Day 9 Rabat

Got up early and headed to the Mauritanian Embassy for opening time. On arrival the road outside was a collection of overlander vehicles of various shapes and sizes from an old guy with a handlebar mustache on his bycycle all the way up to a six wheel drive truck with a custom 'caravan' bolted on top. After joining the queue and filling out the application in the line with the help of a few others in the queue we spoke to a couple of the other teams from our rally swapping a few stories. The queue was fairly orderly until it came close to the eleven am closing time. I finally got to the front and after a being told to fill out a few blanks with my best French guess he took my six hundred and eighty Dirhams (about fifty quid) and then shoed me away to come back tomorrow at two pm. I went back to Nora at the car as she was just locking the car to come look for me. I started to brew a cuppa as the French surfer from the next to me in the queue came back to his van and we ended up talking about the route to come. We were joined by a German man who has done the trip half a dozen times before and we ended up with the maps sprawled out over the bonnet listening to his many tips to ease the amount of times we are going to be hustled. Hearing the stories of what is to come filled us with a mixture of feelings knowing we are soon to be stuck at the Senegalese border for a half a day of standoff and dealing to still have to pay one hundred and fifty euros to get in. From there we went to head back but the battery was flat with the inverter being left plugged in so after bump starting the Jeep for the first time we went back to the hotel to dump the car and headed into the Medina for a walk around the Kasbah and souks. Rabat has a totally different feel to the hounding and bustle of Marrakech. In the souks they let you browse without the hastle which was a welcome relief. Hopefully we will collect our visas tomorrow and then head back down to Marrakech on the road south again.