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.
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.
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......
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
) we saddled up, all dreading the ride back across the mud plain of death.
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