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.

Day 1 – 360km Tuesday 03/04/2012 Tarifa – Chefchaouen – Mokrisset – Zoumi – Fes

Got up nice and early to catch the 09:00 FRS fast ferry from Tarifa to Tangiers. Sam kindly guided me down to the port where I purchased on open return ticket for €111. The rain was pouring down and I was already wet having neglected to put on my waterproof trousers…. The crossing was pretty uneventful despite the amazing thunder / lightening / rain storm.

Got my passport stamped by some Moroccan immigration guys on the ferry itself which saved a bit of hassle later on. Going through Moroccan customs wasn’t too bad. I’d filled-in all of the ‘temporary importation’ papers for the motorbike on-line to save the hassle of filling-in loads of forms at the port. The older customs guy insisted that I fill-in the ‘yellow form’ again which I wasn’t happy with and all the touts were trying to make a fast buck by ‘helping’ me. Eventually I found a younger customs officer who was familiar with the Internet form and said that everything was in order, but the older guy still had a problem and kept me waiting for ages. Eventually he sent me to see a Policeman in an office who made a correction to my CIN (Moroccan ID number) which wasn’t stamped very clearly in my passport from an earlier visit to Marrakech.

Left the port in the pouring rain and rolled straight into a petrol station where I met some Italian bikers sheltering from the rain. Moreno, Martino and Graciano were a nice bunch of guys riding old, but well kept, Tenere and XL600 bikes. We compared notes and it looked like we were travelling a very similar route so we all stuck together until Fes. We chose to take the ‘scenic’ route which would have been great, but the roads were narrow, windy, full of holes and slippery due to the rain. Things got worse when we eventually got fog so we didn’t get to see the nice views. Sensibly, the guys decided that we wouldn’t make it to Fes before night time if we continued on this route so we took a ‘short-cut’ back onto the main road. I loved the ‘short-cut’ but it was very muddy at times so we all got caked in yellow mud.

We finally rolled into Fes at last light and kindly the guys let me share their room in a lovely Riad called ‘Sara’. The accommodation was pretty central and it really was impossible to find so Graciano enlisted the services of a moped guide. The Riad entrance was situated in a very narrow alleyway so we had to unload the bikes and then leave them in a guarded underground parking just down the road.

Didn’t want to get in the way of my fellow riders, so went for a meal on my own to a tiny restaurant where the owner served me red-wine in Coke bottles and told me to keep it quiet. Moroccan Cola. It tasted of rubber tyres but had the desired effect and I didn’t get the trots from it, so all good. Finally managed to find a working cash-point and got 2000 Dirhams out on my Caxton FX Global Traveller Card (most economical way to officially get cash out abroad) before hitting the sack.