Short Intro

This is the diary and photo library of the 6 months I spent in Morocco and Western Sahara during Oct 2003 to April 2004. This page provides a little background on the trip. It's only a third finished at the moment, so join my email list to find out when the rest is completed.

Background

Having just turned 30 I was eager to head off somewhere after 5 years in London. Preferably somewhere warm to avoid the European winter, and somewhere cheap as I was being fairly financially reckless in my desire to get away.

After 2 months of camping in the yard at Allisport preparing the landy (yak) and missing my 1st deadline for leaving on my 30th birthday I left the UK in the 2nd week of October 2003. It had been the customary mad rush to get organised for the day I had booked a ferry ticket to France, and sadly I didn't treat a few loved ones as kindly as I should have before I left due to the stress of getting ready and sorting out my business accounts, moving out of my flat etc. (Including the kind staff at Dunsfold Land Rovers who took it all with good grace)

Winter was fast approaching, the prime minister was a war criminal who despite my protesting had started an illegal and deadly war that he had no chance of being directly involved with and what's more I was fat and very unfit. I needed some rough living and loads of exercise.

I hoped to spend winter in Morocco and Western Sahara, having a look around, relaxing and having a go at making a couple of documentaries. After 10 years working in IT security I fancied my chances at doing something more creative, and documentaries such as those by John Pilger and Michael Moore were inspiring to me. So I took a couple of camera's and a bunch of other video equipment to the edge of the Sahara desert to learn how it all worked.

If the money held out well, I hoped to then continue on towards Mongolia for summer. To this end I had organised to leave cold weather equipment, tyres and books with Chris and Agata in Zurich. The plan being to pick them back up on my way through Europe towards Mongolia.

I had never meet Chris or Agata before, but had been corresponding with them via email for over a year. So I set off towards Zurich from London via Dover and Dunkirk....