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After breakfast the Cobra man put two Egyptian Cobras
near my trike (because it's called the Aerotrike Cobra) for photographs. He was nearly bitten a few times. The female is called Cyber Cobra because when she goes to town (I didn't ask which town) with the Cobra man
- she apparently loves to spend time in the Internet cafés. The male Cobra (nearly two metres long) managed to get into my trike and disappeared between the tank and the fairing. Almost impossible to find him.
Stripped the bags and some parts of the trike to find him. I had visions of a Cobra appearing on my lap in mid flight and me jumping off onto my carpet! I pulled the fuel hose out of one of the side bags and threw
it at a local Moroccan hotel cleaner - he nearly died of fright. I think he may sue me. See the photos.
We packed and somehow managed to get airborne before
the hill and the camels. Landed at the military airport near Tan Tan. Got a lift into Tan Tan with a fireman who charged us half the taxi fare. Later he tried to re-negotiate the arrangement and had to deal with
ultra-experienced traveller, Olivier's tongue. Had another camel meat and vegetable Tajine. The kids in the street are very naughty and cheeky.
An interesting thing – it is virtually impossible to
get constipated in Morocco. Somehow, you always land up eating something that gives you the runs – and I have a cast-iron stomach, so something has to be bad to make me sick!
Filled up and took off for the coast again. Fuel is
much cheaper here. Landed at Cape Juby where the early (in approx. 1937) French mail service aircraft used to land for an overnight stop before flying further south to Senegal. From Senegal the route was across the
Atlantic to Buenos Aires. Lots of pilots died in those early days – like half of them! Whenever they had engine failure and had to land in this part of the world they would either be shot or ransomed by the Maures
…. the French Embassy used to then pay to get them released.
After two minutes the police arrived. Then the
military arrived. The kids arrived, running hard from the town. The military and the police chased the kids away. Olivier went to town to phone the ATC at Laayoune to close our flight plan. He came back with food.
We settled down for the night in the middle of the runway with two military guards and two police guards. Vehicles kept arriving in the night to change the guards and to make sure we were sleeping OK. Slept badly
– dreams of life at home and business. Slept on our carpets. My carpet started moving in the night – one of the guards shouted at it in Arabic and it stopped. I must learn to fly / drive this thing before I
have an accident.
The wind came up strong in the night – moved the
trikes to keep them from blowing over.
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