Day 3 – 125km Thursday 05/04/2012 Meski – Erfoud – Merzouga

It was a long night with the heavy rain persisting and me getting wet. The thunder cracked right through the night and I didn’t get much sleep. Cooked myself some noodles for breakfast whilst still in my sleeping bag. Thank God the sun came out so I managed to at least part dry my gear before moving on.

Made it through Erfoud into Merzouga very quickly and with no problems. The sun has come out and it’s boiling hot at last. The dunes of Erg Chebbi look superb. Have now checked into a small family run auberge made of mud/straw which is only about £13 a night with breakfast. At this price camping isn’t worth the effort especially as I want to get away quickly tomorrow to attempt my super long off-road journey to Zagora, or at least somewhere in between.

Bike has been rattling along with no problems so far, although the rear sub-frame looks bent through over-loading (no cracks yet though). Want to dump my entire luggage and have a play in the sand dunes now…….

Had a go on the sand dunes of Erg Chebbi – very, very hard work as you need to gun it all the time or you sink. That said you need to know how to ‘read’ the hardness of the different bits of sand, which I can’t, as the really soft stuff will stop you no matter what. Was a bit worried about crashing and falling down particularly the smaller dunes and breaking a collar-bone or something. As a result I took it slow over the dune crests and got stuck a lot – to get the bike out and moving again is exhausting. The hotel owner’s friend is now telling me not to do the Zagora piste on my own, it’s 280km with no fuel en-route – will be tight.

Day 2 – 380km Wednesday 04/04/2012 Fes – Ifrane – Midelt – Ar-Rachidia – Source bleue de Meski

Had a good breakfast at the very nice Riad Sara in Fes before saying goodbye to my new Italian friends. It would have been fun to travel with them as we were both following a similar route, but unfortunately I had to up the tempo as I had little time to play with and a lot of ground to cover. At this stage I still haven’t sorted-out insurance for the motorbike ‘Assurance Frontiere’ as the office in the Tangier port was shut. Think I’ll give it a miss now.

Made good progress to Ifrane which is 1650m above sea level and a popular ski-resort in the winter. Saw the impressive Presidential Snow Palace before hitting the road again toward Azrou and then Midelt. The road was very high up and I endured lots of rain and hail. I was really pleased that I’d packed my winter gloves, warm clothes and under helmet balaclava. Midelt was a cool place in every sense of the word and the sun even came out for a short while to warm my bones. I chose to ride on through the cold / rain / mist through the well known Gorges du Ziz (which I didn’t even see due to the poor visibility) and on into Ar-Rachidia. I didn’t like the look of the town and wasn’t feeling tired so pushed-on towards Erfoud. At this point a huge storm started and it got very dark, in between the lightening flashes……

Luckily, before the heavens opened, I made it to a camp-site at the Source bleue de Meski where I put up my tent in the fading light. It’s absolutely pouring down as I write and my cheapo tent is already leaking – oh joy, another interesting night.