The great white hunter - hunting for transmissions in Africa.

Today I woke up after some 2 hours of sleep - chilled to the bone. The clothes I had put on last night had helped. But not enough. I was shaking from the cold, but getting a nice warm cup from Tom in the Honky Tonk team got me started and we where well underway packing as the morning briefing started.

After the briefing we packed up quickly and started out on todays stage - which was going close to Agadir. Where we had a mission to get some sleeping mats for the Honky Tonk and some new sleeping bags for me and Per (which later have decided that his super-underwear will be enough to keep the cold away). Other then that we were supposed to follow the rally course. We soon realized that we had packed a little too quick that morning. I had left the rest of the beer on top of the hearse. Killing off 14 of the 21 we had left. So. I got to say. Hi. I am Mikal. And I have abused alcohol. Some alcohol. 15 cans. I am ashamed.

After that I tried to sleep most of the time. So I am really not sure what was going on to be honest. I think we where just driving. All I can remember of the first part of the day is being tired, and cold and that we stopped at some random village and had lunch (which was nice). I know we pushed on towards Agadir. Outside of Agadir we decided to split up. Our gearbox was just getting worse and worse - engaging second gear was really a lottery game. So me and Per went on the hunt for a mechanic while the others went on a hunt for sleeping comfort.

We both failed. Kristian and the Honky Tonks did not find any camping equipment. If they had wanted huge beds - no problem. If they wanted huge floor rugs - no problem. But no sleeping mattresses. No sleeping bags. No blankets to sleep in. Me and Per went to the Mercedes garage. They told us that our gearbox needed replacement. One could see small shavings of metal in our transmission fluid (oil). Not a good thing. They could get a new gearbox from Casablanca the following day. A new one - not exactly what we wanted. We wanted old and cheap - not new and somewhat expensive. And we did not want to wait.

We all linked randomly up at a petrol-station outside of Agadir, where we sadly decided that our teams had to split up. The Honky Tonks headed south for the rest of the stage. Some shipwreck at the beach and other goodies. While we went on hunting for a gearbox. This was an extremely hard task. Per is the only one speaking any French - and he is quite capable of ordering caffe lattes, but to explain that an gear box needs to be changed... (Not change the oil, not change for an manual, no it is not electronic, yes it is automatic... etc). Chaos. We met a lot of nice people that tried to help us out. A big thanks to them all. Specially the ones that offered their english speaking services to us like Raehid - who got our card and hopefully will read this blog entry. :)

Finally in the evening we found a service that where willing to change our gearbox. They just need to get it - and we have an appointment to have it changed tomorrow at 8:30 in a smallish town a little outside of Agadir. We have retreated to Agadir and a apartment hotel.

As I said. These blog entries may be revisited. I am rather tired and smelly and in dire need of a shower and comfy bed right now.