you must use their services or else you will take the risk of staying at the border all day (which can be true due to the complexity of formalities and language difficulties). This happened at Tangier, Spain to Morocco border and mostly at Russo, Mauritania to Senegal border (the very worst case). As politely as you can, refuse the services that you will have to pay in the end, but only if you can afford the time to wait. The service itself is not very expensive, they will accept a small amount of money. The worst is the pressure to exchange money (at the rates they want) and even might ask you to pay taxes that you shouldn’t have to pay. They will try to make you spend money that otherwise you didn’t have to. Just look for the local authorities and start the formalities, preparing yourself to have a lot of patience throughout the process.

Currency exchange

Another way of spending bad money is to make a bad currency exchange on the streets. Everybody knows that one of the best ways of getting money in African countries is at the black market on the streets. Normally we know the exchange rate and we can achieve a not so bad negotiation, we have to admit that this is not our core business, or instead of traveling in a Fly scooter I would be working at Wall Street or something. The problem is when you arrive to a border, on a new country, and we still don’t have that new currency money to pay all the taxes, fees and even the guys who kindly “suggest” you that you must use their services or else you take the risk of staying at the border all day ( which can be the true). If you don’t have an idea of the exchange ratio you can do very bad business transactions with this guys. Exchange money is their core business. Believe me I was there. If you cannot take the new currency with you, and you will not find ATM machines in those borders, than the least you can do is to be well informed about the official exchange rate and than try to find an official exchange agency at the border. If there is none, than try to make a good negotiation with those guys, but put a foot in the door in being well informed about the rate.

Here goes some advices, for don’ts that you should and can avoid, if you really are into save some money.

Sleeping

When looking for a place to sleep, do it in time, quite soon on the day. You will not be very tired yet, and you will not have the pressure of the arrival of the night and your mind will be much more clear to take decisions.
To the end of my journey I would start thinking were to stay as soon as 14h, and at 16h I was at the place preparing my self to the night, shop, refuel, eat and some sightseeing. Before, I would extend the ride until twilight, and that leaded me to some very bad decisions. Even more if you are in possession of a Visa card. There were some days, almost dark and even with some rain, tired of driving all day, I would choose the first hotel to stay, just because I needed some rest and there were no time to look for another place to spend the night. That made me take some decision I later regretted, because the chosen hotels were very expensive, and the bill came later in the Visa account. If I did take some time, I could consider much cheaper hotels, or even look for a camping, and why not, sleep in the wild. If you go farther South and farther away of big cities, safer it will be to sleep in the wild. I never did, thought, because I’m a stupid traveller, but next time I will, I’m sure.

Eating

With food you can also be careful and save some money. Buy your own food at the local shops, make some sandwiches or even cook it your self. Of course be careful with what you eat when you are preparing meals yourself (more on that later). If you don’t want or can’t cook, and if you are in a real need of a hot meal, than stop by a local, no tourist, restaurant and eat a good meal. You will be surprised with the prices and quality of some of the food you can find. You cannot forget that everybody likes good food and that local people and their families live there and like also to eat properly. It’s easier to find expensive and bad quality food at tourist driven restaurants. The best meals I had during those days were at unsuspected,  kind of side of the road restaurants.

Visa cards

Visa cards are both, the best and the worst friend of a traveller.
It can save you from some bad situations, but it can also make you spent unnecessary money. Use it as few times as you can because each time you use it you will debited international, exchange and other taxes and stuff. Also it’s easer to spend money when you cannot see it in your hand, but this is not new for anybody, I believe. Withdraw reasonable amounts of money from ATM machines, that you can find all over the place in this days. Almost all villages of some size will have at least one. Try to pay your bills with that money. Do not withdraw much money each time, though, because you don’t want to be robbed. You will have to find a compromise.

To be continued…here