Andora and France

29th April 1999
 

Odo	40 089.1km
Co-ords	N 42 21 28.8 E 1 27 39.8
Fuel	33.73 L  40 141.7km

So here we are in France near Marseilles, waiting for the Africa bit of the Africa Adventure. Three countries in one day – Spain – Andorra – France – we can not expect that to happen soon again.

Andorra is really nice with huge mountains and still enough snow for skiing. We crossed our highest pass in Europe at 2408m today. Our highest crossing in Africa will be in Ethiopia, how far away and impossible that seems. Andorra is a duty free zone so all people are asked to declare stuff on the way out. The poor customs man could not believe we had so much stuff but nothing to declare. Anyway after much explaining that our jerry cans were empty he let us be on our way. We did not do too much in Andorra except look at the scenery.

In France we drove east along the Pyrenees towards the sea. Most of the day had been sunny but we got really heavy rain and large hail. Anyway the drive was OK. We arrived in Marseilles at around 7pm and farted around looking for a campsite for about an hour and a half. We finally stopped to ask a lady at a restaurant only to be told that there aren’t any in Marseilles and that the nearest one is further east in a town called Cassis.

We found quite a nice campsite in Cassis, took 12 minutes to put up the tent and had supper of pasta and sauce. Not too bad but would rather arrive earlier. Tomorrow we are off to find where the boat leaves from and try to buy a new table. Ours will not last. We are going to repack the food boxes too to try to make things easier to get out.

Good night.
 
 

30th April 1999
 

Odo	40 693.3km
Co-ords	N 43 13 25.9 E 5 32 22.5
Fuel	69.25 L  40 714.6km

Had a bit of a cold night last night. We ended up zipping our sleeping bags closed and sleeping in our tracksuits. Well another day of happenings. We went in search of a table and food for the boat. After two hours of looking we finally found a table that is tough and rolls up into a bag. Odd I hear you say but it’s true, you will have to take a look.

Another small disaster was that the key broke in the petrol cap - fuck. It’s worked OK until now. I got it to work and it’s still lockable but hell talk about an idiot thing to happen. Imagine getting stuck because you can’t put petrol in, not because you don’t have any.

We went looking for the ferry terminal so we could be sure for tomorrow. We got lost a few times have it sussed out now so we will not have any trouble. We will start out at 6:30 tomorrow morning.

We came back to the campsite for lunch and a siesta (hard to leave Spain behind). Trashed our old table in favour of the new one, it really is a lot better.

After the siesta we repacked the food box in order to make things easier to get in and out. Then went off for a walk to the harbour. It is a very nice village and it would be neat to spend a holiday here. As you may, or not, have gathered I am very stressed, it seems as if we have a huge mountain to climb. Anyway the walk did me good. I am still concerned but as Renee says " we’re only off to Tunisia on a holiday". We can say the same thing when we go to Libya.

The car is prepared; we took off four jerry cans from the roof and two water bottles to reach the 2.3m maximum height limit for private cars on the ferry. It’s 10:15pm and we are off to clean our teeth and go to bed.

Tomorrow AFRICA, well not really but we do leave Europe.

Goodnight.
 
 

Ferry from France to Tunisia

Decamped in 40 minutes. Not too bad. Got to Marseilles and through the check in with no problems at all. When it came to going through passport control the problems started. The immigration officer was looking for visas for France. French visas, what the hell do we need those for, we have Spanish resident permits, which gives us free movement all over Europe. He would not believe that we did not need visas to get into France and called in guys with guns, supposedly to escort us out. After 20 minutes of real close examination (felt like weeks though), another office came in, looked at everything, shrugged his shoulders, and basically told the first officer to stop being stupid and stamp the passports. Wow what a ball ache. Anyway we are finally in the queue for the boat.