ballistic's Moroccan Revenge

[ballistic]

Fri 2 Oct
My preparations were complete; the GS was fully serviced and double-checked. I’d taken off the standard screen and winglets and bolted on a cut-down 1200 screen... it lets the air get round you on those long, hot desert crossings ;-) Apart from an oversize bash-plate, a tool-tube was fitted inside the offside pannier frame and a brand new set of Metzeler Karoos strapped down over my soft tailpack... I was ready to go!
Rob, a GStronaut from a previous Gastro Trip, was coming up from The Smoke, this time on his RT, for a couple of pints and a ride down to Plymouth for the weekend. He was late, my dreams of a farewell steak at the local pub were in tatters... we made do with a huge Chinese take-away instead, and washed it down with a few bottles of Brewdog’s finest ales... Chaos Theory (7.1%), Dogma (7.8%) and Hardcore (9%)... if you like strong, tasty beers, they take some beating

Sat 3 Oct
Just a cup of coffee and some crispy toast and we were off.

We headed down the Fosse Way as far as Cerney Wick and stopped at Cotswold Camping for a couple of last minute purchases and breakfast... we got 15% discount on the goods, but not the breakfast! I’d noticed a road that was on my road atlas, but not on the Garmin map, so we headed for that. It turned out to be one of those tracks that cross the tank ranges on the Wiltshire plains. It was guarded at each end but we were allowed across, provided we didn’t stray off the track... I can’t think why!

We arrived at Jim’s place (another GStronaut) near Taunton and stashed the bikes in his garage for the night... bloody Hell... the RT even had a reverse gear!

Jim and Heather made us extremely welcome, her date & walnut cake got me thinking about staying there for 3-weeks and letting Jim go to Morocco instead of me. Subsequently, we were taken to a great pub a few miles away and let loose on the choice of about 6 real ales... my last for 3-weeks. I was gagging for a steak, seeing as I missed out last night, but they didn’t do them! Beer-battered fish & chips were wonderful, though... they don’t do that in Morocco either, so a good second best.

 

[chad]

keep it coming the 12 looks cool with that cut down screen .

 

[Mr K]

I posted the texts and I want to see the pitchas...

 

[ballistic]

Sun 4 Oct
Jim had planned a route that took us to the coast near Porlock and then over Exmoor to Plymouth, where I was to catch my ferry to Santander mid-afternoon. We stopped at a medieval village full of tourists and found the perfect place to have tea...

We got to the coast and were admiring the views across to Wales, when we got chatting with a few other bikers on GSs and KTMs... they’d noticed the Karoos on the back of my GS and enquired if I was expecting bad weather. When I explained that I was catching the ferry from Plymouth, they alerted us to the fact that it was a good 2-hours away and I would have to hurry to get there. I quickly said my goodbyes and left Rob and Jim to their ride over Exmoor, and finishing off the rest of Heather’s wonderful cake! I arrived in Plymouth, filled up the tank at Sainsbury’s and was waved straight onto the ferry...

It turned out that there were a couple bike rallies on in northern Spain the next week and the ferry was bursting with bikes of all sorts...

 

[ballistic]

Mon 5 Oct
I spent a most uncomfortable night in a “sleeper-chair” What a load of cr@p! Because it was an overnight crossing, you were obliged to book “accommodation” and, as I was travelling on my own, a cabin was far too expensive, so I had to settle for the dentist’s chair. Why isn’t there a system whereby you can opt to share a cabin with others? Maybe there is, I just didn’t know. Anyway, Santander appeared...

I’d arranged to meet Ted, a non-Tosser, in Salamanca. He’d ridden down a week or so previously on his Kawasaki Versys to spend a few days with his daughter, who lives in the Asturias. We’d pre-booked a hotel in Salamanca so that we’d have a definite meeting place. After checking into the hotel and finding Ted, we found a suitable restaurant, complete with charcoal grill and hams hanging from the ceiling, and had our first “Menu del Dia”... and superb it was, especially with a couple of bottles of rough Spanish red to wash it down...

A quick visit to the Plaza Mayor, a World Heritage site apparently, and it was back to the hotel for a well-deserved kip...

 

[ballistic]

Tue 6 Oct
We set off early, the idea was to get down to Tarifa and cross to Tanger on the quick ferry. Just as we were about to leave, we got a “hello” from a bedroom balcony above... it was Gareth... we’d been chatting on the Horizon’s Unlimited forum for a few weeks but, although we hadn’t planned to meet up, he’d arrived at the hotel later than us and we’d missed each other. I’m sure we’ll meet up later ;-) It was hot in central Spain, so we stopped a couple of times for coffee, lunch etc...

Driving through Algiceras, I spotted a bike repair shop on the left as we went through. A quick chat established that the guy was far too busy to change my tyres until the next day, but he suggested the Honda dealer up the road might be able to oblige. Sure enough, they took the GS and had the tyres swapped over in about 40 mins. They also agreed to keep my old tyres and re-fit them when I returned in about 2-weeks. I took a precautionary shot of their opening hours to remind me...

Tarifa is very pretty place, at least the back streets are... but expensive too. We found cheap digs (€25) at the top of the hill as you come into town with a great view over the Straights of Gibraltar to Africa...

We had a precautionary walk down to the terminal to check out our ferry for the morning...

 

[ballistic]

Wed 7 Oct
9:00am, the first ferry, about €124 return... you get approx 10% discount if you buy a return ticket... it’s open ended. Ask for a couple of white Police Entry cards if you’re buying your ticket at the ferry terminal... it saves you trying to find one once on the ferry.
There weren’t many on the ferry, and my bike looked a little lonely, strapped-down on the empty deck, but just as we set sail, the sea-mist closed in and Europe was but a memory...

20-odd miles later and Tanger came into view, it was wonderfully warm and sunny, and a complete contrast to the shores we had left only 35 mins ago...

I had read the Morocco database on this site and was well prepared for the upcoming bureaucracy. My Police Entry card was filled-out on the ferry and passport stamped at the little kiosk next to the cafe. Top Tip... if you haven’t already picked up a card from the ferry terminal, grab one off a nearby rack and get in the queue quickly... it takes a long time to go down and you can be filling in your card whilst you wait.
Vehicle Import forms were filled-in and printed-out on my PC before I left home... Ted had to f@rt about going from desk to desk, and eventually paying a tout, before he got through... it gave me time to have breakfast whilst I waited.
I’d got fully comprehensive insurance with Groupama before I came, but Ted had to find the cabin just the other side of Customs and pay about £80 for a month’s indeterminate cover. I was on my third pot of mint tea by now ;-)
We eventually got going and, initially, took the main road out towards Chefchaouen, stopping for lunch at a typical roadside eatery... BBQ, tagines, raw meat hanging, flies, the usual stuff...

We turned onto a “difficult or dangerous” road just after Chefchaouen, heading for Fez... it was nothing of the sort, just a bit rough and full of potholes, but nevertheless enjoyable after the fast wide roads down through Spain. By the time we got to Fez, we thought it was about 6:00pm, but with the 2-hour time difference from Spain, it was actually 4:00pm. We decided to call it a day and look for somewhere in the medina and, with the help of a tout, found a terrific riad deep in the back streets with garaged parking just up the road... it cost us though, I reckon about £100 all told, eek! Still, I got the 4-poster bed...

The view from the roof was great; the downside being the loudspeakers of the nearby mosque, which burst into life at 6:10 in the morning... even earplugs couldn’t keep the noise out...

 

[ballistic]

Thu 8 Oct
I was looking forward to today because, apart from it being my birthday, we were going to explore the cedar forests around Azrou, and they didn’t disappoint. There were some great trails across the high valleys and through the forests themselves, with huge sink-holes in the limestone plateaux...

We worked our way across country to Khenifra, past El Kebab and onto another “dangerous” road to El Ksiba, hoping to spend the night in Kasba Tadla. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find any accommodation at all in Kasba Tadla, so we pressed-on, in the dark, to Beni-Mellal, where we found accommodation worthy of celebrating my birthday. Hotel Saada was £8.75 for the room, for the two of us, and a few fleas... we negotiated the inclusion of a shower in that price, but had to go outside to the stinky public ones, where towels were also up for negotiation...

 

[ballistic]

Fri 9 Oct
This looked to be a good route today, take the track past the Cathedral Rock, round to the Cascades d’Ouzoud and then into Marrakech. All went well initially, the Cathedral Rock is quite impressive and the small villages through which we passed reminded me of cowboy frontier towns. What puzzled me was that the ‘road’ surfaces are always better out of town... as soon as you hit any habitation, the road becomes almost impassable...

I suppose it was inevitable... Ted had a puncture. He couldn’t get proper trail tyres for the Versys, so was running a pair of Avon Distanzia SMs, which I took to be “SuperMoto” tyres. By the time I’d gotten back to him, he’d shoved one of those cans of pressurised foam into the tyre and it seemed to be holding.

Sure enough, a few miles down the track and the tyre was flat again. Excellent, an opportunity to try-out my Stop & Go Tyre Plugger, which I’d had for a couple of years but had yet to use... best practice on someone else’s bike, I say! Whilst we were reading the instructions, a group of Spanish riders stopped for a chat... the first time we’d met any other bikes since we’d landed in Morocco...

The repair held, and we got to Marrakech... the GPS taking us straight to our desired hotel in the dark, at rush hour. I’d stayed at the Menara last year when on one of Moto-Morocco’s tours. It wasn’t the poshest hotel in the country, but is in an extremely convenient position for most things you’ll want to see in Marrakech; plus, there’s secure parking... a guy sleeps with your bikes all night, and it’s got (extremely loud) air-con...

For anyone who’s never had a night out in Marrakech, you really ought to make the effort. The main square (Djamaa El Fna) is transformed into a giant restaurant/market. You sit on benches at trestle tables and they just keep bringing you food... all sorts, except bacon and stuff like that, of course!

I didn’t indulge this year... I hadn’t got the dreaded Montezuma’s yet, and didn’t intend to. It may have been purely coincidence, but last year it hit me shortly after our trip to the square. Nevertheless, just being there in that seething mass of people is quite an experience...

 

[peejay]

This is good, keep it coming!!!!

 

[ballistic]

Sat 10 Oct
Ted has a “Ventura” luggage system on his bike; he’s been using them for years on whichever bike he owns at the time. The principle is that you have a lower frame permanently attached to the bike and a removable frame which slots on vertically, to which you attach one or two bags. The bashing it has taken off-road in the last couple of days has resulted in the frame bending under the strain... it’ll only go so far before it snaps altogether...

Not a good photo, I know, but the vertical frame has moved about 50mm at the top (that’s a piece of fuel pipe looped under the platform section). I tried tying a couple of THICK cable ties between the removable frame and where it bolts to the bike frame to take the strain, but they broke pretty quickly... we needed a welder! Fortunately, this is Morocco and it didn’t take us long to suss out someone who could do the job... or knew someone who could! Half the male population of Marrakech was summoned and braces were welded on in no time, even painted black, job done...

Ted’s boots had started to fall to bits and needed a strap riveting back on... of course, they knew someone who could do that as well, and they even lent him a flip-flop whilst it was being done...

With Ted’s tyre repaired, his frame repaired and his boots back to tip-top condition, a celebration was required. Last year, the hotel in which we were staying had served beer, and probably wine also... unfortunately, there had been a change of ‘policy’ since then and, sadly, this was no longer the case ;-( No worries... I knew a local supermarket where such contraband was readily available, along with cheese, Doritos, nuts, Ritz crackers etc. etc. We stocked up and smuggled it all back to our hotel room, which had a very nice balcony. I make no apologies for the following photograph ‘cause it’s the only evidence I have of my belated birthday celebration, on the piss, in Marrakech...

 

[ballistic]

Sun 11 Oct
We headed west out of Marrakech, picked up a piste across nowhere and headed for the Tizi-n-Test pass over to Taroudant. Because Ted was now riding “conservatively” to protect his tyres, I had to keep stopping at junctions to let him catch up, in order that we both went the same way. Of course, that didn’t work for long, and I lost him. I spent a couple of hours backtracking and scouting other possible tracks but couldn’t find him. I got a text saying he’d just carried on, so we arranged to meet at the top of the pass. I wasted another hour trying to get up what proved to be a non-existent shortcut up a valley, riding up the stream in places, very nice...

Eventually, I caught up with Ted at the top of the pass; he’d had his lunch so off we went down to Taroudant, stopping only to admire the goats in the Argan trees...

We’d been recommended the Hotel Tiout by a Polish couple we’d met on the Tizi-n-Test, so that’s where we stayed, it was inside the medina and had relatively private and secure parking. Walking round the busy streets, we investigated the places where the locals eat, and settled on a kebab stall with a couple of tables at the rear... absolutely superb, half a dozen “brochettes” of varied meats, salad and bread, washed down with an ice-cold bottle of “Pommes”, an apple drink which is quite sweet, but very refreshing. The whole lot came to less than £8 for the two of us. Sorry, no photo.

 

[chad]

all good

 

[bladerunner]

""I didn’t indulge this year... I hadn’t got the dreaded Montezuma’s yet, and didn’t intend to. It may have been purely coincidence, but last year it hit me shortly after our trip to the square. ""




- apparently the problem is not so much the food, but that they do not have running water, so plates and glasses are just wiped over ready for the next punter - hence



I'm enjoying this - brings back good memories

 

[ballistic]

Mon 12 Oct
We were up and away by 7:30... It’s good to get a couple of hours in whilst it’s still relatively cool, and then stop in a town or village for breakfast. We stopped in Ait-Baha, at a small bar on the corner and had coffee and what we thought was a cake-type thing with honey (I’d pointed to what one of the locals was eating and asked for that). It was warm, fresh bread from a local shop with olive oil poured all over. Still, it was nothing if not filling...

We arrived in Tafraoute early afternoon, found a cheap hotel right next to the filling station, dumped out bags and went out for a ride...

It was the middle of nowhere again... but thank goodness there were signposts telling us which way to go, we could have got lost...

The Tizerkine Gorge is superb, about 10 miles of piste/broken tarmac, a couple of stony river beds, and fantastic scenery...

Looping back round to Tafraoute, we had a play at the Painted Rocks. I think someone told me that, about 20-years ago, a Belgian artist persuaded the local fire brigade to fill up their engines with paint, head out into the desert and spray the rocks different colours, then again, I may have dreamt it...

Soft sand and big bikes don’t mix, even if your big bike is not that big, but especially if it’s running supermoto tyres...

Eventually, we returned to Tafraoute and got spruced up for a night on the town... it was certainly one of the plushest non-en-suite rooms we’d had so far...

 

[ballistic]

Tue 13 Oct
Ted wanted to explore the area around Tiznit and Agadir, whilst I wanted to do one of the pistes detailed in the excellent Chris Scott book, “Morocco Overland”. So that’s what we did, agreeing to meet up later in Aoulouz.
I took the piste out of Tafraoute, past the indecipherable signpost and parked up right at the top to have one of the most satisfying craps of the holiday... sorry, “adventure” Baby wipes really are wonderful things ;-)
Route MA8 climbs up to a high plateau, crosses it and then descends very steeply down to a village, where you drop into the dry river bed and, basically, ride it eastwards for the next 17 miles...

The rock formations here were absolutely stunning; you had to keep stopping to look as you daren’t take your eyes off the track...

When I got to Aoulouz, Ted was once again getting his tyre repaired. This time the expert local fitter pronounced “Le pneu est mort!” (The tyre is dead!)...

The Hotel Sahara was a typically cheap and cheerful affair, no showers, baths or toilets in the rooms, just communal ones at the end of the corridor... it was nice and clean, and perfectly adequate for £5 each...

 

[Fanum]

Waiting for the 'Valley of Death' section

 

[ballistic]

Wed 14 Oct
We set off to cross the Jbel Siroua, a particular favourite of mine from last year. Apart from a couple of tricky rocky sections (for a GSA), it’s about 85 miles of off-road and rises to over 2500m, with some wonderful views...

Unfortunately, this was one piste too far for Ted’s dead tyre, and it gave up the ghost again on the tarmac section at the end. We tried pumping it back up, but it was no use... it really was “mort.” Ted rode it flat on the rim to the nearest town, about 10 miles to Anezal, where we had lunch and pondered what to do, again...

We decided to head for Ouarzazate, about 55 miles away, and see if we could get in at The Bikershome (complete with garage, beer, spare tyres, beer, and someone who speaks English). I rode on ahead and Ted followed slowly on his flat tyre. I got to The Bikershome but there was no one in, so I phoned Peter, who runs the place, and he sent someone round to let me in. By then I’d got a text from Ted, who was stranded about 30 miles short of Ouarzazate... he’d had to stop for fear of damaging the wheel rim, the tyre was beginning to shred itself to pieces...

I went back to find him, he was miles from the nearest town and totally pissed-off. All he wanted was a taxi to take him to Ouarzazate and we could fetch the bike later. I went to find a taxi, but there weren’t any to be seen, however, a local was sitting in his pick-up chatting to his mates, and I persuaded him to come and chuck Ted’s bike in the back and take him to Ouarzazate... he knew there’s be a Dirham or two in it...

 

[chad]

Waiting for the 'Valley of Death' section

ive led such a shelterd life

 

[ballistic]

Waiting for the 'Valley of Death' section

Don't make me shudder