The Big Drive......

The Drive

Well what an epic adventure!

Turkey, Greece, Italy, France, Spain and finally Morocco. Six
countries in 10 days, three boats and five thousand kilometres of
road.

And without a hitch......not a puncture, or a policeman in sight
...... and despite the trip being on high quality motorways, a feast
of sights, smells and weather. And some of the finest engineering I
have ever seen. The Greeks, Italians and French don't let little
things like mountains and rivers get in the way. They tame them almost
arrogantly with magnificent bridges, spectacular viaducts and endless
tunnels. And then, having paid for it all with your tax money.....they
charge you extra for the privelege of using them! I paid over £200 in
tolls alone from Greece to Spain, adding twenty per cent to my total
energy bill for the journey.

The drive north through Turkey was interesting, it changes noticeably
as you drive north, and the temperature plummeted. While most people
back home were experiencing the big freeze and chaos. I was lucky
enough to be just far south enough to escape the worst of it. But it
sure was cold. I spent a week in long johns and thermals and sleeping
fully clothed! The third day driving across Greece was sunny and
bright, but as soon as I got off the ferry in Italy, I had howling
winds and horizontal snow. By the time I got to Marseille it was minus
7 in Provence, and spectacularly pretty.

There I took my first break, staying with friends in Marseille, eating
fine food, drinking fine wine, and enjoying a brief exposure to one of
the most civilised countries in the world. After the supermarkets of
Ukraine and Turkey, a trip round Carrefour in Marseille had me
drooling like a rescued shipwrecked sailor. Knowing I was bound for
another country where stuff is rare and expensive, and with Christmas
looming, and with a wonderful woman to welcome home, I took the
opportunity to shamelessly stock up on goodies of all descriptions.

My attempts to make the journey more comfortable by catching a long
ferry from France to Tangier had failed, so I had no choice but to
drive all the way. The drive from Marseille to Algeceiras near
Gibraltar, about 1500km, I had done many times, and is not
particularly pretty. So it was a case of just get on with it.

For me, driving long distance is like meditation. It's thinking time.
All the things you have had churning around your mind for ages, but
never had time to think about properly, all come bubbling up to the
surface on a long drive. My van is an especially cool vehicle for long
trips. A nice steady and safe 55 mph, panoramic windows, a soft drink
to hand and cool tunes on the music system. You settle into a rhythm
and the time and miles just fly by.

Sometimes it can be a negative experience. When you open all the doors
of your mind for a spring clean, you know in advance what to expect,
but nevertheless it has to be done, and you always feel refreshed
afterwards, regardless of the consequences. Your mind is clear, you
know what you have to do to move forward.

But this time my cupboards contained nothing but good things, other
than a few cobwebs that were easily dusted away.

As the miles flew by and the countries and landscape changed, my mood
lifted and soared. There I was, cruising across Europe, on my way to a
new and exciting country to start a new life with a wonderful woman.
And best of all, a gradual awareness that my house is in reasonable
order. In fact I am bloody HAPPY!

Five years ago I was a suicidal drunken wreck, unable to work,
terminally depressed, cynical and negative.

That's all I can say about it - you can work the rest out for yourself
- my story is no different. The delicious irony is that you can't
really appreciate the good times without having experienced the bad.

The turning point for me was a single hour in the port of Igoumenitsa,
Greece, waiting for the boat to Italy. The place was a really pretty
Greek coastal town, close to Corfu and the Albanian border. It is the
favoured route from Greece to the rest of the EU, as it allows you to
avoid the mess that remains after the former state of Yugoslavia.

I had six hours to kill, and spent a very pleasant few hours in a
waterfront restaurant. When I came out and was climbing back into the
van, I was doorstepped by an illegal immigrant, one of hundreds of
dark hooded figures I had seen loitering desperately around the port.
If you travel a lot, you get used to dealing with all sorts of needy
people, from beggars to destitute to chancers. You have to develop the
skill of rejecting people without upsetting them or yourself.....too
much.

But this guy had something about him, an air of respectability, and
pretty good English too. Turned out he was Moroccan - my destination!
There I was trying to get in, and there he was, trying to get out.
Maybe it was the wine, maybe my state of mind, but something prevented
me from sending him away gently. So I sat him down, made some tea, and
we traded life stories for an hour.

In a nutshell he was a skilled motor body engineer, and had had a good
job in Morocco. Decent family, father and elder brother in the army. A
former black belt in Akido, and a skilled footballer. No doubt he was
the black sheep of the family, and probably rebelled. Reading between
the lines he went off the rails, took to drinking and smoking and
generally let himself go. Probably got in with a bad crowd. In the
middle of it all his girlfriend got pregnant, gave birth to a baby
boy, and emigrated to the UK, Liverpool of all places, right on my own
doorstep. There was probably a lot more to it than that. Muslim
families are very close knit, and you are either in, or out. Her
family probably rejected him, and packed her off to relatives in
Liverpool to start a new life.

Having pulled himself together, and exhausted all other possibilities,
he set out on the long and risky road of illegal emigration. No chance
of any visa, no other choice. Via Egypt, Cyprus and Greece, he finally
made it Igoumenitsa. Greece is unique in the EU in that it is
physically isolated from the rest of the EU countries. All the
countries that border Greece are not part of the "Schengen" countries,
those that have no border controls between each other.

He had already been to Italy underneath a caravan, only to be caught
on the other side and just dumped back on the same ship within hours.
Forget all this "claiming asylum" malarkey. The system is ruthless and
insensitive. Any sort of legal intervention means they then have to be
recorded, which leads to statistics, which leads to recognition, which
leads to politics. Far more efficient to just dump them straight
back.....no arrest, no charity workers......just back and turned out
outside the fence of the docks. Some of them make it through - fine,
someone else's problem. But officially, they don't exist. How would
you like to "officially" not exist?

I saw no evidence of charity groups or support, no soup kitchens,
nothing....just a very heavy police and security presence.

All this guy wanted was to see his child. He even had some support
from Liverpool. They had tried to wire him 50 euros via Western Union,
but the local Western Union office had been INSTRUCTED by somebody,
not to deliver wired funds to any illegal alien. This alone made my
blood boil.

The only thing that stopped me stowing him away under the bed was the
fear of getting caught. I would have taken the risk as a political
statement, I would have probably only got a slap on the wrists. But
uppermost was the selfish desire not to jeopardise my imminent
rendezvous with my own loved one.

And I was right to do so, as I experienced the most thorough search I
had ever had on my travels in the van, as I entered the port a few
hours later. They would have found him for sure.

So we cried on each others shoulder, smoked cigarettes, and he
eventually left with whatever I could give him, the most important of
which was some friendship and support. Some love. He promised to keep
in touch. Good luck to Saheed.

So that grounded me.

A few days later I was on the grottiest dirtiest Moroccan ferry I had
ever had the misfortune to encounter........welcomed into his country
with open arms. And a few hours after that in the arms of my lovely
woman at Casablanca airport. A few hours later, after a stupendous
sunset drive from Casablanca to Marrakesh, with the Atlas mountains
rising majestically from the horizon, we were seated in a walled
garden restaurant in the old quarter of Marrakesh, celebrating our
reunion.

Now it is Christmas Eve 2010. We sit by the side of the Atlantic
Ocean, sipping Spanish supermarket sparkling fizz, nibbling on little
luxuries.....and on each other.

I am enjoying this time in my life. I appreciate it all the more given
the hard times. But my hard times, and probably the hard times of most
of the people who read this.....are relative. I feel so lucky to have
had my "accident of birth".

I hesitate to moralise, but also feel it's my duty, especially at this
time of year. We are so lucky to be part of the civilised West. But we
consume more than four times more than our globally fair share. the
Americans nine times more. Two billion and more exist only to survive.
I have spent hours wondering just what an individual can do. There are
no easy answers.

But what everybody can do is just be aware of the situation. Spare it
some thought, choose a charity, read wisely, influence friends,
challenge selfishness and bigotry......use your vote. Be aware.

Luda and I wish you a very happy Christmas.