Beyond Epic

In Camino de Santiago territory now and passing so many ‘pilgrims’ doing the trail. It prompted Mr J to suggest we do the same… Apparently “it would be lovely, spending lots of time together, just us, we’d have loads of time to talk”… Me: “Well that sounds just fabulous…” 😳😳😫😫🙈🙈

Tent life. Looks pretty but tbf it’s feckin freezing in northern Spain after the heat of Portugal!! But at least the sunset matches the Jeep’s ‘aesthetic’!! 🤣🤣

Porto. And to say the boy is a little excited is a bit of an understatement!! 🤣🤣

Mr J was very excited today to finally use his exceptionally large tow strap to pull someone out of soft sand!! A Volvo at a Portuguese beach not quite as exciting as a 4WD in the Sahara tho… but they were happy! 🤣🤣

Day drinking (again!!) with a glass of port at 11am with his pastel de bacalhao and ending the day in the most unexpected of campsites (think Haven on steroids, def not our usual stopover!!) with a jug of sangria. He’s out of control!! 😳

Epic tour around Sintra in an amazing yellow Renault 4 GTL:

He’s just showing off now…

Slamming on of brakes and a sharp right turn to end up in his first Portuguese adega. 6 empty glasses later I’m driving and he’s telling me he can’t walk far for lunch!!

Traffic jam. Moroccan style.

Marrakech. Hot, sticky, crowded and absolutely insane. Loved it.

Every. Single. Morning.

Mark is just about ready to launch the Cadac across the campsite. It’s had minimal use over 3 weeks and it now won’t engage the gas bottle. I’ve just made the coffee on the ancient £15 Halfords back up burner!! The cadac looked so promising but just doesn’t seem up to the job?

Wild camping in the desert tonight. Perfectly silent… apart from Mark of course… 🤦🏻‍♀️😂 A couple of locals passed by and invited us for mint tea at theirs!

Another epic meal from Barrie at ACTIVE 4X4 ADVENTURES beautiful steak with a peppercorn sauce, mashed potatoes, salad, red wine all followed with coffee and chocolates! And all out of the back of Barrie’s awesome Land Cruiser! The food on this adventure has been absolutely amazing, we have thoroughly enjoyed everything Barrie has produced taking this adventure to a whole new level- an amazing adventure through an incredible country with 3 meals a day!!! What could be better- Thanks Barrie it’s been amazing so far and we can’t wait to get back into the desert again today, now that the wind has finally dropped off 👍👍👍😀😀😀

Jeep getting a quick once over at the local garage 👍

What’s on my mind FB? Camel spiders, that’s what’s on my mind…

After dinner drinks tonight - a great evening after a great day! Wind was quite bad in the desert so we’ve found shelter in a lovely campsite outside Zagora, we’ll stay here tomorrow and hopefully the weather will improve and we’ll be heading further south into more desert all being well 😊😊😊😊

Covered a lot of different terrain today- even drove up the side of a volcano then down into the crater, across it and out the other side- I’m sure Cath will mention a couple of’roads of death’ later! 👍👍👍

Cath driving in the desert- driving through sand, stoney areas, salt flats and some quite tricky rocky sections- I think Cath was enjoying it but there was a lot of concentration and white knuckles!!😊😊😊

When I said I wanted a holiday with sun and sand I probably should have been more specific…

Blue dot is where we are currently. Red dot north east of that is where we were last night.

This place is amazing- staying here for the night and having a traditional tagine for dinner- hopefully weather will be better tomorrow- epic day today 😀😀😀

Winds are unbelievable so taking shelter in this Kasbah in the middle of nowhere- pretty awesome 👍👍👍

Winds are now hitting 80kmh and visibility can drop to zero in an instant - really challenging- now feeling like a real adventure 😳😳😳

Lunch stop in the desert- landscape is amazing but winds are getting stronger hindering visibility- now forecasting a wind storm this afternoon 🤞🤞🤞

Driving in the soft sand is a real challenge- you have to keep the power on regardless of the terrain and then a gust of wind and you lose all visibility- it’s pretty epic though 😀😀😀