Imechapishwa: 23.02.2023
23.02. Agdz - Zagora Setting off for the gateway to the desert! Ricci already gave this slogan when we set off for Sidi Ifni. Since then, we have passed six more gates - well, the desert is big. Why shouldn't it have several gates.
But with every kilometer we approach Zagora, it becomes clear that we are getting closer to the desert region of M'Hamid. The mountain ranges become flatter and rounder. When we leave Agdz, a fine gray-white veil has draped itself between the mountains. The light of the sun falls like through frosted glass and bathes the landscape in warm shades of brown, red and yellow. It's as if everything is flowing into each other and emerging from one at the same time. If harmony could become a picture, it would probably look like this.
If I were alone on the road, I would stop now, make an espresso, sit outside in nature and wait for the mist to settle, the veils to lift, and to reveal what they could still hide from the morning sun. But I'm not alone on the road, and as a group we have a lot to do today. First of all, we have to cover the good 90 kilometers to Zamora, and then there is also Wilhelm's 79th birthday, which must be celebrated properly, as Ricci announced in yesterday's briefing.
The songs! To me, it sounded like a threat. I have firmly resolved to stand as far away from Berndt as possible during the traditional serenade, who not only sings the loudest, but - let me be forgiving - also the least correctly. In our crew, there are many who don't always hit the right note, but good old Berndt finds exactly the ones that torture the eardrum at its most sensitive point with an almost incredible precision.
I admire his courage and that's why I gather my courage and stand next to him. After all, in my childhood, I won a young singer contest - no joke! - before the great career, a la Heintje, in front of which I undoubtedly stood, sank in a terrible voice change. But today I will let my voice ring out like in the good old days.
With this resolution, I started our little song and listen: It wasn't that bad at all! Admittedly, I couldn't drown out Berndt, because the louder I got, the more he turned up the volume. But somehow it sounded quite decent, and together we could even keep up with Ricci Caruso, who sings so loudly that his friends at home in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps still have ringing ears.
In comparison, Angelika and Martin belong more to the background choir. They have been singing and traveling with the motorhome friends of Europe for three years. Their friends Hans and Tina were already members and had been persuading them for a long time. Their first tour took them to Greece. "At first, I didn't get along at all," Martin remembers. "The driving in convoy, the radio communication and everything on country roads, so slow..." It was difficult. On one of the first evenings, after a glass of wine and beer, the ice broke. "They were all so nice," Angelika still beams today when she looks at the pictures from back then. "After nine weeks, we were like a family."
The trained medical-technical assistant has camping in her blood. "I practically grew up in a tent," she says. "We were on the road a lot." Perhaps that's where her manual skills come from. The 67-year-old is not afraid of woodworking either. If there is something to repair on the way, it's women's work, for example, when Martin plays around with the TV remote late at night - Angelika is usually already asleep - and messes up everything. "When I get up in the morning and want to briefly watch TV to see what's going on, nothing works anymore. I could..."
She could, but she doesn't. After all, she has known her Martin for 18 years and knows that he doesn't do it on purpose. The two of them are based in Lörrach, are divorced from their first marriages, and met through a matchmaking agency. Their children already knew each other: Angelika's daughter and Martin's two sons and daughter attended the same school. The children are grown up, so the two Black Forest residents can calmly explore the world. They have decided not to return to Europe with the crew in mid-March, but to stay in Morocco. "We actually wanted to go to Portugal, but now that we're here..." Angelika says. Yes, and there is still a lot to see here: Casablanca, Agadir, Rabat... Oh, how I envy the two of them! But my Icke is waiting for me. And Casablanca, Agadir or Rabat can't be as beautiful as that...