The crew have sent a diary of their trip - day two as we arrived in ostend at about 12.30 in the morning, we were already tired an the tents that had been promised had not turned up either, so things were starting to look a little bleak, so we decided to drive for a bit towards Paris and then crash out in a hotel, after driving for two hours, we _(our part of the convoy parked up on a service station having no luck driven roun bruges looking for a hotel( parked up in a service station an got 3 hours sleep in the van.... taste of thing to come, then we hit the road again and drove past Paris to begles in Bordeaux where we arrived at 1.00am Monday morning, day three we were put up in a local community centre by the locals who arranged for food and somewhere to sleep , and we were to leave as a whole convoy at 10 am, but one of our vans broke down, the convoy left without us and we stayed on in bagel all day trying to see if we could fix it, and then we decided to get another, and that two vans would go on to catch up with the rest of the convoy, whilst farook bhai and abbey would stay and get a van and then catch us up, I will let them tell u the story of the hospitality and help that the locals gave to us , so the two vans left bagel at 11 pm to drive to Spain to catch up the rest of the convoy, day four driving through the night into Spain and then crashing out in a service station in the van again in freezing conditions was not really the exotic idea I had when I left for this convoy, but the reality of the situation was starting to sink in with all of us, and also being split from our group didn’t help us feel any better, but we knew we were on a mission so we soldiered on taken in the landscape and beautiful view of Spain until Cordoba when it got dark, and was sad that we had to carry on driving through the night again to get to tarifa as we were missing out on all the scenery, we managed to catch up with our group, as they were on the side of the motorway, an ambulance had broken down, and after praying and a can of Baxter’s soup we were on the way again, getting split up from our group again and going to tarifa different ways arriving at 3 in the morning day five went to sleep in the ferry ports office for two hours in our sleeping bags, before getting our tickets and then going through customs leaving Europe on the ferry arriving in Tangiers at 10 am, and then being sniffer dogged , x-rayed (that’s just the vans!( George Galloway turned up and gave a press conference in front of our van (again( and after waiting for 5 hours we were eventually police escorted to a large country club for dinner on the governments expense, but before that we were given what looked like a heroes welcome by the people on the roads of Tangiers, making the tiredness go away, felt guilty as we were on a mission to take aid to GAZA, large reception at the country club with tagine (first hot meal since leaving home, ) and then we thought sleep was on the agenda, but not the case as we left at 6pm and drove 260 through thick fog arriving at fez at 4am day 6 large hotel was arranged for the whole group and jus being able to have a shower and sleep in the bed was a welcome relief for us all, along with the fact that the other two drivers from Gloucester had caught us up and arrived at the hotel in the afternoon, day spent getting the vans ready, mechanics in, refuelling, changing money and also being able to come in to Fez and having a quick browse through the souks, and also having to put all this down now, so hopefully we will have a daily if not every two days worth of material from other members of the group as well. We will be setting of at 7 am tomorrow to Oujda through the base of the Atlas Mountains.......... Day 9 After a night of rest and an early morning breakfast at 6.30am we were supposed to be ready and hit the road at 7am but due to typical multinational timing clashing we finally hit the road at ten. There was heavy police presence that also escorted and split us in to manageable groups. The view around fez and the plateaus and of course not to mention the foothills of the Atlas Mountains was breathtaking and would suggest a sight to be visited. every town we passed through, people lined up along the roads waving, cheering and showing the peace sign, showing us their support and appreciation of what we are doing support for the cause. We stopped for salatul Ju'mah in the town of taza, outside the masjid itself. We sat down as the khutbah started like any other ju'mah salat until the imam mentioned the convoy in his bayan and prayed for the people of Gaza. After we came out of the masjid there was a big crowd of people around all the convoy vehicles wishing us well on our journey and some people even gave us dirhams for the people of Gaza we soon departed from there stopping at a town called guercif for a reception organised by a close contact of Viva Palestina in that town who has been working

Yuval and Kara did this before me, so I thought I'd prove how dark my office is.