After deciding that the fun and games with Evil Abdul had become a bit much, Jo, Muna and I decided to get up early and leave the next day. So at 6am I was up, roused Jo & Muna a bit later and we roared off before the Evil Abdul had a chance to show himself.

Not wanting to ruin the dunes experience because of Evil Abdul we drove down to the opposite end of the dunes and parked up for a few hours of fun and food before heading into Erfoud to buy some supplies. I had said to Muna that I expected Evil Abdul to be lurking somewhere in Erfoud to try and cut us off and salvage something form his plans to rip me off. Muna thought I was being more than a bit paranoid, but when you have a landy full of goodies you are a target that is worth every effort.

Sure enough as we sat slurping yogurts in Erfoud the Evil Abdul jumped out of a taxi and came over. Muna's eyes were bulging with shock and surprise! He had traveled in for an hour or more at his cost to not lose his potential victim. I gave Evil Abdul a frosty greeting and after 20 seconds of a very cold shoulder he got the message and disappeared for good.

Still it gave us something to talk about as we headed north towards the Todra Gorge.

Luckily the King of Morocco was in Erfoud, so the road was cleared for his expected procession north back to Er Rachidia with flag waving children lining the streets, and a armed military guy ever 200 metres.

It was quite a fun driving along the road. Then we had a fuel lock and the engine died which mad the military guards very nervous. After some priming of the fuel pump we were quickly on our way much to the relief of military guys that turned up in a jeep. Shame, if we had held out abit longer we might have been able to meet the king.

Heading towards the Todra Gorge we passed through the town of Tinejdad. We stopped at a Ziz petrol station coming into town and put in 300 dirhams of diesel. Or so we thought. 30km down the road we ground to a halt on the side of the road as we had done previously in the day. Another fuel lock we presumed. Muna and i had a go at sorting the problem out and before long a couple of young guys on a motorbike stopped to give us a hand.

One was some sort of mechanic and he bent over backwards to help us out, insisting on taking the horrible job of sucking diesel through the fuel pipe. after much sucking he was adamant that there was no diesel in the tank. Getting the feeling we had been ripped off at the petrol station we threw in a jerry cans worth of diesel and headed back to the petrol station.

It was really nice of the young guys to stop and help. It was still Ramadan and they were heading home after a days work but no food, and when the problem was sorted they were happy for us and went to leave without asking for any money. I joked as best I could that he was a great mechanic and that if i was heading on towards Mauritania he should come with me. As jokes often get lost in the translation he took it seriously and insisted on giving me his phone number. This proved to be very useful at the petrol station soon after.

I asked Jo and Muna if it was ok to head back and try and get our money back. They laughed and said of course it was - they had taken on the apartheid government in South Africa so a Tinejdad petrol station worker didn't seem too scary.

We pulled back into the petrol station and as luck would have it two policemen doing their rounds in a car were using the forecourt to turn around in. Muna pounced on them and so began the amusing charade of exposing the petrol station guy.

The key to his success had been in being extremely friendly and helpful. I had watched the counters on the petrol pump as he put the fuel in - they had started at zero and went around as normal to 30 dirhams and the pump made it's usual pumping sounds, but as the pump nozzle had been covered in diesel he insisted on getting dirty instead of me and thus I never got to see the diesel not pouring out of the nozzle.

After much effort of proving we didn't have a leak or a mechanical problem the cops were finally convinced when we gave them the phone number of the mechanic who had stopped and helped us.

So we emerged from Tinejdad for a second time with our 300 dirhams where it should have been.

We continued on into what was now nighttime and found a nice place to stay just before the Todra gorge, with Muna bargaining hard for a good room rate for him and Jo, but better yet free camping for me and the landy out the back!