Suzuki V-Strom (VStrom) Owners Club DL250, DL650, DL1000 & DL1050
Out & About => Ride Outs/Bike Meets => Rides & Reports => Topic started by: Juvecu on October 13, 2014, 17:25:54
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I'll be doing the report in instalments as there's a lot to write about :)
Preparations:
We'd originally planned to have this trip in 2013, but due to various circumstances we decided to delay it to 2014. We started off with about 7 people and this eventually whittled down to only 2, myself and Locky. The other people all had genuine reasons for not being able to make it, but it was still a bit of a disappointment that they couldn't and we know it was even more so for them.
You could say we'd been planning this for 2 years, on and off. We did a good amount of research, this mostly involved reading other people's trip reports and gathering any advice they were giving. The Morocco Overland website and book (Chris Scott) as well as numerous online writings by Tim Cullis were our most valuable resources. Buy the Morocco Overland book if you want to go riding in Morocco (on or off road), it is an invaluable resource that has played a big part in making our trip go as smoothly as it did. We made a list of points of interest that we might want to see/do, the plan that this will dictate the route we take. We decided that a big part of the trip would be riding off road on piste and, as originally planned, that the trip would be done on V-Stroms. This was because we all knew each other and met each other through the V-Strom.co.uk forums. We'd catch a ferry over to Spain, ride down through Spain, take another ferry to Morocco and do the reverse on the way back while taking a different route up through Spain, just to mix it up a bit.
Other than that bit of detail we didn't really plan the daily routes ahead of time. I spent a lot of time mapping routes from the Morocco Overland book for the satnavs and the plan was that we'd pick what to do the night before and "wing it" that way while in Morocco. We decided that we'd stay in hotels as opposed to camping, this would save a lot of weight that the camping equipment would put on the bikes. We didn't want to book any hotels ahead as we didn't like the idea of having to be at specific places at specific times on specific days. Instead we got a list of hotels and fuel stations from the Morocco Overland web site for putting on the satnav and, along with a few other researched places, this is where we'd stay. The idea was to show up and see if they have a room for us, if not then we'd try the next one or ask them for a recommendation. In hindsight, this plan worked really well for us and I'd do it this way again, perhaps I'd just try to expand the list a bit to get more options in areas where the options are limited.
We knew well that the Stroms would be heavy bikes off road and decided that we need to take off road biased tyres to help us out on the rough stuff. I opted for TKC-80 tyres, a reliable favourite with many, and Locky decided to go with Mitas E10 tyres. The Mitas tyres have been around for a while and making a good name for themselves. The E10 tyres look very similar to the TKC-80 tyres and are a few quid cheaper. This would be a good comparison trip for the tyres.
We thought we'd packed pretty light considering that we'd be away 2 weeks and that we were carrying tools, tyre plugging kits, a 12v pump, spare tubes, spare levers, tyres, fuses, tow straps, a funnel fuel filter, an oil filter, spare foot pegs and various other spare bits along with our own oil.
Both our bikes, loaded and ready to go:
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-sBsJBK5Vqws/VDqRI-d4IMI/AAAAAAAAFXw/Io4ApRGuz5s/s800/20140926_115741.jpg)
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-JPNFRWBqzb4/VCWQ7aC_yQI/AAAAAAAAFTk/g2ImHWhaq5c/s800/IMG_20140926_170740.jpg)
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I've been looking forward to the write up since I first saw mention of the trip. You said tubes, does that mean you are running the bikes with tubes in the tyres? Did you diy to change tyres when you got there? Was you able to seat the bead with on the tyres? Did the vstrom cope OK with the off road stuff and how rough was it?
Feel free to delete if my questions ruin your write up? Hope you took plenty of pictures and videos.
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We ran the tyres tubeless, but we took tubes for the front and rear in case we damaged/punctured a tyre badly enough so that we couldn't repair it with a tyre plugger kit. We also took 2 spoon type tyre levers and 2 sets of plastic rim protectors. Other than the side stand trick, which some claim doesn't work, we had no clue how we'd break the bead in an emergency, but we figured that we're good enough at improvising to come up with something. In hindsight, we could've only taken a single front tube as it would do the rear in a pinch, but we were being careful and as we're going to be more people carrying an extra tube wasn't an issue. Only being 2 in the end it still wasn't a problem, but it was unnecessary, in the end we never needed it. I bet if we didn't take tubes we'd probably need some.
The other questions will be answered in future instalments :)
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Also did you recycle a single pair of undercrackers? I took more than you for a 3 day trip to Wales with the looks of it.
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That will also become clear later on in the thread :)
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I'm not sure I'm looking forward to the pant recycling episode. Looking forward to the rest of it though.
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Great stuff. But warn me to look away when you get to the pants bit!
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How come everyone is expecting the worst when it comes to the pants bit? :shrug:
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Many of us have met you pair!
That's why.
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Also did you recycle a single pair of undercrackers?
The answers ....
Locky - Yes
Juvecu - No
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Wot, no tents ?
:eusa-doh: :eusa-doh: :eusa-doh:
Looking forward to this report . :thumb:
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Many of us have met you pair!
That's why.
Yes, in fact Cymarc now has a special bond with you Juv since that silk underwear moment :shock:
Anyway.... More write up please... :eusa-doh: :eusa-doh:
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Excellent - I've been looking forward to this write up! Don't keep us all waiting too long for part 2 though!
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Day 1, Saturday 27 September:
Our ferry was leaving from Portsmouth at 08:15 and we had to be there at least 45 minutes before. We both had to leave home quite early to get to the ferry on time. The 27th was my wedding anniversary so I spent some time with the good lady on the evening of the 26th which meant I got to sleep very late, Saturday morning really. Neither Locky nor myself could sleep much the night before, I kept waking up and checking the time to make sure I haven't overslept, we each slept around 3-4 hours in total. We'd arranged to meet at Chieveley Services where the M4 crosses the A34. Locky had trouble, part of his route on the M5 was closed so he had to take a detour, but we still ended up being ahead of schedule. I had no trouble, my route was all clear with no traffic at all as it was very early.
I took a blurry picture of us at the services:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-hUtkuJd1DNE/VDgD1_jvy6I/AAAAAAAAFT4/Fvsgm60lTXw/s800/IMG_20140927_060205.jpg)
We arrived at the port in good time after the satnav took us on an unconventional route that turned out to be quite nice. The weather was good and the day was brightening up with the shipping forecast looking decent. We would soon be on the Etretat of Brittany Ferries heading for Santander, Spain, but it didn't yet feel like we're at the start of an adventure.
Here we are in the queue at the ferry, waiting to get past customs:
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-WRmyLQ6zGrI/VDqRI11qv9I/AAAAAAAAFYc/ef3GR1wlP9k/s800/20140927_072520.jpg)
Leaving port:
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-WbkX3S0d5g4/VDqRK_UrQmI/AAAAAAAAFYk/evP6wrPxAbQ/s800/20140927_090758.jpg)
Dave the Rat making himself comfortable in our cabin for the ferry journey:
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-EexwJM1gW2Y/VDqRLByaMMI/AAAAAAAAFYM/spN1UE7gN_8/s800/20140927_101156.jpg)
Locky bought us some coffee and we settled in for the journey with a breakfast that's a bit of a tradition in my family, buttermilk rusks and biltong, not even bacon beats that!
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-yTohC3Ls9AE/VDgEi0c9nPI/AAAAAAAAFXA/MEzrAzHMmAM/s800/IMG_20140927_090000.jpg)
Not long after and we had some trouble with Dave getting seasick:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-j7BTwscEiDo/VDqRLWqjV7I/AAAAAAAAFYg/asYUfObqOEE/s800/20140927_101222.jpg)
Having a pint before bed, me staring out the window at the horizon, it works well, makes the movement of the boat feel less:
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-lTQDwjy4Xls/VDqRMiV3CUI/AAAAAAAAFY4/BTyyodbZJJM/s800/20140927_125152.jpg)
We went to bed early, 9pm, and we slept well. The motion of the ocean is like being rocked to sleep, but the thunderous noise of Locky's snoring requires some good earplugs. It was nice knowing that we'd be arriving in Spain when we wake up.
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Locky bought us some coffee.
He's good at that. :)
Looking forward to the rest of the write-up, keep it coming.
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He can snore, I'm surprised nobody abandoned ship.
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I've been waiting for this for some time good to hear your both home safe keep the posts and pics coming. :auto-dirtbike:
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Beer and biltong- no wonder Dave felt queasy!
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Nothing wrong with beer n billies - even for breakfast. A plane will have gone past somewhere ...
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Day 2, Sunday 28 September:
The reality that we were away from home now started to set in. The weather was definitely warmer than it was in the UK and we were looking forward to getting on the road towards Morocco. Had some breakfast on the ferry, myself opting for a full English and Locky going continental. It takes very long to get into port, the boat goes quite slow to get in.
Approaching port at Santander, half dressed for riding and standing outside so that we don't get to warm in the riding gear:
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-dg6dJB_JOH0/VDqRODyXiaI/AAAAAAAAFZA/RdPcl08P168/s800/20140928_085342.jpg)
I opted to wear my normal MX riding gear all the way and took a light summer textile riding jacket (without armour) and a two piece rain oversuit additionally. I took short and long technical base layers as well as long merino wool base layers. Next time I will only take two sets of short base layers, rinsing whichever set I wore that day when we get to the hotel for the evening. I had some fairly cheap textile Wulfsport MX trousers for abrasion resistance on the legs and wore some Knox Flex Lite knee protectors. My Alpinestars Tech 3 off road boots completed my leg protection. I was very satisfied with this particular set up and will use it in the future. For the body protection I used a SuperShield armour suit (got it from GetGeared), it gives good, close fitting armour protection for your whole spine, your chest, elbows shoulders and some for the ribs. It also has an integrated kidney belt which helps a lot with keeping good posture and lessening riding fatigue. It's fairly well vented so it works in the heat too. I took two helmets, my normal X-Lite X-551 for the trek both ways through Spain and a HJC AC-MX off road helmet with Oakley goggles for the riding in Morocco. I took tinted and clear lenses for the goggles, they are easy enough to change over. In hindsight, I'd probably only take the MX helmet, goggles and lenses next time I go, but will make sure to have duct tape along. If it rains heavily the duct tape will get used to tape the always-open vents on the helmet closed and perhaps tape the openings between the googles and the helmet up to stop too much rain getting in. I ended up using the textile summer jacket only on the motorway slogs and wearing the rain oversuit as needed to keep the wind off me so I don't get cold. The rest of the time, mostly in Morocco, I wore a thin MX jersey over the armour suit. This worked well, you could stay cool enough not to dehydrate at a rapid pace. I was happy with this particular setup and felt I planned it well, I will use the same riding gear in the future. I might get better quality textile trousers and an even better armour suit for future use, but what I had would also be fine again.
Locky was posh with his Gore Tex Klim suit full of vents, but perfectly waterproof if he wanted to be. He used this on the motorway slogs and I must say it really does seem like the Klim stuff is worth the money. He wore Forma Adventure boots, the waterproof version. On the ferry to Spain I noticed a screw on the cabin floor from his boots. He put it back in and made sure everything else was tightened up (nothing else loose though) and didn't have any trouble with them after that. Locky only took one helmet, a Spada Intrepid dual sport helmet, and a set of goggles. He used the goggles for only a short while when we first went off road and declared the set up too hot. I think there isn't enough space between the goggles and he helmet view port to let air in to keep things great (I've had the same issue with goggles in my X-551 before.) The rest of the time he was using some yellow cycling glasses I took along instead of his goggles. They don't keep the dust out as well as goggles, but at least they provide some essential eye protection. He also took some Lindstrands MX trousers, better quality than the Wulfsport ones I had, a Knox Urbane armour shirt with the optional chest protector and a couple of thin MX jerseys. Locky also wore the same knee protectors that I had. The MX stuff he wore mostly in Morocco where the weather was very warm with only the occasional reprieve when going over mountains and on high altitude roads.
Once we got off the ferry in Santander we found a fuel station and then set off south. We planned to ride down and skirt past Madrid then see how far we get south and find a place to sleep. The first part of the ride was good fun, over mountains with really nice passes to ride and making good progress as we were going faster than the satnav thought we could. Riding on the other side of road always takes a while to get used to again, but once you can remember to look left at junctions and roundabouts you're soon fine. After a few hours the roads quickly changed to motorway type riding with only the occasional bit of fun going over a mountainous area. This was the slog down, at first seeing a lorry you'd need to overtake in the distance makes things a bit more interesting, but soon even that fades. Riding like this is soul destroying boring, but it was a necessary evil we had to put up with. Neither of us were used to riding this kind of distance on the Stroms any more and we had to do all kinds of things to keep our arses from going numb and our legs stretched. I was falling asleep and even singing or shouting in my helmet didn't make the slightest difference. At least we were on road tyres (both on Anakee 2) so the going was smoother than if we'd decided to change our tyres ahead. Another small mercy on this slog day was that the weather was relatively mild most of the way. We eventually stopped, late afternoon, to decide where we're going to sleep.
Here's Locky having a leg stretch:
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-VLVpINx4kVg/VDqRPKqzkBI/AAAAAAAAFaE/tOJSDQylGSI/s800/20140928_160652.jpg)
And here I am looking at the satnav to find a good place to sleep for the night:
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-ifeoArzhrh0/VDqRPSLs3xI/AAAAAAAAFZU/hxyiLoYb3-s/s800/20140928_160633.jpg)
We slept at Santa-Cruz Motel-Restaurante at kilometre 217 on the autovia (motorway) going from Madrid to Andalucia. Dinner was tasty and the beds were nice and solid, otherwise it was basic, clean enough and well priced.
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Day 3, Monday 29 September:
The breakfast wasn't anything as good as the dinner we had the previous night, but I wouldn't be complaining if I knew how boring breakfast in Morocco would be. After all, you can't really moan much about croissants with butter and jam, but I think the experience of sitting at a stainless steel bar counter to eat it felt odd. The coffee was great though, even so I refrained from having a 2nd cup as I didn't fancy needing to stop for a leak all too often.
We got geared up, unlocked the bikes and I checked oil. Before the trip I was only really doing short distances, bar the trip to the August bank holiday meet. I'd noticed the Strom was using a bit more oil than before the restoration. I packed a litre of engine oil for this reason and ended up using all of it, the half litre Locky was carrying and almost another half litre I had to buy. I guess I should've replaced those valve stem seals when I noticed they were weeping a bit while replacing the headers during the reassembly for the restoration :whistle: On the subject of unlocking the bikes, Locky had bought a 2m Kryptonite cable and taken a shackle disc lock along. We used this to lock the bikes together each night except for the nights where the bikes were being guarded by guards working for some of the hotels we slept at. You can see the cable lock tied around the back of his bike in the picture below. I'm not sure this kind of security was really needed, but it did give a nice sense of security. It wouldn't be easy to steal two heavy Stroms locked together with the lock not being able to reach the ground. Any attempt at getting past our security measure would surely make noise and attract attention. I doubt there's much market for big bikes like ours or for their parts, most bikes in Morocco are scooters and step through low capacity bikes, we hardly saw any locals on large capacity bikes.
At Santa Cruz motel we could park our bikes around the back under a car port so that they aren't visible from the road:
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-RGDPkH0c2Ys/VDqRQXTCcwI/AAAAAAAAFaQ/YGguTxBlt0g/s800/20140929_084501.jpg)
Our next stop was the ferry port in Algeciras, Spain. We'd heard that we can buy tickets at the port and I figured this was the best way to go as you'd have much less chance of being scammed than buying from touts. I expected a lot of touts, but really there were only a few people around, quite obviously touts, trying to stop people and ask where they are going and if they needed tickets. We stopped when the first of such people waved us down, I meant to ask directions to the ticket office, but realised they'd waste our time more trying to flog us tickets than if we just went ahead and figured out where the ticket offices were ourselves. They tried to talk to us in Spanish, French and English, but I pretended that I didn't understand any of it so we could get out of there quickly. We followed some signs, ignored a "no motorcycles" sign like someone else seemed to be doing and ended up parked right across from a lot of ticket offices.
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-kRQtCAEVMpo/VDqRQwGaRQI/AAAAAAAAFaY/DaudGk_3B_w/s800/20140929_140328.jpg)
Locky guarded the bikes and I took our passports in to try get the next ferry out. At the 3rd window I got to a bloke who told me the ferry is leaving at 14:30. This was great as it would be in the next 20 minutes, but the fekker was lying, we only left at 15:30. Still, this wasn't too bad for us and there was nothing we could do about it anyway. For reference, we paid €54 each for a ticket to cross with a ferry company called Acciona. We thought it a good price and on the ferry someone who regularly travels over told us that the best place to buy tickets was the ferry port offices. I could pay with my credit card and, even though I didn't understand much of what the bloke at the ticket booth said, we got by with writing times and money amounts on paper and signing while trying to talk in whichever language we could find a word that the other seemed to understand. He also gave us some customs forms that need completing on the boat. I asked the ticket salesman which signs to follow and got the wrong directions. Luckily we found security guard who could speak enough English to direct us in the right direction. We queued, had our passports and tickets looked over and then skipped the queue for the ferry to near the front. Here we parked up and had part of our tickets torn off by someone who was walking around making sure everyone had a ticket to board the ferry.
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-CepocGJUzQw/VDqRRR26flI/AAAAAAAAFa0/mgQMILTywS4/s800/20140929_144436.jpg)
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-AHe8_-kx0Xs/VDqRSEs7m7I/AAAAAAAAFZ8/EzYEIthp3Tk/s800/20140929_144500.jpg)
It was quite obvious that Africa's influence was this side of the water already. There were a lot of old cars, overloaded and badly maintained. People would try to jump the queue to get on the ferry only to be reprimanded by others leaning on their horns. Ferry workers also got the horn treatment if someone was thinking they let someone board that should've waited or if they seemed to be too slow at what they were doing. We figured they could let us go in first, we are small vehicles and we're cooking in the sun, so we moved forward a bit. This wasn't the way they thought about it, all the articulated lorries were reversed in first, then large lorries reversed in and so it carried on coming down in size until we eventually were allowed to board last. The next unconventional bit was that the way the bikes were tied down, not the usual strap over the seat. They were stood up next to a wall with cushions in between the bike and the wall and then strapped to some railings or whatever there was available so that they would stay like that. The one idiot wanted to put a rusty metal hook around my nicely powder coated front fork tube and I stopped him and tried to explain that it will scratch. He seemed to understand and left it and went off, presumably to fetch something else or something to protect the fork tube with. The bike was strapped down enough anyway and we got ushered out the parking area. Being last ones in and having to wait to get strapped down we were last ones up stairs. Here we found out we needed to join a long queue where our passport would now be checked and the customs form we need to fill out would be presented. We filled in our customs forms, it's only a few easy questions, and joined the queue. With only a single official checking everyone's passport it took about 45 minutes before we got to the front. The official looked tired and grumpy, but a few jokes and he was smiling while helping us. He stamped a police number in our passports, this number is only stamped if it's your first visit to Morocco (after that you use the same number for other visits.) After this we went and sat outside to get some of the colder fresh air.
The ferry took about an hour and a half to cross to Morocco. When we got to the parking area I noticed the fekking bloke who tied my bike down had returned only to put the rusty hook around my fork tube anyway. Being on last at least meant that we got to leave the ferry first. We rode off and was stopped by an official looking bloke who checked that our passports had the police stamp and sent us on our way. We followed the road out and got to customs. We'd filled in and printed temporary vehicle import forms online before we left the UK and we now took these out, along with our passports, in the hope that officials would see we came prepared and help us sooner. Whether this was the thing that got us helped or whether they just liked to do bikes first we don't know, but we were soon called forward. Here the official, who couldn't speak any English, enquired if it's our first time in Morocco and we understood enough to tell him that this was the case. He called over another official who could speak a little bit of English, we were directed to go back to some booths that we passed on the way in, apparently our police number needs to be checked. Why they couldn't have stopped us at the booths when we passed them to start with is beyond me. We walked over there and some person, obviously not a policeman, checked our passports. He could speak some English so we struck up a friendly conversation while he went about doing the checking. When this was done we went back up to where our bikes were, but the official was nowhere to be found and wasn't coming our way. Knowing a bit about how things in Africa work I left Locky at the bikes and went off with our passports to find him. I found him near an office where there were some computers, it was obviously the base of operations. Smiling and being very friendly I got his attention and showing him the passports with the stamp that they've been checked. He gave our passports, along with the temporary vehicle import forms to some computer jockey and told me to wait. I could see him telling the computer jockey to do ours first. Not long after, maybe 5 minutes, he came out with our passports and the two parts of the temporary vehicle import forms that we have to keep. He managed to explain it was all done and we could go and I thanked him (by now my supply of "friendly" was running out, luckily there was plenty of sun to recharge it a bit.)
A quick note on the temporary vehicle import forms: you're allowed to import your vehicle for up to 6 months of a year. It's best if the vehicle is in your own name. If not you need a letter from the owner stating you are allowed to use it and possibly other stuff too. You need to take your V5C, but I used a colour copy and left the real one in my tank bag, I don't think they know the difference. You can fill in the triplicate temporary vehicle import form at customs if you want to, they will give them to you, or you can do what we did, complete them online. I recommend completing them online before you leave the UK. You can take your time and make sure it's right, this will save you time at customs. The online form prints out in three parts, you have to sign at the bottom of each. Once you get your police number put in your passport on your first entry to Morocco you can write it in on the printed form. If it's not your first time you can put your existing number in when you complete the form online. When you get into Morocco, at customs, they take one part of the three and give you the other two back. When you leave Morocco they take another part and then give the last part back. That last part is your proof that you exported the vehicle again. It's a lot less complicated than it sounds, the worst bit is figuring out how to fill the form in online, it's not that obvious how to get to it or what to put in the boxes. I used Google translate to get by on the website.
With the temporary vehicle imports done, we were ready to leave port, we rode 50m only to be stopped again, this time they were checking that we've done the temporary vehicle import. We showed the two stamped forms we had just receive back and was waved through. Not far up the road we came to a parking area. This was where people parked to go to the ticket offices for crossing back to Spain. There were some banking kiosks, some ATMs and a vehicle insurance kiosk. We parked up, Locky changed all his Euros for Dirhams (he got 11 dh for each euro) and we bought bike insurance for 10 days (620 dh each.) I wanted to get some dirhams, but was told they only change cash and that they can't take my cards. Figuring that it might be different at a proper bank rather than a little kiosk I decided not to use the ATM to get money now. Turns out it's no different at a "real" bank and I had to get money out the ATMs for the rest of the trip. I could get a max of 2000dh per day out of an ATM, much more than you'd need. Very surprisingly, there were no touts anywhere at the port, I don't think they are allowed inside. There were some behind a very high fence, that would be almost impossible to climb, trying to get the attention of people, but they were mostly ignored, including by us.
Now we finally left port, the sun was still out, but it was going to get dark soon. We'd decided that our first night would be spent at a hotel called Dar Enchaouen in Chefchaouen. We got this hotel "recommendation" when we watched a DVD that the owner of AdventureSpec made on a trip to Morocco. The roads started off looking good, wide two lane dual carriage ways with palm trees on the side of the road and good tarmac. This only lasted a few miles around the port before we got onto "normal" Moroccan roads. We found ourselves going through a mountainous region on a road that just had a crazy amount of twists and turns. This combined with going up and down hills constant made for really good riding. Moroccan traffic isn't very heavy, but the way they drive is shocking. Cars are coming at you with two wheels over the line in your lane around every blind bend and faster than they should. These same cars are almost always old bangers that pollute the air so badly sometimes that you can feel it in your lungs when you breathe if you couldn't already see it. Overtakes are dodgy at best and vehicle maintenance seem to be something they only ever see on television, those that have a television. There's definitely no form of MOT around here and I'm sure I wasn't the only one that was thinking "welcome to Africa" as we were riding. Road works seemed to pop up without any real notice and the diversions around where they were working were usually dangerous. Health and safety isn't something that's a concept around these parts, at least not in any recognisable form. After a while I stopped to check that Locky was doing OK with the traffic shock and to tell him to watch out for the old Mercedes taxi drivers, they were the worst. We continued riding to Chefchaouen and ended up riding in the dark on these crazy twisty roads where there wasn't even safety barriers on each turn. In a weird way this was fun, a real feeling that we're in adventure territory now. We arrived safely in Chefchaouen, but it took us a while and some asking around to find the hotel.
At the hotel the first people we encountered were the two 'security guards'. They were the ones watching customer vehicles 24h a day. They opened an iron gate for us and we parked the bikes behind a wall under a big beach sun umbrella. We asked how much it costs for them to watch the bikes and was told 50dh per bike. I wasn't paying or agreeing to that without getting a second opinion. With Locky waiting at the bikes I went to the hotel reception and was pleasantly surprised that they spoke good English, it seems most of their customers are foreign. The bloke at the desk was very helpful, told us the bikes are parked in a safe spot and that the guards are already being paid by the hotel, but that tips are in order. Turns out a 20dh tip each was more in the right region. We booked into the hotel and had dinner, I had goat tagine with prunes and Locky had some kofta kebabs.
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-wKTQbwelBEM/VDgEQ9h8ViI/AAAAAAAAFVY/Oyq8CxY5AXI/s800/IMG_20140929_204534.jpg)
The goat tagine was very tasty and I figured that Morocco would be good if all the food was this good. I gathered Locky also enjoyed his food a lot. They brought us mint tea after dinner, Locky likes it, but I think it's a bit disgusting, I'm not a big mint lover though. They didn't sell any beer or wine, but we knew that some places might not.
The hotel was quite nice inside and, as is the case with many buildings in Chefchaouen, many of the walls were painted blue. Our room was quite nice, the taps were copper plated and the basin was made out of a piece of shaped copper. Beds were nice and solid and everything was nice and clean. Overall this was one of the nicer hotels where we stayed at and the prices weren't bad either, I would definitely stay there again.
Another of my all too often shaky pictures of the restaurant area:
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-D3uwQq4OOX8/VDgEevErbyI/AAAAAAAAFWo/n-tWXxyAwug/s800/IMG_20140929_204615.jpg)
And a picture of what the place looks like in the dark. It's quite nice at night, lots of little lights and lamps around and the garden was maintained well too.
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-opN5TmzUCCs/VDqRStB_6II/AAAAAAAAFaA/SMwRFUYuzBU/s800/20140929_230115.jpg)
Tomorrow would be our first real riding day in Morocco and we'd be going further south still.
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Making me wish I was 10 - 15 years younger and fitter. Would have loved to try something like this.
Really looking forward to the next instalment.
Stobie
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Never too old Stobie, just checked your age and I saw plenty of older blokes while waiting for the ferry. Get a few others to join you and go for it. :)
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Keep it up Juv, this is great.
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What Locky said Stobie. You're younger than Brockett and he's a live-wire.
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Brocket brought the most beer to the August meet.
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+1 Brockett likes to get about a lot, I hope I'm like him when I reach his age, never to old.
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+1, just do it, it's really only as difficult as you make it. If you take more people for doing some of the off road stuff it's a good idea. We suffered with just two people picking up the bikes. Even 1 extra would have made a huge difference, but I think 4 is more ideal. You don't want too big a group else you have to start booking hotels ahead to make sure they have enough space for you. That said, most hotels we were at, bar 2 in Chefchaouen which is a bit of a tourist town, seemed to have loads of space left and we just showed up so even 8 people should be fine then.
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Thanks for sharing this. I'm looking at going Morocco some time, never been, would be interested in joining others...
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Lots more to come as I get time to write it up :thumb:
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Never too old Stobie, just checked your age and I saw plenty of older blokes while waiting for the ferry. Get a few others to join you and go for it. :)
I have osteo-arthritis in my neck, back and left hip. If it wasn't for the morphine patches I wouldn't be riding at all. I also have osteo-porosis so off-roading is definite no no.
My last adventure was a 6 week tour of France, Spain and Germany in April/ May this year and when I got home, even though I had fantastic time, I swore that it would be my last.
Stobie
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Cough, where's the next update?, cough.
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I know, it's like waiting for a new episode of your favourite TV series. It's as if Juv is prioritising work and home.
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I'm working away in Lincoln for the next 4 weeks so updates might come slow. I should have some time in the evenings, but I've been doing some overtime. Currently sitting in a slightly posh restaurant in tracksuit bottoms because I forgot to pack something better. You know it's posh if you get the choice of having plain butter or having butter blended with honey & cumin.
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That sounds awful.
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Wow, that is posh. Posh to me is when there isn't a burger on the menu and that burger doesn't come with a beer.
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I like all three of the ingredients, butter and honey on toast is great, I use cumin to give my homemade burgers a Mexican slant. But I also like bacon, chocolate and wine gums, but...
I trust all this crap will be deleted once normal service resumes?
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Nope, it stays, that was hilarious!
The butter is pretty good, not enough honey, I couldn't taste it, but got the hint of cumin.
I had some lamb chops with peas, savoy cabbage and bacon bits. The lamb was perfectly cooked, the sauce was just a tad too salty. Still, I'll be back next week to try the pork.
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Posh and Lincoln, not two words I would have ever put together :shrug:
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Day 4, Tuesday 30 September:
We slept quite well despite the call to prayer going out early morning, it's loud and annoying when you want to sleep, sounds like a typical school PA system. We don't even understand what it is that they're whining about, but usually it only goes on for 5 minutes. This would be a regular disturbance to our sleep for the rest of the trip. There are of course other disturbances of my sleep as well, such as Locky's snoring, but earplugs work well enough for that.
Chefchaouen looked much different in the day. When we checked in to the hotel the previous night I asked that they give us a room with a good view of the town. The hotel was on a hill side, in fact, most of Chefshaouen is built on the hill sides. The window in our room overlooked the town somewhat and we could see many buildings that were painted blue, something you often hear people mention when they talk about Chefchaouen.
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-je6Ahk4lW2c/VDqRTvzovNI/AAAAAAAAFaU/3JVYoa19v8M/s800/20140930_074902.jpg)
Another view from our room's window, to the right this time:
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-QzwWVX_STuQ/VDqSMtDzA9I/AAAAAAAAFos/KD-HazPt8tU/s800/2014-09-30%252009.10.16.jpg)
We had breakfast at the hotel, it consisted of various breads, some jams, goats milk cheese and olives. It was nice enough and the coffee was good too. The orange juice was great, proper freshly squeezed juice, you know it's not from a supermarket when you taste it.
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Jo2VgKCRoh8/VDgEBdQuI8I/AAAAAAAAFUw/Z0a6CbocE5U/s800/IMG_20140930_085601.jpg)
Our bikes were still safe when we got back to them, we loaded up and Locky took this picture while I went to get some change.
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-vkGDlpI33-8/VDqRUvYRvjI/AAAAAAAAFcA/dgeBej9Q2gQ/s800/20140930_095852.jpg)
We tipped both the guards 20DH, they weren't too impressed, but my point of view was that they tried to sucker us into giving them a 100, trying their luck, instead of being honest and this was me making a point. 40DH is nothing for us, it's less than £4, you can't get 2 people to watch your vehicles all night for £4 in the UK!
Next we went into town, we needed to buy a SIM card for use in Morocco, Locky wanted to buy some tobacco and I needed to find an ATM to get some of them dirhams. So far I've either paid with my credit card (they seemed to have card machines at all the hotels we stayed) or Locky has paid. It took us much longer to buy a SIM card than we thought it would because we couldn't understand the shop keeper and he couldn't understand us. It's difficult explaining that you want data, text messages and calls on a PAYG SIM. Eventually, after asking many passers by if they could speak some English without any luck, the shop keeper told me to wait. He disappeared into the house next door and came out with a friendly young girl who seemed to be able to understand most of what I said, well probably about half of what I said in reality. She translated and we ended up with a SIM card and two bottles of cold water. All this took the best part of 30 minutes, normally buying tobacco a SIM card, two bottles of water and getting some cash can happen at the same store within minutes back home. The language barrier was going to be an interesting challenge ahead, I was already kicking myself or not spending more time at learning French before we left. My original intention was to be able to speak it enough so that we could get by. In hindsight, we didn't really need a SIM, we didn't make any calls, we just sent some text messages and we'd be just as well off if we simply used our own phones.
We decided that we're we needed to get moving, we'd activate the SIM card later. We left the town centre and made a quick stop on the way out so I could put on my textile jacket. The weather was looking really good, we had smiles on our faces and were looking forward to the day's riding.
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-jRBfRVzvA2k/VDqRVnHkuxI/AAAAAAAAFbo/8x_fsKtGAuM/s800/20140930_105626.jpg)
As planned we were going further south, this is where I had many routes plotted out on the GPS for us to pick from (the ones from the Morocco Overland book.) We were trying to get as far south as we could quickly so that we had plenty of time to ride around there. Even though it was a slog there were some nice roads and passing through villages and towns is interesting in that you see things that you're not used to at all.
In one town we were going through I spotted a bunch of bikes with UK and European plates. We'd been going for a while so I figured it's as good a time as any to stop. The blokes were from the UK and I think a few eastern European countries. They were having lunch, hoping that they'd picked a place where the food won't give them the trots. We asked where they'd been and where they're going (on their way to Erfoud), told them about the forums we go on and gave them some route, hotel and fuel details. We talked about their bikes and our bikes and other random stuff. It was nice meeting them and I hope they check in on one of the forums to tell us about their trip.
Some of their bikes:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-3ymrv-G5P6E/VDqRWtk2y3I/AAAAAAAAFbg/mHh5SX_xAeo/s800/20140930_163755.jpg)
The bloke standing at that Ténéré is tall, apparently he jacked the rear of the Tén up to suit him and Téns are already tall, taller than a Wee with a Vee seat even.
After many hours riding we were decently far south, we ended up at a hotel in Midelt. The hotel was called Kasbah Asmaa and from the outside it looked stunningly good.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-9RGq0YBDe_E/VDqSPsjaxcI/AAAAAAAAFpQ/_X5mcJAZ1zU/s800/2014-10-01%252008.42.29.jpg)
We rode through some great looking carved wooden doors...
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-A5nuEKS8qX4/VDqSRQtF_sI/AAAAAAAAFpk/TE7ZztCPE6w/s800/2014-10-01%252008.43.17.jpg)
...and parked in the attractive courtyard.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-jE31UfnMn08/VDqSSkry2XI/AAAAAAAAFp8/3lNxEt4Q_pc/s800/2014-10-01%252008.43.55.jpg)
We took our stuff to the room, got cleaned up and found a place to sit outside, but under cover. Out came the map, the book and the tablet with more maps on it, we had to decide where we're going from here tomorrow. We found that they sold beer and had some, just what we needed after a long hot day's riding :lala: It was getting dark fast and we had a power cut for a while, but we were prepared for it.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-M-DP3COmyBk/VDqRXKXABXI/AAAAAAAAFbQ/tX9KeKLZ9Wc/s800/20140930_200632.jpg)
Once we figured out where we're going to we went inside to eat:
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-OdGzyZmhA9Y/VDqRYFtNOPI/AAAAAAAAFbw/sco_ZZksZzM/s800/20140930_212105.jpg)
As nice as this hotel looks outside and in the foyer, the food was utterly disappointing and I'm sure it was the cause of my stomach problem a short while on. The room we were in was looking a bit neglected, much like the rest of the hotel on closer inspection. The place is in need of some maintenance, nothing serious, it just needs doing. One example of such maintenance would be to sort out the one ceiling down light in our room, it can't turn off. We even had the bloke from reception come up have a look to see if he knew where the switch was and checked behind all the curtains and where we thought they could hide a switch. In the end I simply duct taped it, I can't sleep with lights on. I also duct taped the window, there was a serious draft coming through there, enough to hear it. At least the beds were nice and firm, the shower ran strong and had hot water and everything looked clean enough.
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I recognise that hotel in Midelt - that's where I stayed when the wind got to much on my way north! I agree about the disappointing food, but was very pleased to find they sold nice cold beer!
I'm enjoying your write up so far, it's bringing back good memories and making me want to head back to Morocco soon!
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It makes me want to retirn too JRS81 :) Yes the food looked quite nice but was bland and tasted naff but the beer was a godsend at the end of the day ..
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... There are of course other disturbances of my sleep as well, such as Locky's snoring ...
Never !
In the words of Daft Punk ...
"Were up all night cos of Locky"
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Great write up juv.. :thumb: . makes me want to head out on a big trip but can't until at least late summer 2015...... :bawl:
looking forward to reading the rest ..
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Martin W , Juv knew the risks and that he'd be traveling with the King Snorer :grin:
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I have a "secret weapon" of my own that I could use to exact some revenge on Locky :grin:
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:shock:
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Day 5, Wednesday 1 October:
Today it was time to get serious and put on some knobblies! Locky had seen a tyre changing place in Midelt on the way through so we rode back into Midelt. I was insistent that the tyre place we use should have a machine rather than a bloke with some tyre levers as my rims cost me £150 recently to have shotblasted, powerdercoated black and then gloss powder coated. We found the place Locky had seen and he also had a tyre changing machine. I made enquiries and it turned out, with us taking off the wheels and putting them back on ourselves, that it would cost 20DH per wheel. That's less than a £4 to get two tyres changed! Obviously we didn't even argue with the price, we put some vinyl gloves on that I brought along and set about taking our wheels off so they could get changed.
Locky was the first to have a wheel off:
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-FYFID0CefqM/VDqRaeN2sHI/AAAAAAAAFcI/S_7LLDZyl7Q/s800/20141001_104750.jpg)
I'd packed a 12mm 1/2 inch Allen socket, but the biggest ratchet we had was a 1/4 inch one with some adapters to 3/4 and 1/2 inch. Getting the front axle to shift with this was difficult so we resorted to using the tyre changer's air impact gun. We figured that if we had to change a front on the road we'd have to improvise by using a 12mm spanner on the 12mm hex socket or something to that effect. It was a slight oversight on the tool packing side, but we knew we could figure something out if we needed to and we were trying to pack light as far as tools go too.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-GvwrM31ISxg/VDqRbT3L5UI/AAAAAAAAFcc/dVjLfCtBFPA/s800/20141001_104757.jpg)
It's hot work changing tyres in bike gear, luckily it was still early morning and the shade of the buildings was in our favour. My rear axle had corroded in place and was a bit of a bitch to get out. I'm sure I'd put some grease on it before I stuck it in... For the rear wheel we had a big spanner that Locky brought along specifically for the job so there was no trouble getting the rear axle nut off. When Locky's front tyre was getting changed I'd noticed that the tyre changer was only using the machine to break the bead on the tyres and then levers to get the tyre off and on. This wasn't what I was hoping for, my lovely powder coated rims would get damaged the way he was doing it. Luckily I had packed 2 sets of plastic rim protectors that I normally use when I change tyres on the DR-Z. I showed the tyre changer how to use these and made sure he understood that the powder coating on the rims is worth more than 1000DH each and to be careful. I helped him changed the tyres to make sure he doesn't put a lever wrong, that he always levers on the rim protector. It was crazy to watch him change a Strom front and rear with 2 tyre levers, almost like it was merely a bicycle tyre, he knew what he was doing. He eventually called a younger bloke to do my rear wheel as it seemed he was getting a bit tired. Whether he was tired because of the work or tired because I was so insistent that he be careful all the time I'm not sure :) Again I had to make the younger bloke understand to be careful and he understood, I helped change the tyre on the rear too so he uses the rim protectors properly. In the end everything did go smoothly with the changing and my rims didn't get any damage. I was very glad that I remembered the rim protectors and resolved to always pack at least one set when I go travelling, two sets if it was possible.
Putting the tyres back on the bikes I'd become my base layer top and myself covered in dirt and some chain oil (Locky's Scottoiler is like a garden lawn sprayer...), it took a good 10 minutes of repeatedly applying soap, scrubbing and washing it off with water before I felt clean enough. With the tyres now on the bikes they really looked the part.
Locky's Mitas E10 tyres:
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Wm9hTydkFyg/VDqRcFfpAoI/AAAAAAAAFmg/MS8lNvBymUc/s800/20141001_114532.jpg)
My Continental TKC80 tyres:
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-OcUyCxE-noc/VDqRcHNvDBI/AAAAAAAAFck/frGXQYzhlbQ/s800/20141001_114540.jpg)
We'd previously decided that we're leaving our road tyres wherever we got our knobblies put on. We didn't want the extra weight of carrying road tyres around and we knew we'd be able to get back to home on the knobblies without trouble. We explained to the tyre changer that he could have our old road tyres to sell them on as 2nd hand tyres, he gratefully took the old tyres off us. My tyres probably had about quarter of life left in them, Locky's was about half worn. We found that people in Morocco didn't mind getting their picture taken and that, when they noticed we had cameras on our helmets, they would make an extra effort to get noticed.
This was our tyre changer posing for a picture, he chased a few people out of the way so he could get a good picture. The room behind him is his whole tyre shop:
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-ILo9ksGR6jw/VDqRcWQeRyI/AAAAAAAAFmg/bf-5KxUvSMg/s800/20141001_114828.jpg)
I have to add that I have no idea what we'd have to do to get the tyres changed if we didn't have centre stands. It would've been a whole lot more difficult without them and would've taken much longer too. Stroms aren't little dirt bikes that one person can easily hold up on a side stand while the other changes a tyre, they are heavy beasts, particularly so with engine bars, bash plates, carrying tools, full fuel tanks and all the luggage for a trip like this.
Now we were really ready to get off road onto a piste. We'd sat on a ferry for more than a day, slogged it through Spain, "raced" down through Morocco to get south and we were very eager to ride the roads we really came here for. Our first pick is what we called ME3 (Morocco Eastern route 3), taken from the Morocco Overland book. This piste runs from Gourrama to Ben Tajite and is "only" ~74 km (46 miles) in length. Looking at the route on a map it looks short and you can't tell how tough or easy it will be from a map either. The Morocco Overland book has a description that says short 4x4s and lightly loaded dirt bikes will find it easy, but we missed that when we looked at the route in the book...
Getting to the start of a the route would still take a while, we set off from the tyre changer's shop in Midelt to Gourrama on a nice tarred road and and decided to take it easy as we just put on new tyres. The TKC80 tyres are very good on road and it only took me a few minutes and a couple of long sweeping bends at speed to feel completely comfortable on them. In the dry on a warm tarred road there isn't much between them and Anakee 2 tyres. The Anakees do feel much more stable at speed and cornering, but we didn't go that fast in Morocco that the superiority of the Anakee would easily show. Warm roads do help a lot, I'm sure the TKC80s wouldn't perform as good as the Anakee on a cold road in the UK or a cold wet one for that matter. I've heard before how hairy TKC80s can be in the wet, but have yet to experience it, on 2nd thought, I'm not sure I want to experience that.
Locky later told me he had a moment on is Mitas E10 tyres, the rear kicked out a bit on a bend. We talked about it later on in the trip and he hasn't had another incident so we put it down as something on the road surface causing the slip, perhaps a diesel/oil patch. Otherwise the E10s performed similar to the TKC80 in every regard, they are a very similar tyre and we agreed that either tyre is suitable for this kind of riding. We will probably talk about these tyres again once we've had some time to ride in the cold and wet in the UK. Wet and cold weather performance as well as tyre life should also be considered to make a proper comparison.
We finally arrived at the piste, it was just a dirt road turning off the main tarmac, no sign post at all, you'd never know that it goes to Ben Tajite if you just rode past it. We'd decided that we'll stop for a coffee and a bite to eat when we got onto the piste so we rode a short while to get away from the main road and curious eyes and stopped.
Locky setting up the stove for a brew:
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-zeaw1X610Vo/VDgD-tXZJpI/AAAAAAAAFUg/PhZF3ir0TZI/s800/IMG_20141001_145538.jpg)
With nothing on these open plains to break the wind, the stove needed some sheltering. Here I'm trying to position my bulky boots to shelter the stove's flame a bit:
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-7gWUq3wE8dE/VDqRdTUQVHI/AAAAAAAAFc0/X15RK7BRE9U/s800/20141001_150318.jpg)
You can see the road in both the pictures above, really just a pair of tracks running through the middle of nowhere with no fences or any real road markings to tell you which way the road goes or which way you should go. In these pictures we were only a few kilometres, less than 5, away from a tarred road and there was nothing around to tell you that there was any kind of civilisation here other than a lone mobile phone/radio mast. That's worth mentioning, no matter where in Morocco you are, you usually have a mobile signal. Many times we were in the middle of nowhere, with no one around, no villages for miles and we still had good mobile signal, it's a bit crazy, but when you think that mobile phones are their primary phone network because landline infrastructure is sparse then it makes sense.
We had our coffee, some biltong and buttermilk rusks and then turned on the video cameras and set off. I have hours of video every day of us riding around, but I haven't become around to editing any of it. Unfortunately I also didn't pay enough attention to my camera mount and the camera is pointed down too much for most of the trip, except the last day or so. On top of that there was a problem where the camera was dropping frames and causing a jerky skip effect every few seconds. I think it was having trouble writing to the SD card when recording at 720p @ 60fps even though the card was a Class 10 Samsung one, decent quality I'd assume. The camera I was using was borrowed from Gassoon, an older Drift HD, Locky's was a new Drift HD Ghost S. Locky's video came out much better and his mount angle was good so there might be some video posted later. Sometimes, when I was standing, the angle on my video was good enough so perhaps I can salvage some of it, but I don't have much hope. In any case, what I'm saying is that there probably won't be as much video in this report as I wanted to put in. It's all my own fault for not going out riding with the camera mounted to check the angle and to ensure the video is good at the settings I was using. Another problem with the video is that I can't watch it back for more than a few minutes myself, I get severe motion sickness so editing takes much longer than expected. It takes me several days of on/off watching editing for something that will take someone that doesn't get motion sickness a few hours.
These two pictures show our first stop for a breather, we were hot and sweaty already. The first shows the road ahead and the 2nd shows the way we came. The thing to notice here is that there is nothing much to see or look at. It really does give the feeling of being in the middle of nowhere with no one else around. Of course this isn't true in Morocco, no matter where you are, if you just sit around for a while there's always someone walking by (often in the distance), seemingly in the middle of nowhere themselves and going nowhere in particular that you can tell/see yourself.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-HtjehSryq8E/VDqSaInEiWI/AAAAAAAAFsQ/Sge53NgTauc/s800/2014-10-01%252017.32.04.jpg)
This picture was posed for those that have seen the other picture that Locky took of me (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/64012197/Salisbury%20plain%20weekend/20140705_130843.jpg) on a weekend we rode around on the Salisbury plains (more pictures of that ride can be found here (http://www.adventurebikers.net/forum/index.php?topic=700.0)):
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-8lu_JrFO278/VDqReYaYYqI/AAAAAAAAFdE/ywqBbldsZyk/s800/20141001_172244.jpg)
Just behind me you can see a river cutting, most of them are dry and some of them are very difficult to cross with us dropping bikes in them a fair few times. There are many of these everywhere on the piste we rode. They present a nice challenge to get through as each one is different from others and getting through each gives a little feeling of accomplishment that adds up to a good day in the end.
We soon realised we're making slow progress and that'd we've misjudged just how much time we'd have and how long it would take us to ride this piste. Locky started the falling off and we realised just how heavy a fully loaded Strom, with a near full tank of fuel, really was to pick up. In one river cutting he was crossing he stopped, put a foot out and realised there was nothing there to put his foot on. He went over, the bike on it's left side, with the wheels higher than the tank. That was a real struggle to lift upright with just two people again and we had to do it quickly as well. His right mirror hit the side of the ditch and snapped the mirror mount off the clamp that holds the master cylinder in place. Luckily the master cylinder was still held in place by what was left of the clamp so he'd still have use of his front brake without trouble. As we had the cameras rolling, was running late and we needed to pay attention to where we were riding we didn't take any other pictures of the piste for the rest of the day. For the most part the piste was a relatively easy and very enjoyable ride. The huge amount of river cutting crossings kept us entertained and having to cut across open areas to get back on track also kept things interesting. It's quite weird how you can just pick a direction and ride in it, no fences or anything other than natural obstacles to stop you. In the UK there'd always be a fence or a hedge or some road or something to stop your progress and "put you back in civilisation".
The sun was setting and we were running later than we would want to. We picked up pace as we got used to riding this type of road, but we were still going slower than we thought. We finally got to Ben Tajite and as we entered the town we stopped to have a look at the satnav and maps to find a place to sleep. I had run out of water, even after getting a top up from Locky and he was also running low too. I later found out my Camelbak was slowly leaking water and repaired the leak. While we were stopped a military officer who could speak a tiny amount of English stopped at us in his car. He enquired where we came from and where we were going. We told him we just came from Gourrama along the piste and he looked a bit impressed. We asked if he knew about a hotel that we could stay at in Ben Tajite and was told that there aren't any hotels here. He told us to go to Bouanane as there would be a hotel. We got the feeling that he just wanted us to get out of "his" town. It was now getting dark, we had to find a place to sleep pronto so we decided to head for Bouanane. As we rode through Ben Tajite we realised this is a bit of a backwater town with nothing much in it, perhaps the military base was the only reason the town existed? Bouanane was another 65km away, an hour's ride, we rode as quickly as we could to get there, all on tarred road.
Driving at night in Morocco is arguably more dangerous than driving in the day, even though there is less traffic. This is because the road marking and signs are inadequate and they don't always have safety barriers and such everywhere we would have. It's much more difficult to judge how sharp a turn is in the dark when there is no barrier (or hedge) following the side of the road that you can make a judgement from. We got to the T-junction near Bounanae where we'd need to turn right, the town was about 4km away. At the junction there were two policeman at a checkpoint. They were friendly and we explained we are looking for a hotel in Bouanane. They then told us there isn't a hotel in Bouanane, but that Boudnib is a bigger town and there would be a few. By now it was pitch dark and we didn't want to go to Bouanane only to find that there really are no hotels. We decided we'd head for Boudnib, it was in the direction we planned to go tomorrow anyway, another 56km away, it would take us another 45 minutes.
This time we were on the N10, a national highway for Morocco, but a good single carriage A road by UK standards. These N roads are normally as straight as they can build them, a real point A to point B road and terribly boring to be on. Tonight however we were grateful for this as it meant it's less dangerous for us and we could push the speed a bit to get there quickly. I set the satnav for Boudnib and we set off again, we got there at about 21:30. I rode through town, but we didn't see any hotels... Almost out of town we rode past a sign for "Rekkam" with a picture of a bed on it. We turned around and children next to the road were pointing us in the direction of Rekkam. We took the dirt road leading in the direction of the sign, it's very disconcerting riding on a dirt road at night with only the bike's headlights lighting your way, we went slowly. We were barely a 100 metres before a bloke on a bicycle came riding up to us from behind. He said to follow him to Rekkam, slightly sceptical we decided to follow, but we needn't have worried, he took us straight to the front gate of Rekkam.
Here a friendly French bloke who spoke a little English popped out and greeted us. We enquired to the price of a room with dinner and breakfast for us and was amazed at how low it was, about half we've paid anywhere else. We didn't really need any further convincing, we'd found a decent place that seemed safe enough who would still serve us dinner at 22:00 at night, breakfast in the morning, at a good price and they had beer! We really wanted beer after the very long and demanding day we had. The Frenchman jumped in his 4x4 and disappeared while we offloaded the bikes and got changed out of our dusty riding clothes. He came back shortly after, he'd collected two local women who works for him to come in and make us dinner. There was no real menu, we just got the "standard" choices of salads and tagines, we picked what sounded nice and sat around outside in the great evening temperatures with a beer. There were no city noises like we're used to, no light pollution to speak of, the air was clean and nature felt closer somehow. It was a good atmosphere to rest in after a long day and we sat around chatting to each other and to our French host and spent some time deciding where we're going to ride next.
Turns out they've only had the hotel open for 10 months, he's come over from France to get it going. They were still building, the next thing to be done was a restaurant, but for now people sat outside at a table to eat, like we did. The rooms were basic, just a mud and straw building with a few mattresses with sheets and blankets over and a pillow each, clean and neat though. Showers and toilets were communally shared, but we were the only ones staying, they were very clean and neat too and had hot water.
Soon dinner arrived and Locky ordered a bottle of wine to go with it:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Kcw3v-YD3us/VDqRfdW_HLI/AAAAAAAAFdU/IJbatYHvG3A/s800/20141001_221124.jpg)
The food was great, the best we'd had so far (and some of the best we had on the whole trip) and there was too much of it, as was usually the case in Morocco. The wine was a mistake though, at least for me, after a long day of sweating bucket loads and lots of physical exertion, it hit me fairly hard, I'm a cheap date. We slept really well, the mattresses were nice and firm and other than a prayer call early morning there were no other disturbances. Rekkam comes highly recommended and was the favourite place to stay the entire trip for both of us.
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-ApX_cNUj8wg/VFZGw5j0_BI/AAAAAAAAFv8/gXzbsL6TxAI/s800/IMG_20141102_145651.jpg)
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Brilliant, a compelling read Juv! :clap:
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Excellent read.!
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Great stuff, Juv :lala: :ty:
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Five Days down, 9 more exiting reads to go. :lala:
Did Locky really need a jack under that skid plate? With all the weight on the back?
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With all the weight on my bike it would just lift the front wheel, too risky to take the wheel off though.
I could have got away with a 40l drybag rather than the 60l, I took way to much stuff.
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Great write up- look forward to the next installment!
Just back from Morocco myself, but package holiday rather than biking adventure. . .
I'd be up for a rematch though! :auto-dirtbike:
Geeza
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Day 6, Thursday 2 October:
The next day I was a bit tender, I should know better than to mix beer and wine to start with, but hindsight is, as we all know, a luxury. We were getting into the habit of getting up at 8am by now, not really a problem if you go to bed decently early too. It also makes sense to set off fairly early while it's still not as hot outside. Because we arrived in the dark we couldn't see much of what the Rekkam grounds were like other than where there were a few lights. In the morning there were many more things to look at and Locky took some pictures.
The entrance gate:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-dKW7Km20KJA/VDqRf04JG9I/AAAAAAAAFdw/s7bEIXr9V00/s800/20141002_090053.jpg)
Our room:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-MZPLaEq5Ssw/VDqRgO88OdI/AAAAAAAAFdY/uytaiOxdOJ8/s800/20141002_090150.jpg)
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-TmbKLfZyOE4/VDqRgq3XSbI/AAAAAAAAFqI/JDCYUN0nZfA/s800/20141002_090203.jpg)
The new restaurant being built:
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-jIAIz853ztE/VDqRhSwakiI/AAAAAAAAFds/otO2dRJpRXM/s800/20141002_090600.jpg)
A builder who was very happy that Locky wanted to take a picture of him. He was mixing the mud and straw that they build with, it looks like really hard work:
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-QXAOOxh0L9A/VDqRi1-ay_I/AAAAAAAAFeU/JQ2TuLY0weo/s800/20141002_090823.jpg)
There were a lot of these nomad tents, presumably people could stay there if they wanted to:
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-JWN_vbZmWjQ/VDqRiIv9c8I/AAAAAAAAFeA/S77D-eFbQrk/s800/20141002_090728.jpg)
Moroccan electrickery installations at their finest, this was a common sight:
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-A7c2NjZzk_o/VDqRjek2axI/AAAAAAAAFeY/R8ggEANhCwQ/s800/20141002_105521.jpg)
A picture with the Frenchie and the rat, I'm not sure he understood what that was all about:
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Y9Bmp7KeIK4/VDqRj5M7-uI/AAAAAAAAFek/v7FxoBg-87k/s800/20141002_111527.jpg)
We had breakfast and a shower, packed up and the Frenchie took us to the only place that sold petrol in town:
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-oIJ7dBKJQqE/VDqRkQ_gJfI/AAAAAAAAFgM/ip-OoyIocTs/s800/20141002_120929.jpg)
We were assured the fuel was debris free, the people who run the place drive to Erfoud, fill up from the pumps into clean containers and then sell it here. They decant into 5 litre plastic bottles and then fill up the bikes with that. The whole place smelled of petrol and diesel and we were simply parked in a dirt road out front. Moroccans aren't big on health and safety, they didn't seem to be bothered by the fumes themselves and couldn't be bothered with the thought of what would happen if there was a flame/spark too close.
After fuelling we set off for route ME2 in the Morocco Overland book. The Frenchie told us that there was a river that might be high about 4 km into that piste and offered to go to the river with us to make sure it's passable. He drove in his 4x4 and we followed, when we got to the river he drove into the middle and stopped. The water was about 3/4 high up on his tyres and the river was about 15-20m wide. He drove across and got out to watch us cross. I set off, got up on the pegs, kept the revs up and steady and went straight through where he went through. On the other side there was a bit of a hill to get up so up I went to find the Frenchie fairly startled telling me I should go slower through rivers. I'm not sure he understands that bikes need momentum and that we can't crawl through a river like he can in a 4x4. Locky followed, crossing without any problems and the Frenchie appeared impressed with our performances. We were a bit soaked, but the day was getting nice and warm and the cool water was quite nice, it would dry off soon anyway. The Frenchie jumped back in his 4x4 and set off along the piste, we followed and after a short while we came to a split in the road. He stopped here, told us which road to take and we said our goodbyes before setting off into the middle of nowhere. This is when I realised that neither of us had a video camera on for the river crossing. The crossing was such a grin inducing adrenalin rush that we didn't even think about it or thought to stop either side to take a picture of the river. It was the widest and deepest river we'd had ever crossed on any bike and we both got through perfectly to boot.
ME2 was about 100km of proper off road riding. There wasn't much of a road, more a track with stones and lots of sand and in some places the road deviated or disappeared from what we had on the satnav. Normally the deviations were to get around massive chasms carved by water. We had to find our way around these or, if you could see, go down into them and then ascend the other side. In other cases there were river cuttings to cross and the crossing that the road ran to was inaccessible so we had to find another place to cross. We had to ride anywhere to find our way in the general direction of the road, sometimes picking our way through stony fields. There was a lot of sand and it quickly became apparent that we had to "learn" to ride in sand or suffer all day long picking up bikes. Luckily for me I've had some basic sand driving training in 4x4s before and the experience of that and lots of instructional videos I watched before the trip about riding bikes in sand meant I could get it right quickly. Locky's bike was heavier than mine and he's not used to riding in sand, he was going too slow and the bike would sink in easily. This is a mistake easily made when you're not used to sand, one I would've made if I didn't have any past experience of it. It wasn't long before we had a few topples and had to pick up the heavy bikes. Today I was the first one to go, I went down a rather steep sandy hill, turned a bit too sharp, dug the bike in and got ejected to the right. I had a good little roll down the incline, no harm done. The bike was tough to pick up lying in this position. Locky decided to take another route down to where we wanted to get so he doesn't suffer the same fate as I did. In my semi hangover state, having to pick up bikes in the heat was soon taking its toll.
On one occasion Locky got stuck in some sand and dug himself in deep in a matter of seconds. He stepped off the bike and it was standing upright, I had to get a photo:
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-MvtzZLClW5w/VDqRk7BWR8I/AAAAAAAAFeo/YhF4L1aEtj8/s800/20141002_131806%2520%25281%2529.jpg)
This was a real struggle to get out, we opted to lie the bike down on it's side to get the back wheel out of the sand. We then filled the hole with some sand and picked the bike up again. Then Locky started it, put it in gear and, with him on the one side and me on the other side we managed to walk it out to firmer sand where he could get on and ride it. This struggle really knackered me and I kind of lost my patience a bit. I set off in a lecture of how he should ride sand and how we're not going to get anywhere if he keeps falling and we have to keep picking up bikes. I felt a bit guilty for going off like that, but the guilt was short lived and replaced by being impressed. Locky hardly said anything about the episode, took it all on board, was soon riding sand like he's had lots of practice before and was certainly enjoying it more.
Since it was hard going and, from yesterday, we knew how long it could take off road we weren't taking much time to stop for pictures. We had the helmet cams running and we'd get pics and footage from them (not knowing then that my camera angle was wrong.) We did stop at a well, as far out in the middle of nowhere as we've ever been and take a few snaps though.
The sun was beating down relentlessly so I donned by favourite floppy sun hat:
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Pi3I5dqUXRQ/VDqSaKTKidI/AAAAAAAAFrg/8Wr76kQXVPM/s800/2014-10-02%252014.12.42.jpg)
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-M0jY9V_yPX4/VDqSao5vYdI/AAAAAAAAFro/RxRduyCFpU0/s800/2014-10-02%252014.13.09.jpg)
Trying to recover a bit in the only spot of shade I could find:
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Xyrsyly4ZxM/VDqSb9z6wtI/AAAAAAAAFr8/esmtawoTSxA/s800/2014-10-02%252014.13.39.jpg)
There was water in the well, we dropped a few stones in and counted how long they took to hit the water. We estimated it was about 30m deep:
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/--96jFuk_y80/VDqRlOEOXEI/AAAAAAAAFew/t2PnUUUlcUE/s800/20141002_141525.jpg)
We were getting too hot sitting around so we had to get moving again. The day was getting on, the going wasn't getting much easier, the sand riding was tiring and my semi hangover wasn't helping at all. It was all starting to take it's toll now and it was my turn to start falling a few times. I managed to fall in a few awkward places that made getting the bike up again difficult, but Locky didn't say anything about my falling (making me feel a bit guilty about the previous lecture again.)
The roads now changed a bit, they were more hard packed, but with a lot of stones, less sand though. We were nearing the end of the piste, but we still had some distance to go. We saw a rally racing truck speeding along roads we were heading towards, it was insane how fast he was going. The road we were following seemed to start going in the wrong direction for too long. We needed to turn about 120 degrees clockwise from where it was taking us, but we couldn't remember seeing a road going that way. As luck would have it, the rally truck turned that way and was racing along the road we needed to go to. We just picked the straightest route across open land to get there and followed it. We soon ended up driving right past the rally truck's camp, it looks like they were out there to do some testing. A few hundred meters further and we hit the tarred road we needed to get to. I was shattered and we stopped at the first place we could find some shade for a rest. More has to be said on that, shade isn't easy to find when you're out riding. There really are no trees or high rocks or anything that can give you shade. You can go for tens of miles without seeing a tree that's got enough up top to give shade. Even finding a tree to pee against is a bit of a luxury, usually you just have to settle for a bush.
Our claim to fame, this picture made it into the V-Strom.co.uk 2015 calendar for the month of September (the month we set off on our adventure to Morocco.) It was taken by Locky, as most of our pictures were, he's a handy one to have along :grin:
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-8ESXxvK_byA/VDqSckrJp5I/AAAAAAAAFsI/Y2aavQs9ghU/s800/2014-10-02%252016.47.39.jpg)
After a good rest we followed the tarred road to Erfoud and on the way we were joined by our racing rally truck again. We were on the tarred road going about 80km/h. The rally truck was racing along the side of the road in the desert, off road and overtaking us! :shock: Because our road was straight and his road was twisty and with obstacles it meant we stayed next to him for some time. I tried to keep my head turned towards the racing truck while keeping my eyes forward on the road to get some footage of it. Unfortunately, because of the bad camera angle, one can only catch glimpses of the truck on the video, the rest of the time you just see the dust cloud it kicked up.
In Erfoud there were a lot of rally vehicles: cars, trucks, 4x4 buggies, quads, bikes and everything you might expect to see in a desert rally. Locky bought some tobacco and we talked to a local travel agent who came over to speak to us. He told us that the next day there would be a desert rally that starts there. While watching the AdventureSpec DVD he made of a trip to Morocco we got a recommendation for a hotel next to Erg Chebbi. I think the word "erg" translates to "sea" and Erg Chebbi is like a sea of dunes. The highest dunes get up to 150m high and one of my aims of the trip was to take the Strom to the top of the highest dune here. That crazy idea was snuffed out after today's riding in the sand. I had come to realise how difficult it is to ride a heavy bike in sand and have much more respect for Dakar and other desert rally/enduro riders now. It is much easier in a 4 wheeled vehicle (often with the luxury of aircon.) If I ever go back on a smaller bike I will still give it a go then.
The hotel we were going to was called Yasmina and I had coordinates for it so we set off on a desert track. In the start the road was big and easy to follow even though it was very corrugated in some places. It soon split off into multiple little tracks and it was difficult to figure out what goes where because they don't go in straight lines. I decided that we'll just ride wherever we wanted to and keep as close to the satnav route as we could. This meant we were riding over mostly flat hard packed desert with some loose sand. We could see ahead well and I was going fast, up to 60 miles per hour in some places. We were standing up to give our suspension an easier time. There were little steps in the sand every now and then, they were about 4-8 inches high and, luckily, most of them were steps down for us. We could fly along at speed and jump off the steps, I felt like a rally racer and had to be careful not to get careless, falling off here will still hurt a lot. We spent about a half an hour riding around in the desert like that and it was great fun after a tough slow day. Eventually we came to bigger roads and found the road up to Hotel Yasmina. The hotel was next to the dunes and that was about all it had going for it. It was overpriced, the food wasn't good, the rooms were full of sand (at least not on the beds) and the general disrepair was evident. It was another example of the stance Moroccans (probably not all of them) take to general maintenance of buildings and other things. I had kind of insisted that we sleep there as opposed to anywhere else in the area and, for the 3rd time today, I, uncharacteristically, felt guilty because it wasn't all that you'd think it would be from the pictures and trip adviser reports. I think a lot of other people rate it on the view they can get of the dunes (location) rather than the standard of the hotel compared to others. It was one of the worst places we stayed at, it didn't even have hot water, something I really needed after today.
A view of the outside eating area, overlooking the dunes:
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-0kLTAvE--sQ/VDqRnLlzR6I/AAAAAAAAFfI/YpXh0HBNx6g/s800/20141003_092709.jpg)
Nomad styles tents nearby, it looked like it was a tent hotel:
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-t8WjNSXeMmg/VDqRnpxv3NI/AAAAAAAAFfk/0cDygSBtIAU/s800/20141003_092743.jpg)
Some camels:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-7W7S9i8FTXo/VDqRoK04_bI/AAAAAAAAFfc/kdhUUgSj1a0/s800/20141003_092805.jpg)
Some of the bigger dunes, but not the biggest in the whole of Erg Chebbi:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Y1uIlokj4-I/VDqRpVT7RlI/AAAAAAAAFfs/HmofNYYuDho/s800/20141003_093553.jpg)
The central courtyard of the hotel, you can just see the bikes to the left:
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-nfxa4r8YcWE/VDqRpjxU7mI/AAAAAAAAFf4/3Olg5fnGbuo/s800/20141003_093649.jpg)
As we were absolutely knackered we went to bed fairly early and we slept like dead men. Tomorrow we'd go through some gorges :hd:
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Keep 'em coming Juv :thumb:
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Another thrilling instalment Juv! :thumb:
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Day 7, Friday 3 October:
After the previous day's difficult riding we were in the mood for an easy day. We decided to go look at three artworks in the desert, all created by the same bloke, but on the way to the first one we realised it's going to involve a lot of difficult sand riding and that we don't really have to time to do it if we wanted to get to where we were wanted to end up today. Instead we continued past the area where the artworks are and went to ride through some gorges.
This was the first stop we made when we were into the gorges for a while already. I had to make sure we were on the right roads. while I was sorting that out Locky took some pictures.
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-sO5o3itDZdc/VDqRqLKKh6I/AAAAAAAAFgY/EgoAaJRpXoY/s800/20141003_150235.jpg)
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-ZqnQfu_lnqU/VDqRqheMDwI/AAAAAAAAFgA/NDHixT3DSA0/s800/20141003_150258.jpg)
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-xJH2UgjLEIE/VDqSe3VsIBI/AAAAAAAAFsg/mEJ9Xg0brE8/s800/2014-10-03%252015.07.27.jpg)
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Lgq-9yLnS7I/VDqSfcwh2yI/AAAAAAAAFs4/4nA2Re66rQ0/s800/2014-10-03%252015.07.39.jpg)
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-RCuZ4WWUdhU/VDqSfkWkrvI/AAAAAAAAFsw/N980MXuiBGU/s800/2014-10-03%252015.07.45.jpg)
We went through Todra Gorge on to Tinehir, then to Ait Hani and then to Amellagou. Riding through the gorges is a great experience, the roads are constantly going up and down and are twisty so things stay interesting. We also had very little traffic so we could go at our own pace so that we had some spare attention to look around. The road surface also varies from good tarmac to, in some places where rivers might cross, gravelly cement slabs. The walls of the gorges are really high it reminds me of the mountains at home in South Africa when you look up: you feel really small if you're right at the bottom and looking at the very top.
Near Amellagou I had to make an emergency stop.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-mMsFiqJHegM/VDqRq9JdejI/AAAAAAAAFqI/grHxkGbN6rg/s800/20141003_175922.jpg)
We found the nearest place to stay on our Sat Nav and set off for that, it was going to take us a while to get there. We rode for quite some time and then there was a really bad noise from the rear of my bike. I stopped to check what was wrong, it turns out my rear chain guard bolt had come loose and fallen out. The chain guard got caught on the chain/wheel and this was the result.
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-VV1pV8cz0XU/VDqRrmCFadI/AAAAAAAAFgU/o-gbDSb2mns/s800/20141003_183106.jpg)
I removed the chain guard and it was quite obvious that it couldn't really be called a chain guard any more. I believe this was one of the first Cymarc chain guards for the Stroms ever made. It was sold to Fat Rat, but there was a vibration issue so it went back to Mark to reinforce the rear mount. This improvement was put on all the future versions and Mark also did the mod for free for anyone that already had one (he's a top bloke :thumb: ) Far Rat got rid of his Strom and I bought the chain guard off him for my Strom.
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-k0FT4acHia8/VDqRsUsue5I/AAAAAAAAFhY/c68BEHzua4U/s800/20141003_183536.jpg)
I wasn't going to carry it back to the UK so I flung it far away to the other side of the road into a rocky field. Locky reckons that whoever finds it will put it on their mantelpiece and think it's something that's fallen off a space ship lol
With no damage to the tyre we set off again and, after looking like the satnav is taking is to a wrong place, arrived at Chez Pauline, where we would stay for the night.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-jxmfK0kFOns/VDqRs43BUDI/AAAAAAAAFgk/GTvId6ohAV0/s800/20141003_191205.jpg)
The place is run by a little French lady and two blokes. It seems to just be a house that's been extended a lot and the rooms were converted to be used for hiring out to guests. The place was a maze and it took is a while to remember which way to go to get to our room and back out. Their English was about as bad as our French which made communication interesting, but by now we were used to it.
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-ePwapPZ2TlA/VDqRw5GO4pI/AAAAAAAAFh0/jPzzgSiqECQ/s800/20141004_094207.jpg)
She allowed us to park the bikes next to the house under cover.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-gDzmuaCI2EE/VDqRvDTscTI/AAAAAAAAFhI/Y5YVM27z8Ao/s800/20141004_085853.jpg)
The decorations in the house were also interesting, lots and lots of African wood carvings everywhere along with various other African themed stuff. I think it would take a lifetime to gather this many carvings, almost something to be proud of.
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-cizWQPQrfx8/VDqRteUOSxI/AAAAAAAAFhM/kns_MhooH68/s800/20141004_085639.jpg)
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-sfV4qo7tEj8/VDqRuKlO6aI/AAAAAAAAFg0/Qp1cI9SXLm8/s800/20141004_085650.jpg)
This was our room, it was overpriced for what it was, but there wasn't any other choice for us that was near enough.
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-NJNzEtcQg9s/VDqRuZ9QmlI/AAAAAAAAFg4/S8RtumZuprM/s800/20141004_085815.jpg)
One thing that made up for the price was that, after a long hot day, we were served steak and beer! It's difficult to beat that for a good end to a good day's riding :)
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-PtsS1hWLbsY/VDqRtOPt1ZI/AAAAAAAAFgo/oV4IZLKluzg/s800/20141003_204240.jpg)
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Spaceship lol Atleast when my chain guard came off on ST7 it wasn't bent :)
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Is the chainguard to the Vstrom what the main shaft bearing is to the GS?
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I know which I'd rather have fail :)
Interestingly enough, my old aluminium chainguard fell apart while I was riding through Norway - it cracked at the edge of the 'V-strom' cut, and then progressively cracked all the way along from there. Vibration I assume. The replacement plastic one has been fine though.
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I had an aluminium one on the DR-Z, it also cracked from vibration. The DR-Z vibrates a lot more than the Strom though.
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enjoying this thread - keep it up!
looks like great trip!
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Day 8, Saturday 4 October:
We slept well and had a good breakfast before we set off for the day.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-ESfHYIuAwIk/VDqRwK9Mk6I/AAAAAAAAFhg/p_qoJAK11OM/s800/20141004_090021.jpg)
This was more or less our halfway mark and we decided it would be laundry day for us. This meant that we'd do less riding today, really just a 'short' trip on road up through Amellagou and Rich to get to Midelt. After our previous experience staying at Kasbah Asmaa we wanted to stay in a different hotel. We remembered that there was a big hotel on the north side of the town called Hotel Taddart so we'd go there. The weather was great and we had a good ride with a few stops for a rest on the way.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-EqCJTtXvUfk/VDqRxesf1pI/AAAAAAAAFuo/ycs0GMhGvXc/s800/20141004_133424.jpg)
We were surprised at that the hotel was less expensive than it looked and that the rooms were quite nice. It was huge inside with very high ceilings, a nice looking building and definitely a bit more modern looking than some even though it still has the mud and straw finish we were now quite used to.
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-z4eSsmUwLuc/VDqRz0QqtqI/AAAAAAAAFic/0zCv9hnHCRM/s800/20141005_092550.jpg)
We arrived early afternoon, booked in and set about washing our laundry. Locky just had to take a picture of me doing the dirty! Those Knox knee guards sure came in handy too!
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-ZcFvST-i3DY/VDqRyer03fI/AAAAAAAAFh8/2ZV2uf2R_PQ/s800/20141004_154330.jpg)
We used some rope we had to string up a washing line and hung all the clothes up on that and everywhere else that we could find a place for them.
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-UWYsxetbpJQ/VDgEEIqnkoI/AAAAAAAAFVA/QVp8Fy9ySoo/s800/IMG_20141004_164716.jpg)
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-zRmJdn3DqBI/VDqRzFfS8BI/AAAAAAAAFjo/nrTgpG_v7IE/s800/20141004_192021.jpg)
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-8W-Otp5IsBE/VDgEYRtrFRI/AAAAAAAAFWA/U1spKvpA55c/s800/IMG_20141004_192045.jpg)
Locky found my neatly arranged socks particularly amusing... :crazy:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-RvKdPob2IVY/VDgEUgzEHKI/AAAAAAAAFVo/H7cXuqo1AcI/s800/IMG_20141004_164730.jpg)
We then started on some Jim Beam Red Stag that Locky had packed, obviously for relaxation purposes. After this had our evening meal, as uninspiring as we've come to expect from most hotels, but at least they had beer so we had some of that :)
The front doors of the hotel were plastered with stickers from all over so we decided to add a few of our own (see if you can spot them.)
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-VxIKqouBDso/VDqR0ty76EI/AAAAAAAAFio/cRNFeB5A5E8/s800/20141005_093332%2520%25281%2529.jpg)
OK, OK! I'll make it easier, shees! :grin:
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Gk7E5mPe5MU/VDqR1cVxNbI/AAAAAAAAFiw/7ymtaR8OKFs/s800/20141005_093338.jpg)
We sat around in the lounging area drinking beer and heard a bunch of off road sounding bikes arrive. Turns out they were a group of fire fighters from Spain and they come to Morocco quite often. They were going to do a fairly well known loop ride in the area tomorrow, it's known as Cirque de Jaffar, google it and you'll find lots of videos.
So a rather uneventful day, but a good resting day and someone has to do the laundry :)
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Proof that Locky doesn't wash :grin:
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He washed my stinking boxers, for the price of a few pints :)
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So you end up paying for the drinks again :)
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He washed my stinking boxers, for the price of a few pints :)
You wish! :grin:
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Day 9, Sunday 5 October:
Today the plan was to keep going north again so that we are closer to the ferry when the time comes to cross. We decided that we want to take scenic routes on roads that would also be fun to ride. We picked the roads as best as we could from how they looked on the maps and how high they go. The decision was made to head for Ketama and then find a place there to sleep. We were told the coastal routes are nice and this would put us in a good spot to take a coastal route towards Tangier Med. We also wanted to go past Fez to see what all the fuss was about so we picked a road that would skirt past so we can take a peek.
There was some 3 day long religious celebration going on and this meant that most shops and places were closed in the day and it would make it a bit more difficult getting food or anything we need. On the flip side it meant that there was very little traffic which made most of the roads a real pleasure to ride.
The weather was great, but up in the little mountain roads it was very nippy when you're just in your summer gear. I put the heated grips on, but even that doesn't keep the cold away. We took an alternative route on a whim and were riding through some high hills with lots of trees around. It was great, the air was as clean as it gets and because we were going at a fairly relaxed pace we could have a bit of a look around. As it goes, when you get cold you have to stop to take a leak every now and then.
And since we're stopping we might as well make a cuppa (and if you're as lazy as I am you just get Locky to do it :) )
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-TOCZPHXtmKo/VDgEXewzKyI/AAAAAAAAFV4/yzzFX_6b_cc/s800/IMG_20141005_134337.jpg)
Them broken off mirrors are great for holding open an adventurer's top box lid when you get the coffee and biscuits out...
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-esS7gcS_Bh4/VDqR1hdAi4I/AAAAAAAAFi8/VAptREXlB3o/s800/20141005_134154.jpg)
It was on this road that I noticed that my steering head bearings were loose. We didn't have a tool big enough to fix it so I had to live with it, at least it wasn't getting worse, but ever time I brake I could feel it rocking.
Not long after this we were skirting round the outside of Fez. What a disappointment, it's a dirty city, at least where we were. People were preparing goat's head (as part of this celebration) on the sidewalks with the fire directly on the pavement and using whatever metal bits they could get to keep it out of the ashes. It was a rough neighbourhood and people looked at us with the eyes of the malicious poor: to see what we had that they could take if they could get to it. We followed the lead of the rest of the sparse traffic and didn't stop at red lights or crossings, we only slowed down and crossed as quickly as you can safely. I was familiar with this, but I've not experienced it for a long time as I tend to avoid places like this in South Africa. I was leading with the satnav and made a the call not to stop in Fez at all, Locky would agree later (I'm sure if I did stop he'd think me crazy.) We didn't get any pictures and only felt safe when we were a fair few miles out of the city, though I still felt dirty for the next 50 miles after that before forgetting about it a bit.
We were now riding towards Ketama, this part of the country is very beautiful, but it was quite obvious that the roads here are more neglected than they've been so far. Things were also a little more dirty and we'd often see rubbish lying next to the road and burning. The smell from some of these was ghastly and the smoke choking if the wind carried it our way. The people were also not friendly any more, instead of kids waving and smiling they were now just staring as we passed by. I felt the people were restless and looked like they worried more than others we've come across. The relaxed atmosphere in most other towns was now one that was more tense. I realised why there weren't any hotels on our list in this area, this was the weed growing part of Morocco. This was the part the government turned a blind eye to and ignored, obvious by the state of the infrastructure here. I'd made a mistake taking us this way... The towns were often dusty and dirty and people were shouting at us to stop while making gestures of smoking, everyone and his dog was trying to sell us weed. Oddly most people trying to do this were dressed a bit better and looked a little cleaner than the rest, it must be a lucrative business. We got to Ketama and it was a unanimous decision that we're not staying over here by just looking at each other. I suggested we keep going towards Chefchaouen, we know that area is much safer. We didn't want to stop anywhere, but short of pissing in my pants we had to. I found a place where you couldn't see we're parked up until you were onto us and while I took a leak Locky got some pics (of the scenery...)
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-aqxcDTddVcI/VDqSgTfe61I/AAAAAAAAFs8/GUz5R58dlko/s800/2014-10-05%252017.07.56.jpg)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-l3ttRPIybyQ/VDqShrue_FI/AAAAAAAAFto/CX858iq4KtI/s800/2014-10-05%252017.08.01.jpg)
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-qlyUghKhsIY/VDqSilt_krI/AAAAAAAAFtQ/-6vv1ZBHWNY/s800/2014-10-05%252017.09.17.jpg)
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-5LqYx63G9Jg/VDqSjBYRriI/AAAAAAAAFtY/gLSvNiuEX5M/s800/2014-10-05%252017.09.22.jpg)
We set off from there and had an encounter of sorts. 4 men in an old Mercedes caught up with us and were honking and flashing lights showing for us to pull over while making smoking signs. When we didn't respond they dangerously overtook us down a mountain pass and then slowed down in front of us. I judged that they had no intention of hurting us, but I was fairly certain that if we did stop we'd not be getting any weed and we'd be relieved of some of our possessions at the very least. They didn't seem to want to give up telling us to stop. Ahead there was a pull over place coming up on the left, the driver put on his indicator and they showed for us to pull over. I nodded and gave them the thumbs up, slowed down a little and moved to the middle of the road so it looked like I was pulling over. They moved over and were slowing down to stop (these old Mercs are heavy), at this point we went around them wide and then put on some serious pace down the mountain pass. There was no way they were going to catch us, we were on bikes and were riding these type of roads all day long, we could shift like they've never seen. They didn't follow and we didn't stop to find out if they did. All this with my steering head bearings that were so loose the forks were rocking every corner I brake for (I had to use rear brake a bit to alleviate this, but I openly admit that I fear rear brake on road so I was gentle with it.)
It was getting cold now and the light was getting lower, we were still heading toward Chefchaouen and further away from Ketama. The occasional person would show for us to stop for weed, but they were a lot less frequent and a lot less aggressive now. I'd been holding a piss for very long and we made another stop. Some men in a car stopped where we were and said we should come with them "for eat and drink", we politely declined several times while I put my gear back on and then we quickly set off again. They were going the other way and were a lot less malicious in their manner, but then thieves are often friendly.
We kept going, hoping to find a place to sleep in an area that looked nice enough, but our luck was out. Eventually we made a quick stop so I could change my goggles lens from the orange one to a clear one as I could hardly see with it getting dark. We slaved on and arrived after dark, quite late, in Chefchaouen, booked in at a hotel that was right in front of the one we stayed at the previous time. The room was nice and clean and we were glad we slogged it here for the night. Our bikes were locked up where they were the previous time and we ate a the same hotel we stayed at the previous time.
Locky took the safe option:
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-oAPA_HNW-EA/VDqR2TLpfMI/AAAAAAAAFjA/kaidOCDQ0Sc/s800/20141005_210906.jpg)
The previous time we ate here the goat tagine was great, but this time they didn't have goat, only beef, so I went for that. It was good, but not near as good as the goat tagine was.
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-dv2LUp_uWoc/VDgEb3g8W4I/AAAAAAAAFWY/OkFHB0QEq0Y/s800/IMG_20141005_211031.jpg)
It has to be said, even with all the drama today the roads we were on were some of the best we've ever ridden anywhere in the world. The scenery was great as long as you're not near a shitty town to spoil it and you've never seen so many twists over a mountain pass as we'd seen this day. It was so twisty and demanding that it took serious concentration to ride them, especially when riding in the front when you haven't got the brake light of someone ahead to warn you of an particularly tight corner. If it wasn't for the people and the neglect, this would be the best part of Morocco, hands down. I'd even go as far as saying I'd want to ride there again if I could, just with more than 2 people next time so you have some 'protection' and look less vulnerable so people can leave you alone (and I'd want to do it on an unloaded SM!)
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Another good report Juv, but that all sounds to dodgy to me to want to go there.
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Very nice write-up and photos.
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Day 10, Monday 6 October:
We woke up to a great day, it was going to be fairly hot with sparse clouds and just a bit of a breeze. The room we were in was at the very top of the hotel and we had a key for the terrace.
We could see the bikes from up here:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-CY_XtPk0F4c/VDqR4yKZgjI/AAAAAAAAFjw/h9zeUErpkPA/s800/20141006_092157.jpg)
We had a good view of the town too because we were high up on the mountain side (posing like the real tourists we are!):
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-uswolY9aA8U/VDqSmXa0nmI/AAAAAAAAFuE/Zxw2kLzV-j4/s800/2014-10-06%252009.27.03.jpg)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-vD1kvxQIYLA/VDqSoW9LA4I/AAAAAAAAFuk/EXaB4uaress/s800/2014-10-06%252009.27.39.jpg)
I wanted to sort out my steering bearings before we continued so I asked around if someone had a tool that would fit the large nut on the steering stem. This is one of the only things we didn't pack tools for, I didn't think we'd need it. I got lucky, one of the blokes at the hotel said he had a few tools and I can check if there's anything that I can use. He wasn't kidding either, he only had a few: a flat headed screwdriver, a hammer and a mahoosive sliding wrench. The wrench was perfect, I felt very lucky because there were very few people around with the religious celebrations still going on and people mostly staying indoors. I got the nut off, everything tightened up and then everything back together in a decent amount of time. The steering was fixed and didn't give any other problems for the rest of the trip. If there's one thing I was at confident about on this trip, it was that, bar catastrophic failure, between Locky and myself, we'd be able to come up with some sort of fix for anything that could go wrong with a Strom.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-T2nOUczPW-A/VDqR5RkzcII/AAAAAAAAFlY/867iWFgSiyE/s800/20141006_100803.jpg)
Being in Chefchaouen meant we were now further north west than we planned to be today. We decided to back track a little bit on the road we came in, going south east, and then taking a road that goes north to get us to the coast. The road going north should be a bad road/piste and this would then be the last bad/off road riding we'd be doing. We would aim to stop in a place called Oued Laou for the night as we had a single hotel there on the GPS. We got some water, loaded up and set off, the roads were still very quiet and we had a good ride to where we'd turn off for the bad/off road bit. It turns out the decision to do this was a good one, the road was very varied which made for good riding. In some places it was tarred, in others is was just dirt, sometimes it had bigger stones everywhere and all the time it would be snaking around and up and down. There were road "repairs", nothing more than someone dumping gravel in a big pot hole, fine for cars, not so great for bikes and they often seem to be in the braking zone for corners. We had to take it slowly and we did for the most part, 15-25mph was probably the average pace we moved at depending on the road surface. This road wasn't one that was travelled much, there was the very occasional car and the tiny villages it went through were looking like they were almost abandoned. People were friendly again and we kept the noise down through these villages. Some of the villages were quite obviously farming communities, there was water running in and across the road in places and we had a bit of mud to deal with, nothing serious though. We cleared the bad roads with a bit of a "why did it end, we want more" feeling and it turned into a fairly decent bit of tarmac so we picked up speed a bit.
It was all going fine, Locky was riding ahead and I was following with a gap, both of us at a relaxed pace keeping one eye on the road and the other on the views. Most of the road was on the side of a mountain, no barriers and no real space between the edge of the road and the fresh air on the side of the cliff. On one straightish bit this was slightly different, there was about a 2 foot ditch in the side of the road and an outcrop with some buildings on it. I was passing the buildings when a man came out and waved at me with both arms. The moment it took me to look at him and back at the road was a moment too long, I'd run out of road. There was a sharp left turn in front of me and I wasn't going to make it. I put the brakes on and leant the bike over as much as I could to the left. It wasn't enough, I hit the edge of the road, the front wheel went onto the gravel, it slid out from under me and I fell on my left side. It was a weird fall, the Strom went into the ditch on the right side of the road with the front wheel first. The wheel hit the wall of the ditch and deflected to the left, the bike's right side hit the side of the ditch hard and then the rear of the bike, with me somewhat under it, swung around and hit me very hard on the shoulder. I got up by myself, had to pull my leg out from under the bike, it wasn't stuck, just under because the rear pannier frames had served as a crash bar. Suddenly there were people everywhere, about 8 of them, no idea where they were hiding before this, I never saw them. Locky had heard me fall behind him so he'd turned around and was coming over too. They seemed to be helpful, they helped me pick the bike up and, in my usual cautious mode, I was keeping a hawk eye to make sure nothing is going to grow feet and walk off with them. My top box was badly damaged, lots of plastic trim broken off making holes all around, the pieces are likely still out there. It could still latch so we just duct taped it so nothing would fall out. The people wanted us to come in to their house to eat and drink, but I was hurting and I wasn't keen on the idea. There were too many of them and even though they were more of the friendly kind I wasn't in the mood for it, I wanted to get going ASAP, we could stop somewhere else where there are no people. I knew nothing was broken so we set off again.
We had about an hour and a half to 2 hours to go to get where we wanted to be. We rode for a little while and found a place to stop where it looked like no one would bother us. It was time to access the damage, first to myself.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-OjDDOp7f1WQ/VDqR6LjxbiI/AAAAAAAAFj0/IWjZxzxI60o/s800/20141006_144338.jpg)
I'd damaged some ligaments in my shoulder, they still aren't healed properly 6 months on and I recently tweaked the same shoulder falling while playing football. I had a hole in my right elbow where a stone had poked me, on the inside of my arm, it was bleeding and soaking my armour and my MX jersey. I wasn't really dressed for road riding, I should've had the summer textile jacket on, but I've been riding with only armour and an MX jersey for most of the day (lesson learned, one that I should've already known :GRR: ) You can see the blood on the right elbow and the clothes I was wearing. I always say boots and gloves are very important pieces of gear some people don't spend enough on, I stand by that, if it wasn't for wearing good boots I could've easily had a broken leg/ankle that day. I had a large graze on my right hip, had another large graze on the top of my left arse cheek going up into my lower back on the left, good thing I was wearing textile trousers. I also over extended my neck muscles on the right side and sprained my right wrist a bit. Overall I was lucky, I could've gone over a cliff...
The bike had taken lots of damage too, both sides of the crash bars were damaged and hit with enough force to bend in:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-ZFvDJ0m_foc/VDqR6fA-HoI/AAAAAAAAFkI/zBqIMyJN9io/s800/20141006_144346.jpg)
Other than this the left mirror and handguard were scratched up, both side tank panels were scratched up, the front black plastic cowl around the headlight had big scratches, the headlight had a deep scratch in it (luckily out of the way of the main beams), the forks had twisted in the triple clamps (edit: I later, months afterwards, discovered that both forks were significantly bent), the front mudguard had lots of scratches in it, the left footpegs, front and rear, had damage, the rear pannier rack also had damage and my seat had a small tear in it. If I bought new parts to repair it all then it'd cost me more than what the bike is worth. Needless to say, I was extremely fekking pee'd off with myself since I'd only finished restoring it all a few months before we left for Morocco.
There was no time to fix anything, we needed to keep moving to get to where we wanted to be so I could get cleaned up. We still had an hour and a half of riding to do to get where we wanted to be. We continued and got onto the coastal road, it was a brilliant road, I was riding in front so I could go at a comfortable pace, but I wasn't taking it too easy. The road was good grippy tar with a smooth surface and this time there were barriers everywhere. It would've been better to not be hurting and to have a bike that had straight forks, but even so this was a great road to ride, a little consolation prize after the fall. We got to Oued Laou and found the hotel, I was hurting like hell so Locky went in to go check it out and get prices. He came out looking very unimpressed, this was bad news as we hadn't seen any other place, the town is very quiet and we don't have any other hotels on the GPS. Then our luck changed a bit, a bloke came over and said he knew about an apartment we could rent. We decided we'd check it out and if it was shitty we'd figure something else out. He ran up the road and we followed him and ended up at a lady's house. Apparently she managed the apartment for someone else and she went and showed us around. The apartment was right on the beach and it had hot water, I was sold! The price wasn't bad at all, I didn't bother bargaining and gave the fixer bloke some money for his trouble (well, he insisted and I thought it was fair enough.) We carried our stuff up and they even locked the bikes away for us in a weird little room they had nearby.
Right on the beach:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-C35O7S39UYM/VDqR8PFzCrI/AAAAAAAAFko/qnikEEfafyI/s800/20141006_165129.jpg)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-0IfT14PTLOs/VDqR-L_sC8I/AAAAAAAAFlI/GCgklK4Q4aQ/s800/20141006_170848.jpg)
We were in the top one:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-rHauQDmXiGY/VDqR8g87TjI/AAAAAAAAFkc/dy7aA5SlXnw/s800/20141006_170827.jpg)
There were some chickens scratching around outside:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Uv_kFhSLcBA/VDqR9rtkSRI/AAAAAAAAFlg/Hp0yjXtk91I/s800/20141006_170841.jpg)
I took my gear off, cleaned up my bleeding arm and Locky patched it over for me. At this point I'd lost a bit of blood and I was feeling a tad light headed from the pain for the last 2 hours. I had a sit down, as I were, and wasn't all that impressed that Locky was pointing a camera at me.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-sIvcfnhY3jE/VDqR7CfVLeI/AAAAAAAAFkk/4TS8E0ZAjy0/s800/20141006_165115.jpg)
You can also see the damaged, duct taped, top box.
A close up, not that you can see anything much. It was still bleeding, in hindsight, it probably should've had two stitches, but there was a slim chance of that out there anyway:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-_MGEkdhMUKk/VDqR8e027hI/AAAAAAAAFkg/5tPjBy5NWTk/s800/20141006_165140.jpg)
We were hungry so we took a walk up the road to see if any shops were open, asked two girls and got pointed to a little shop not far from where we were. When we got there the selection was very small so we picked what was in tins and packets that looked like something we'd eat.
This was dinner:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-6816CQatvIE/VDqR-o3TttI/AAAAAAAAFk8/3EhFy4ii4jo/s800/20141006_182222.jpg)
Tinned sardines, various sweet "cakes", some water and some orange colour drink. It went down pretty well, I hadn't had sardines in a while and I really like them, they were good.
We got showered, I washed the blood out of my armour and MX jacket and hung it up to dry and then it wasn't all that long before we went to sleep. Being the injured party I got the double bed, Locky was a good friend and didn't complain about the couch bed. I slept fairly well, but I was randomly awake because of the injuries.
It was another day we'd remember.
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I was hoping you were going to finish this report Juv.
Not the best day to have to type up though.
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Yes, maybe that's why I took so long to get around to it :shy:
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Great read so far blokes. Shame about the accident. You may not have felt like it at the time but you were lucky.
Enjoying the read.
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Day 11, Tuesday 7 October:
Waking up and hearing the sea is always a pleasant thing for me, this morning was one like that. The weather looked great and the sleep had done me well, but I was stiff and really sore, particularly my shoulder and neck.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Cj5VU5rpjp4/VDqR_rLtG9I/AAAAAAAAFlM/6W-camW5FlE/s800-Ic42/20141007_082733.jpg)
We packed up and Locky got the bikes out from the storage area they were in. In my state I was hurting too much to be of any real use, but once sat on the bike I was OK to ride without much problem. We had a rather quick and uneventful ride to the ferry port which wasn't far away from where we stayed for the night. After we bought ourselves some tickets we had to get X-rayed. This was quite weird, they made a lot of us stop on a slightly elevated concrete slab, leave the cars and bikes there and then gather in a shaded area to the side. Next to the slab was a truck that had a huge U-shaped arm-thingy mounted to it's side so that it could reach over all the vehicles on the slab. The truck had some x-ray machine installed in it and then drove up along the slab slowly scanning all the vehicles as it passed by them. I thought this was quite clever, they could scan a lot of vehicles in one go and it was over in minutes as opposed to possibly queueing for a much longer time. When they were done with the scan they sent us all back and we drove off to go queue for the ferry. Bikes get loaded last on ferries, but at least this means we get out first when you get to the other side. It was hot in the sun, but I think we were now more used to the heat than when we first came into Morocco (squinting in the sun with a Buff on my head makes me look more dodgy than usual!)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-wpzAgxfOlz0/VDqSAOb6QDI/AAAAAAAAFl0/P-smr_31Mnk/s800-Ic42/20141007_124847.jpg)
There were two blokes on GSes behind us in the queue so we struck up a conversation for a while. I noticed that one of their bikes had a number plate hanging by a single bolt. In true adventure style the GS blokes weren't prepared for this serious technical problem, only having their roadside assistance cards with them. Luckily Locky was there to save the day, out came some spare bolts and tools and it was fixed in a jiffy.
Bye bye Morocco.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-TuOf26dNyCk/VDqSAt-aKeI/AAAAAAAAFlo/dEaoFEiPIJk/s800-Ic42/20141007_141236.jpg)
We crossed over to Malaga, but on the way back up we were going up the west side of the country rather than the way we came. This took us on some really great twisty mountain roads and it was a joy to ride even with twisted forks and being sore. The weather was hot and dry and it made for some great riding, up over the hills/mountains the temperature was cooler, but still quite warm.
We stopped at a few places for a rest, this was one of the views:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-DxtveZTxscM/VDqSB_jV8hI/AAAAAAAAFnw/GPVD_r5SumA/s800-Ic42/20141007_181724.jpg)
We managed to get as far as Ronda by late afternoon so decided to stay there as it was a decent sized town. We told the satnav to take us to a hotel, but it took us almost out of town and when we got there there was nothing :GRR: We went back into town and found a 3 star hotel that turned out to be the best place we'd slept in all of the trip and it was priced pretty well too. We can definitely recommend Hotel Molino, breakfast was also very good.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-k_tbOmZnqAM/VDqSEpZr9hI/AAAAAAAAFmk/YoFRz6kStno/s800-Ic42/20141008_095043.jpg)
This was the view down the street in front of the hotel, very very different compared to how it would look in Morocco.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-TzleCbhbqe4/VDqSFfXSPsI/AAAAAAAAFnY/3C-dQg1eEx8/s800-Ic42/20141008_095656.jpg)
Ronda was quite a nice little town, I'd quite like to go back there and to that area for a holiday in the future. It was clean, friendly and everyone seemed to be happy and enjoy whatever they were doing in the late afternoon sun. The cobblestone roads and buildings are pretty too.
After we'd secured the bikes, unloaded them and got ourselves cleaned up we walked down town to find a place to eat. We ended up sat in an alley outside a restaurant and had a good meal and a drink or two. The cool evening air was nice and the temperature was definitely less than it would've been in Morocco, it was a good spot to relax after the day's crossing and ride.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-UoqD1afMcS4/VDqSEfTc1CI/AAAAAAAAFoA/rM4Ie7R_3Ew/s800-Ic42/20141007_223102.jpg)
After all that there was little else to do than lowering the shutters in front of the hotel room windows and getting a good night's sleep.
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:clap: Keep them coming.
I was in Tangier a few weeks ago and saw that Rolling X-Ray system scanning a group of GS's.
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I plan to finish off the last few days in relatively quick succession, we still have a surprise on the ferry to report on :)
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:eusa-doh:
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Day 12, Wednesday 8 October:
Well, there's not much to say about Wednesday really. This was our slog day up through Spain. Great small twisty roads turned into larger straighter roads turned into motorways and the riding became more boring the further north we went except for the occasional good stretch through a mountain pass or such.
The weather also started out very good (as can be seen in the below pictures), but it changed the further north we went and we ended up riding in heavy rain and cold for hours. We tried to get as far north as we could so that we didn't have too far to go the next day. Considering the weather conditions and my condition we made good time. I had developed a bike problem, the Strom was using some oil. I first noticed this in Morocco, but it wasn't getting worse quickly then, by now though, I was checking oil almost each time we stopped and having to top it up every now and then. We ended up at Valladolid and stayed at "Hostal Restaurante Paco". We were dripping wet and it was the only place we had on the satnav, but it turned out to be OK. The coffee was good, the rooms were extremely basic, the beds weren't great, just OK, they had hot water and the rooms were clean. We ate in the "restaurant" which was more like a fixed menu place that only opened at certain times. There were some Dutch truckers and other travellers, it's a sort of motorway services hotel. The food wasn't great at all, but we got fed, were dry and slept well.
Some pictures from earlier in the day when we stopped for a break when the weather was still good. There wasn't much else to take pictures of and when it started raining we weren't going to faff with cameras.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-TIVzNbKDkY0/VDqSGuK4PiI/AAAAAAAAFnM/N_YtV0WaAnI/s800-Ic42/20141008_153916.jpg)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-TTxNZthPlXM/VDqSFyIwS9I/AAAAAAAAFm0/gxE0YvxhyyI/s800-Ic42/20141008_153440.jpg)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-TbLwP_T4PAs/VDqSGA3j55I/AAAAAAAAFm8/VBMWyxWCvxI/s800-Ic42/20141008_153449.jpg)
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Day 13, Thursday 9 October:
The weather was still a bit wet, but we had a ferry to catch so we set off for Bilbao. At least it wasn't raining as fiercely as it did the day before and it wasn't as cold either.
Here we stopped for a break and Locky took a quick photo on his phone:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-gOX3X0AeIKg/VDqSHN0GCzI/AAAAAAAAFng/wkgFe5Odtzg/s800-Ic42/20141009_103657.jpg)
Next stop was at the ferry port, there were a lot of bikes in the queue and we found 2 blokes on Ténérés who also just came up from Morocco and had a bit of a chin wag, as you do.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-NJeTlyb8awQ/VDqSHZALT5I/AAAAAAAAFnU/wtEG6vRTyuw/s800-Ic42/20141009_144136.jpg)
This was going to be our boat out:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-T6wkQNofTCU/VDqSH7-SG7I/AAAAAAAAFnk/vgxgWaQp-2w/s800-Ic42/20141009_144207.jpg)
While boarding we had a nice surprise: we bumped into a local celebrity and arranged to meet up with him in the lounge after stashing our gear, showering and getting into clean, comfy clothes. I was starving so I got myself a sandwich and found a nice spot to sit and eat. Locky found the sign on the wall very amusing :grin:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-6xRioUIjISI/VDqSITKpWcI/AAAAAAAAFno/ZUSmvs_owQI/s800-Ic42/20141009_152502.jpg)
Not long after our celebrity arrived: Enduro Alexis! Obviously we had to pose for a group picture at this point, makes me smile each time I see it :)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/--DVobWISLcE/VDqSIzMKrkI/AAAAAAAAFoE/iEcMbLUDoT4/s800-Ic42/20141009_155037.jpg)
We had another good chin wag with Alexis about all manner of things.
It was noticeable how empty the lounge area was getting as the sea was getting rougher. People were all returning to their cabins to have a lie down and we thought it'd be a good idea to follow suit. On the way to the cabin the ghastly smell of puke wafted through the corridors, this doesn't help at all when you're already feeling a little queasy yourself... I took some more seasick tablets and had a lie down, we listened to some music and talked about whatever came up. Then it was time to put ear plugs in and sleep.
Day 14, Friday 10 October:
It was a rough journey, but we arrived safely to the UK. We had some breakfast, packed up and, once docked, disembarked and went through customs.
In the customs queue, the last view we had of our boat:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-fZBbh2UKbME/VDqSLRbf5WI/AAAAAAAAFog/xu_V84czVv8/s800-Ic42/20141010_102504.jpg)
Right after going through customs I stopped and topped up the oil. We found a petrol station and fueled up and then set off for home. Other than having to stop a few times to check/top up the oil it was just a slightly wet and uneventful ride back. We stopped for lunch and to compare the tyres on the bikes before setting off in our own directions for home.
When I arrived home I parked the Strom and, as it turns out, that was the last time I ever rode it. It's now SORNed and being broken and sold for parts. You could say the Strom has served it's purpose for many years, as a commuter, as a fun B-road bomber, as a overly heavy off road bike, as a tourer in Europe, as an adventurer in Africa. It's gone out on a high and I'll always remember the good times it's given me and the astounding reliability I've had from it.
This is one of the fondest memories I'll keep of the Strom: Parked up next to Locky's at a well, in a desert in the middle of nowhere in Morocco, on a very hot day, with me resting in the tiny bit of shade I could find and the Strom not complaining at about all the punishment I've ever put it through :thumb:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Xyrsyly4ZxM/VDqSb9z6wtI/AAAAAAAAFr8/YyZiQ_gvGME/s800-Ic42/2014-10-02%25252014.13.39.jpg)
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Thanks for finishing this Juv. It's been a good read. :thumb:
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Bravo bravo,
What a wonderful write up.Thoroughly enjoyed it even though it had a sad ending with the demise of a wonderful bike. :bawl:
:ty: