Classic airheads and Norwegians invade Morocco

Paal decided to break the ice with the kids though, letting Gary off the hook:augie

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Then we saddled up and rode through the tiny village the kids came from.

These are routes that are fantastic....you can see where they may go, but you don't know exactly, but it just doesn't matter.....you just follow the track, enjoying the riding and wondering what's around the next corner :D

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We rode higher and higher, along a fast and surprisingly good condition gravel track...The sort of route that the Vikings were very used to, and boy did it show!

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We hit the snowline and kept going upwards :thumb2

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Looking at the map afterwards, I concluded this was probably a mining access road, but it was a lovely place to be, even if by that time my balls were numb and my whole body was freezing from being encased in a waterlogged aerostich :blast

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Soon though we descended and the sun got warmer :clap

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There's one thing I hate riding in.....

Mud.

I used to hate sand more than anything else, but then i took the DR650 over and learnt to ride in it, but Mud is something i just don't lilke riding.....I do very little serious off-roading in the UK, so most of my riding not on tarmac is in Morocco, and the majority of that is rocky, gravel and stony type stuff....so Mud is something i really need to get some more practice on, particularly on tracks where there are ditches rather than ruts :blastAfter we left the valley, we started climbing up and over a wide plain, with a meandering and vague track.

It reminded me very much of the mountain on Achill that I tried to do a hill climb on, but the mud here was different...slimier and slippery, only a few inches deep over solid rock, so it was sodden wet.

Add to that that I was very cold and had been off the bike for a year, overweight and still smoking, and this day started turning into a nightmare for me.

:tears


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It doesn't matter what tyres you have, this sticky crap will turn them into slimy hoops. Brakes start playing up as well :blast

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Carnage :blast

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Ruts? Ditches more like :eek:

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This plain was hard work....very, VERY hard work.....poor Gary, coming up the back, was helping me pick up mine as I was obviously in a bad way, and had a few episodes himself..we were all getting tired at this stage, and the day was getting on!


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Finally at the top of the mud plain

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But the mud went on as we followed the track up a valley
Boerre had a lucky escape and ended up parking his HP2 in a novel way :D

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By this time we knew we wouldn't be in Marrakech in daylight, but we pressed on, wanting to be reunited with the rest of the group, dry warm clothes and cold beer, and not necessarily in that order of priority :D

We got to below a village where we were expecting one more river crossing, then an easy piste out to the main road out of Azilal, from where we knew it would only be about 3 hours to Marrakech......................

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But then in the village, we came around a corner and found the river.

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Doesn't look much from the picture, and you can't hear the roaring, the loud white noise that filled the valley:eek:
The ford should go to the left of the big boulder in the river and then out to the other side....another thing that you cant see from the photo though is the depth (2 feet plus, variable) and the large rolling rocks in the flow itself....6 inches of water is plenty to take a man off his feet, and this bugger was flowing fast and was several feet deep, with a shifting rocky stony bottom and bloody cold water :eek

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We attempted to see if we could get a bike across...being the smallest (and being mine, so they didn't care :blast:rolleyes::D) the DR650 was strapped up and after getting a couple of guys into the flow (fekk that was hard enough on its own!) the bike was lowered towards the water..

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The kids started going wild, knowing that they were going to see some idiots killing themselves and throwing a bike down the river, where it would probably have disappeared forever.

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It quickly became apparent that there was absolutely no chance of getting the bike/s across, and we were actually risking too much by attempting it, so the bike was hauled back up and ten minutes of confusion set in as everyone realised that we were either stuck in a tiny remote village, or would have to ride out of there.



In the dark



Over the mud plain :blast

:nono
 
Amidst the crowd of loud, excited Moroccans, there was much hilarity, a little concern and a fair bit of opportunism being displayed at our predicament...several of the louder men were quite insistant that they knew of a place to cross the river further up, which they would very kindly show is for a large consideration :augie

Checking the GPS and the general state of the group, both of which showed that such a crossing would probably be impossible, we focussed on one more mature guy who was standing with an air of calm in the crowd, and asked him if there might be anywhere in the village that we could stay for the night.

Calmly and quietly, he showed us up a very steep stone/rock ramp to his house, and although he didn't speak a word of French or Arabic, and our Berber was equally non-existent, the universal language of waved hands, smiles and miming made it clear that he was happy to invite us into his home :clap

20 minutes of huffing, puffing and daredevil riding later, we'd got all the bikes up the ramp (it doesn't look bad in the pics, but as always, they never do :blast) and we took some last pics of the village before the light completely failed and went inside to meet his rather large family :thumb2

Not a good pic I'm afraid, butt he light was going and the camera was struggling;
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One of the younger adult women of the house...at a guess, there were a dozen people living here, from 5 years upwards, and the guy's brother and his family arrived later to meet the mad strangers who had given the village so much entertainment

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Our accommodation for the night....as basic as it comes, with animals on the ground floor and people living above

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De-Kitting in a downstairs room.....
the nasty niffs coming from some of us would have got us thrown out of most decent hotels, but the family politely ignored it and welcomed us warmly :)
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The hero of the day Mohamed El Makhloufi and his lovely wife :hug

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That was the only source of proper light in the house....apart from a couple of candles and a dynamo hand torch that Mohamed was rather proud of.

It was very hard to work out the size of the place, and every room seemed to have kids in it, scurrying around in the pitch black, I guess just totally used to it

The two older sons were keen to communicate and over the next few hours we all got on really well, with them trying on kit, playing with GPS units and trying to make head or tails out of the Michelin maps we tried to explain to them

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And the two younger kids of the direct family who soon overcame their shyness and joined in

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Mohamed ran around the house and collected up an astonishing number of blankets for us, as we were all shivering and very very cold...


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Gary Glitter blanket :D:D:D

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One of Gary's emergency light sticks proved to be a major crowd pleaser with the kids...

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And while most of us shivered under out blankets, Anders went prowling with his camera (asking before taking the pics though :thumb2)

In one of the rooms, a rug was on the home made loom...We didnt see any dayglo green sheep in the mountains up there, but they do breed them, apparently :augie

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Mohamed's Brother, Or brother-in-law, we couldn't be certain.....
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Now I like Mint tea Moroccan stylee...'Berber Whisky' as it's universally know (apart from in this village, it seemed :blast) but the few glasses of it that we were served up that evening were beyond sublime......Hot, almost solid with sugar, and did I mention Hot?

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Traditional pouring.....it's quite elaborate and the process is designed to get air into the tea apparently.
If you did it at home though, your mum would give you a clip round the ear for messing around with boiling water :rob
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The good news came back to the sitting room that there was food on the go as well....:bow:bow:bow

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Bread doesn't get much fresher than this, about to go in the oven :JB

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Beautiful in an unstressed, natural kind of way :thumb

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In contrast to the family toilet.
Ugly, in a stressed natural way :D

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Mohamed Burbidges

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Pretty soon, Mohamed's second son appeared with a can of warm water, basin and towel, and carefully went to every member of the party and his family and helped them wash their hands.....even though the guys had mostly had a crafty squirt of antibacterial spray because we knew food was imminent, it was evidently expected and a nice little ritual before eating.

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Mohamed's wife did us proud, and we were soon presented with way more than we could have expected :eek: :JB :hug

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What a feast :bow:bow:bow
 
Because he's a bit of a charmer, Boerre (Pron. Borough, or thats as close as we could get ) Was given a nice warm gown to sleep in :D

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Some of the guys slept on the floor and cushions in the living room, and four of us scooted off downstairs into a room we'd been shown earlier, one of which it seems every Moroccan house has, a large communal sitting area with heavy duty cushions all around.

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Sexy as fekk eh?

Then a dirty pervy slipped in the room :blast

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Every house, shop, business in the country seems to have at least one photo of the king and a Moroccan flag proudly displayed....this house was no exception, but they had a photo of Mohammed V, the current King's father.
 
This

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Reminds me of....................

This

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The "Road of Stones" on Achill, summer 2007.

Three years and probably 1000 miles apart.

Nice one Bill. :thumb2
 
I should add in that we had spoken to Ian and the rest of the gang shortly after we'd arrived at the house in the village that night via satphone...they'd had a good day's riding and had arrived in Marrakech in the early afternoon, had been sitting around the pool and drinking beer and were heading into the Jmaa El Fnaar to eat that evening....oddly though, none of us would have swapped places with them...it felt very special up in that village, and we all felt privileged and humble to be there :)

Anyway.....we woke next morning bright and early, the plan being to see if the river had gone down enough to make the crossing....we were sure we wouldn't make it out the way we'd come with the fuel we had on board, even dipping the tanks of the big bikes, and we'd put Ian on standby for the morning to possibly come out to meet us from the other side of the river with the jerry cans in the Landcruiser.

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It was fairly apparent straight away that it was going to be impossible to cross though, and on refection, we decided not to get Ian to come out to us from the other direction, as we didn't know what was beyond the village on the other side and there was a good chance that we'd end up waiting for him fruitlessly in the village and possibly have to spend another night there, thus screwing the plans for the next 10-11 days circuit.

After calling him and arranging that he would send the guys with him in Marrakech out on a nice circular ride, and that we'd hopefully meet them all that night in the same hotel in Marrakech that they were in, we started packing up and getting our soggy wet stinking gear on.

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Hoping to get a nice early getaway, we had reckoned without the insistent hospitality of Mohamed and his good lady, who had made tea and bread and served up dishes of locally picked nuts for us as breakfast......:eek:

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Eventually we managed to convince them we had to go, and leaving him with a fist full of Dirhams, a few hugs, a spare Leatherman and a with a good few moist eyes (rufty tufty bikers huh :D) we saddled up, all dreading the ride back across the mud plain of death.:eek



Somehow though, it had miraculously changed.....

Ok, it hadn't of course, but it certainly felt like it.
The sun was out and bright, although the track was covered in a crusty sheet of ice over the mud, but we felt good, rested, happy and keen to rock and roll, so the ride down the mud plain of death was far easier :thumb2

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On the way down, the Norwegians were surprised to see girls lugging the day's firewood and animal feed in massive bundles on their backs, several miles from the nearest village, and so early in the morning.

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And even we were impressed and brought back to the reality of our pampered lives to see guys lugging hulking great tree trunks up the muddy slope!

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After an hour or so we reached the turning that we chose not to take the day before, and this time, take it.:blast

We descend into a series of gorgeous valleys and suddenly all is perfect again.....

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But we're starting to run on vaour with the smaller bikes....Ken's KTM690 in particular, followed by the two HP2s with standard tanks and then my DR650, even with its Acerbis tank :blast

Ken is the first to have to milk the tanker

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We start asking every Moroccan we see about the nearest fuel that might be had.....they're pretty vague, as expected, but all give answers, again, as expected :blast

Eventually we hit tarmac though and head towards where we think there may be fuel....it's a market village/small town, and that means cars, and that may mean fuel.

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The DR650 conks out 1/4 mile outside the village, but fortunately Anders was behind me and we stuck a litre of petrol in my tank from his airheadand after a few anxious moments trying to restart the bike and finding that the side stand switch was clogged with mud, I follow the guys into the small main drag where Tim has already found a guy with a typical Moroccan lock-up shop that has several barrels of fuel inside.

After asking if he had enough for all of us, everyone fills their tanks through his greasy old funnel.

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While this is going on, chocolate and cokes are bought and a brief rest is taken

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And then it's my turn to fill up, but Mr Moroccan fuel magnate has run out :blast
Out comes the jerry can again and i nick 5 litres from one of the airheads, which should be enough to get me to Azilal to refuel again on the way back to Marrakech :rolleyes:
 
stunning:clap:clap:clap:clap


apart from the pic with the big green luminus dildo in it:eek:eek:eek
 
great report so far , the mud looks a killer , glad we had better weather for the November "adventure" , it certainly looks more of a challenge with some heavy rain thrown in!
 
Great report Bill, how generous the Moroccan villagers are to complete strangers when you really need help for the night.
Brilliant :thumb:thumb:thumb
 
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Great report Bill, how generous the Moroccan villagers are to complete strangers when you really need help for the night.
Brilliant :thumb:thumb:thumb

Generous yes, but they charged a hundred quid....Africa!:thumb
 


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