A couple of weeks ago, some friends and I drove to the southern part of my country to go camping. There were four of us 20 somethings riding together in a little bitty Honda. The little car was PACKED! We had so much food, water, and camping stuff that we had to hold things in our lap. On the way there, we had a blowout in the desert about 20km outside of the nearest city. Bummer. We had to unpack the entire car to get to the spare (picture four Americans on the side of the road in Northern Africa surrounded by food and camping gear). An assistance truck (we were really surprised to find an assistance truck in NA) stopped to help up us change the tire. When he finished changing the tire he said “Kain Mushkil” (a problem exists). The spare was flat too. We decided that it had enough air to get to a gas station and so we hobbled over 10km to the nearest gas station where we found a tire guy (a kid about 16). He tried to put air in the tire and said it wouldn’t hold. He asked for the spare tire and I told him that this was the spare tire and it was better than the other one. (Of all of us, I have the best Arabic and I didn't know any words relating to blown tires so it took a while for the two of us to understand each other). He said “Kain Mushkil” and we all just nodded in agreement. He decide to try to patch the tire … no luck. Again he said, “Kain Mushkil.” So, the kid blew up an inner tube and put it between the tire and the rim so hopefully we could make it to town and get a new tire. We left the gas station and slowly rode into town....
The tire shop
Our friend (with better Arabic) met us at the tire shop and he walked around the car to figure out what kind of tire we needed. He noticed that all of the tires were different He just stood there with his mouth open for a while (we had learned about the tire sizing issue at the gas station outside of town, so it was old news by then). The three remaining tires were bald to the point of showing metal...so we ended up with four new tires! By the time the entire tire ordeal was over, we had packed, unpacked, and repacked the car three times. Oh and by the way, all of this was happening to a sound track of "Best of Hits From Amerika” which included "Oops, I did it again," "Genie in a bottle," "I believe I can fly," and "We will rock you." All in all it was a great day, now I know the Arabic words relating to tires and I can belt out “I believe I can fly” with the best of them!
Getting new tires
We did finally arrive at our camp ground (6 hours late) and we had a great weekend of boogie boarding on the beach, laying on the beach, running on the beach, grilling on the beach, and building sandcastles….on the beach!!! We also visited a local fishing village one day to eat some amazing seafood. Here are the pictures from our trip
Boogie Boarding
Sitting on the roof
I loved this drum shop!!!
The fish stand where we bought lunch
Fishing village
Fishing Boats
Local rugs and scarves
The beach where we played
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