The LONG journey south!

Having returned from a long (in kilometres) but short (in time) trip from southern France to Mauritania I thought I'd better sit down and describe it!

I am a 'regular' on the Thorn Tree, Lonely Planet's forum and needed 'somewhere' to escape to after a long year of work. Somewhere cheap & warmer than southern France is at Christmas!!! I started making arrangements for another independant jaunt then decided, for a change seeing as it was over Christmas, to see if 'someone' out there wanted to join me on my trip south. Lo & behold I found a poster on the Thorn Tree who might be interested, and sent this:

Saw your TT posting - Lonely Planet forum.

I'm in France, I live near Carcassonne and am getting the bus from here to Granada on 14th (eve) arriving in Malaga the next evening via Granada. I am then off to Morocco determined to head south for some warmer climes - I've already been to Morocco last year and seen Marra, Tinehir & the desert etc, so this time it's Casablanca (for a night probably staying with friends) then onto Essouria and south to Tiznit and possibly even to Dakhla

I'm pretty well travelled, having lived abroad for years .. If you want to meet up do let me know - I'm probably going to have to fly back to France from Agadir on 30th December although I'm looking at other options to fly back after the New Year!

Sure enough 21minutes later an answer came back from a very similar e-mail address, worldcyclist ... sounded ideal!

Wow, I am very impressed with your travels (I saw your map in yourprofile). I am in the middle of a trip that's connected to a book I amwriting. ... I have looked at enough of your stuff to come to the conclusion thatyou are an interesting person and most importantly share the travelbug. ... I am used to traveling extensively but occasionally some company isnice to have.

We exchanged a few e-mails and I started doing a lot of research, predominantly on Lonely Planet and the French equivalent 'Routard'. Both on travel routes and on medication - whether I really needed to get Larium or some other form of defence against malaria again - but being winter and looking to stay in the north & desert areas of Mauritania, I decided against it