Power failure and police escort

08.02.23 Tourandannt My night was over today at 3 o'clock. I was standing upright in bed: Dammit! I didn't change the refrigerator settings! I reached carefully for the small halogen lamp above me, towards the switch. On. Off... Nothing. On. Off... Nothing! No electricity! Oh no! Of all times, at this place where there was no power supply. Well then, good night, Marie!

You have to know: There is a knob on camper refrigerators that allows you to choose which energy source your refrigerator should use. 230 volts if there is an external power supply, 12 volts for the onboard battery, gas or auto for automatic. With this setting, the refrigerator chooses for itself, which means that if there is no power available, it switches to gas. This is also the safest setting. But I had to save gas and that's why I left out the automatic.

In Taliouine we had shore power. So the setting was on 230 volts. And there it still stood last night at 3 o'clock. So the refrigerator was taking full power from the onboard battery with the result that it was completely empty. What that means: No electricity = No heating. No light. No water. No toilet flush. No power to charge my cell phone and iPad. You're probably asking yourself the same thing I'm still asking myself today: How can such a small switch have such a big impact?

Now thankfully or unfortunately I already have experience with such situations. I have electricity from my external power bank, Maria takes care of the food that needs to go in the refrigerator, two flashlights provide the light, and the water comes from plastic bottles, which I have been using since the Diesel scandal. The only thing left is the heating... And yes, tonight around 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning, I will probably have to use my sleeping bag for the first time. I am surprised at myself, but I have to say, after almost three weeks in Morocco, not much can shake me anymore...

The city tour this morning almost managed to do it though. Ricci had rented four carriages for us to get to know the city better. We also visited a specialty store for argan oil and a tannery - as is usual on such tours. The tannery was too much for me. I couldn't stand the typical ammonia smell and waited outside - with Hanne, Volker, and Ute, who shared my suffering.

In the evening it got exciting again. We were escorted to a campsite by a delegation of the police. This was preceded by a visit from a woman from the city who made it very clear to us that this was a public parking lot and not a parking space for camper vans. But the night before, two men had offered us the spots and assigned each motorhome a position. A price had been agreed upon, which we were supposed to pay the next day. Luckily, we hadn't done that yet. After lengthy discussions with the determined lady from the city, we agreed that at 7 p.m. the police would escort us to a campsite and the city would cover the cost of our overnight stay. We could live with that. The three hours until then, we went for a walk and had coffee.