The Saga Continues

We got back the other week from Morocco…
Given the cancellation of the challenge, we decided to drive the W202 (old Mercedes C-class) to Morocco, and have a pot around there, followed by a tour of Europe. As such, I quickly changed the coolant, made sure the snow tyres were fitted properly and the snow chains packed in the boot along with some warm clothes.

We left on the 26th of December, and making great time, we got to Algeciras (in southern Spain) in a day-and-a-night of constant driving. We took turns, and as I slept cradled by the design of many generations of German engineering Andrea drove (having gotten a driving licence only a year ago for the challenge). When she had enough of driving we swapped. While driving through a more remote part of southern Spain, I had a friendly game of “catchup” with a E-class driver… every time I overtook him he would accelerate and overtake me… It seems that after 30 minutes he had enough of the game, stuck his middle finger out the window (must be a Spanish way of greeting people…) and took an exit. My garmin reported that we may have been doing 110mph at some point…. clearly this must have been on a private road somewhere…

After a 1-day break in Algeciras, we took a ferry to Tangier (quite impressive actually, they’re hydrofoil thing-a-ma-bobs) and drove to Rabat from there. After a brief stint at the Mauritanian embassy (we were still contemplating going to Timbuktu with the W202) we then drove to Marrakesh.

Over the next few days, I managed to accrue 3 speeding tickets on Moroccan soil. On the motorways, there is a “gendarme royale” every few kilometres with a radar gun, who promptly pulled us over for doing 143, 161 and 84 km/hr in 120, 120 and 60 zones respectively. Each “fine” was for 400MAD (Moroccan Dirhams, about £32). Between being a student with a very empty wallet, playing dumb, pretending I didn’t speak the language, and being friendly, I got away with paying only one fine… and paying only 10-euros at that (never had the 400MAD in my pocket!). The police were the most friendly police I have ever met anywhere in the world, and not only were they happy to explain all the speed limits to me (and let me off for not knowing the speed limits), but also point me in the right direction, and offer me some Moroccan tea.

On the 31st, we decided to drive over the Tizi-n-Test pass, which is just over 2000m above sea level. Other than a punctured tyre, the W202 pulled flawlessly and was a truly spectacular travel companion. On the way back, it was getting late and we had a dinner to attend, so we had to rush a little… This meant we had to overtake some trucks, busses and taxies at speed which were quite worrying given the road’s size (and sheer drop on the side). Again, the W202 presented no problems, and my novice team-mate/copilot/etc was truly picking up the ropes impressively fast.

On the 2nd, we decided to try another pass, from Marakesh we would drive to Demnate, and then from there take the mountain pass to Ouarzazate. That evening we would drive back to Marakesh on the motorway… seemed like a plan! Once in Demnate the scenery changed drastically. We had even acquired a new passenger (an old friend who we met in Morocco after she flew down from Italy) and were having a great time.

Stupidly, I decided to stick my head out of the window to take a picture… A minute later, I stuck my shoulders out. Unhappy with the results, I rolled down the window all the way, popped one leg out, sat on the doorframe and held onto the inside handle while snapping pictures. At one point, I even touched the floor with the heel of my boot – it was like riding a motorbike, but with someone else driving!

As we progressed up the pass, I lean forward and tap the drivers window, which she rolls down. I stick out my tongue at her, she repeats the same and utters something which I missed, because by that point, I had looked up and noticed a very large truck coming very fast, in the middle of the road around a blind bend. My thought at this point was “uh-oh, this will leave a dent on the front”… I shout “Andrea!” (her name, duh ) but by that point she had already slammed the brakes and swerved (left, thankfully, otherwise we would be rolling down the cliff and almost certainly dead).

A fraction of a second passes, the truck hits the driver’s wing-mirror shattering it into millions of shards (complaint to MB… the wing mirror is NOT safety glass!). Another fraction of a second passed, I braced for impact…

The truck collides with my right side, still hanging outside the car. First the bumper hits my foot (which is snuggled inside a nice Magnum protective boot), next, my thight and hips, pushing me into the car through the window. Finally, as the trucks slides off, his rear hits my shoulders pushing me definitively into the car. At this point I think “crap, my camera is going to be scratched! I hope the SD card is unharmed”.

Taking full advantage of the adrenaline rush, I hop out of the car’s window and drop to the floor.I close my eyes and wait for a minute to pass. Andrea comes by, she’s worrying  asking if I’m ok. Unable to speak (partly from being winded and partly from the shock) I just do the ok sign and eventually call for the first aid bag. Both Andrea and Alessia are ok, they don’t have any injuries apart from some minor cuts from the mirror.

While she digs around in the car for the first aid bag I take a few deep breaths and open my eyes, I look down at my legs without moving my back, I looks like my feet are still attached… I can move my hands…and my arms…

Rooting around for the last smudgets of my first aid training from the PADI rescue diving course I did a few years ago, I quickly check my arms, chest and hips. My hips hurt, but they don’t seem broken. I roll over into the recovery position… good, my back still works.

I feel down for my legs. Success, my left leg is still there… and then, even the right one. I quickly palm down and get to my feet, my legs seem intact. My right knee is killing me, and I’m losing blood from 3 very large grazes on my right leg and a cut on my left hip.

Andrea helps me remove my shoes by taking out all the laces and literally taking the shoes apart. I then proceed to remove my trousers – by this point, the entire nearby village had turned up to see the stupid tourist stripping on the road.

A few quick patches to stop the bleeding, and I get lifted into the rear car seats. Now the fun starts… the truck driver comes over demanding 5000MAD for his truck’s damages. I tell him I have 200, no 300 MAD in my wallet, which he can check. If he prefers, we can do it with the insurance. I don’t care, as long as I can get to a hospital. He thinks about it, and the police & ambulance is called.

3 hours later, I’m finally allowed to go to the hospital, after giving away all my documents to the polie, and signing who knows what admission of liability. I remember writing something on an A4 paper, but not sure what. I think it was an accident report – but I wasn’t really thinking clearly. By this point, I had administered myself 1g of paracetamol, 32mg of codeine, 400mg of ibuprofen and some caffeine… I had also proceeded to clean the wounds and dress them properly (all without getting the seats dirty ).

Not happy with moving out of the car, Alessia (the second young lady that was travelling with us) drives the car behind the ambulance with me still on the rear seats. She had never driven a UK-spec car (with the steering wheel on the right), never driven in Morocco nor had the most relaxing conditions… but she did it amazingly well.

Several hours after the accident, we get to the hospital. The doctor gives me a shot of “anti-inflamatory”. No amount of asking got me the answer as to what it was… I’m assuming cortisone, but am not sure… possibly morphine as it’s quite popular in the area…

Finally getting rid of the ambulance (who asked for some money to lead us to the hospital) we go to the police station to recover our documents. They make us fill out more paper, and the trucks owner turns up. He’s an elderly man, and definitely was not the driver. He says he was driving the truck… by this point, I just wanted to go back to the hotel and sleep it off, so we signed some more paperwork, gave the police a copy of my UK insurance certificate (couldn’t find my green card insurance for Morocco… I think it’s still buried under the seats) and finally, around 8 in the evening get back on the road.

The day after, we leave from Marakesh with the intention of driving around Europe…. but we still didn’t have a wing-mirror… So we stop in a market and a very crafty chap cuts a new mirror and fits it to the car’s housing. We then duct tape the housing to the car (pictures to come soon… as soon as I get them off Andrea’s camera) and are off! (oh yeah, also some tape on the rear passenger door (the one I was sat on), to stop water coming in as it’s so deformed it doesn’t fit the car anymore). Neither the passenger nor the driver doors open from outside, but the driver door opens from inside…

It turns out that by the time we get to Ceuta, even taking Voltarene (which I was lucky enough to find in a local pharmacy, which wasn’t too picky about prescriptions) three times a day, my foot was too swollen to fit in my boots. At this point we decide to drive back to the UK…

We arrived in the UK at 9:20 on the 6th, three days later. We stopped a night in Ceuta and one on Malaga (with a brief tour of Gibraltar), then drove straight for a day and most of a night through Spain, Andorra and France.

Once out on the EuroTunnel’s train, the cars were trying to get up the ramps, covered in ample snow. Happy with my snow tyres, we tackled the slope without problems and got out. The M20 and M26 were a mess… at one point, we overtook a bulldozer/snowplow which had a long line of cars behind it… another score for the snow tyres!

I dropped Andrea off at 11:00, and then drove to the hospital. I didn’t want to scare anyone else, so went alone. I got there at 12:00 midnight, and I think they didn’t really believe my story… around 6am I had gotten an xray and was getting told I had a fracture in my foot, but they couldn’t understand how I could walk… by 9am I had a cast and was out of the hospital in a taxi (couldn’t drive with a cast). I got home an collapsed, getting some sleep for the first time in 3 days.

I woke up later that morning worried about my car in the parking lot of the hospital. With the help of two friends, we got the car home… I finally took a minute to admire what happened… on the car’s door there is the outline of my leg, as well as two smudges of the colour of my boot and trousers respectively. The mirror, still duct taped to the door after 3000+km is still proudly sitting there. The driver’s door it dented, but not too badly. The fuel cap won’t go near closing… (we had stuck some duct tape on that too at our first fuel stop)…

All in all, I consider myself extremely lucky. I still have both my legs and my mobility. I have a minor fracture to my foot, huge grazes and bruises and a small (albeit deep) cut. All other passengers (of both my car and the truck) are fine. I didn’t see the truck, but I’m told it was only scratched. I have some pictures which I’ll grab off Andreas camera asap (I was lying in the back of the car)

Unfortunately, my poor W202 is starting to rust at the arches. The paint is starting to fade. The windscreen isn’t as clear as it used to be. The engine is starting to have an issue with overheating… in a nutshell, she’s getting old. But I cannot scrap her, it wouldn’t be dignified.

The W202 would be a writeoff if it happened in the UK.

As it is, I will replace the doors. The rust, won’t be a problem for another year. As such, I will drive the car to Bamako next year; safe in the knowledge that I’m driving a true legend. A car that has saved my life more than once, a car I truly love.

The car will then be donated to charity, where she will find a new lease of life and go on for many more years. A much more dignified end than being scrapped on ebay.

So… this isn’t my story. This is my story with my car. I truly admire her and will be buying another W202 next year once I lose her. Nothing will replace her place, but I have high expectations.

So…. RIP in advance for my car, touch wood for me, and a major thank you to whatever guardian I had looking over us that day (and to Andrea for her quick reactions). It could have been much worse, and my silly actions could have had lethal consequences. But they didn’t. We are alive, and with only a small cast for me.

Finally – the good news… my cast comes off Friday! Hopefully I’ll find some time to do some webadmin soon!