Meknes

We arived at about 9 in the morning on Monday in Tangers, and immediately got lost looking for the TOTAL arrival party. Thanks to our friends at Mobil (does there seem to be a recurring theme here?) we found our way back onto the map!

We don't think we will ever have the same level of attention and service as we had at the TOTAL arival point. At 10 am we were greeted with food, drinks, dancing, and the obligatory press call. We set off at 11 and rocked up to Meknes 5 hours later. We had a few technical
glitches, but nothing that a bit of Tipex couldn't sort out.

Now that everyone is off the Scopoderm, it has become much more social. We have met fellow Gazelles from all over, including Senegal and Quebec.

After a hefty two hour briefing, we all went around the room and introduced ourselves including the number of times we have participated in the rally. 30 percent of the people here have
participated in the rally more than once, including one 12 time participant! The competition is a lot stiffer than anticipated! But we are still confident that we will place first amongst all Total Gas & Power teams...

The Gazelles were welcomed to Morocco by the Minister for Health and Development, who gave the opening speech at the welcome party, which was fantastic kick off to what we hope will be a great few weeks.

Today the TOTAL Gazelles had the earliest start, so any hopes of a last lie in were quashed by the alarm at 5.45... But this was a blessing in disguise as we had the rest of the day to scotch our maps, following the early morning calibration of our odometer and completion of technical and administrative verifications. Castel vineyards was again host to today's preparations, and pepared a fabulous bbq (they are also sponsors of the rally).

At 3 pm we departed en masse - bear in mind with organisers we are about 150 4x4s - and headed into Meknes for a parade. For approximately 2 hours we drove around town, with instructions to ignore all traffic lights and road conventions as the police stopped all traffic for our parade! The entire police force must have been deployed for this, and it seemed like the majority of the town came out to greet us, only marred by a somewhat embarrassing triple stall uphill in the old town. However, our embarrassment was soon replaced by slack-jawed bemusement at how the 6 foot 4 model and fellow gazelle found herself in the front row (surrounded by 5 foot beauties) for the group photo shoot - hmmmm... we wonder why...

As we headed back to the Hotel Dalia, the high point was watching Amanda from Team 150 Total South Africa wave the SA flag out of the window as she and Dalene drove along, and seeing how fast an arm can move when being mobbed by children grabbing at your flag.

Tonight will be a quite night as we have a 3.30 am start to get to Erfoud and begin the rally! We will try to keep this updated - note our mobile phones ae being confiscated tomorrow afternoon!