Locky & Juv's Morocco Trip (Sep/Oct 2014)

[mjc506]

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.

[Juvecu]

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.

[geekay]

enjoying this thread - keep it up!

looks like  great trip!

[Juvecu]

Day 8, Saturday 4 October:

We slept well and had a good breakfast before we set off for the day.



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.



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.



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!



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.







Locky found my neatly arranged socks particularly amusing...



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.)



OK, OK! I'll make it easier, shees! 



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

[MartinW]

Proof that Locky doesn't wash  

[Locky]

He washed my stinking boxers, for the price of a few pints  

[MartinW]

So you end up paying for the drinks again  

[Juvecu]

He washed my stinking boxers, for the price of a few pints  

You wish!

[Juvecu]

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 )




Them broken off mirrors are great for holding open an adventurer's top box lid when you get the coffee and biscuits out...



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...)









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:



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.



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!)

[MartinW]

Another good report Juv, but that all sounds to dodgy to me to want to go there.

[Brockett]

Very nice write-up and photos.

[Juvecu]

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:



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!):





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.



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.



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 ) 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:



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:





We were in the top one:



There were some chickens scratching around outside:



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.



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:



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:



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.

[MartinW]

I was hoping you were going to finish this report Juv.

Not the best day to have to type up though.

[Juvecu]

Yes, maybe that's why I took so long to get around to it

[Twiggy]

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.

[Juvecu]

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.



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!)



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.



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:



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  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.



This was the view down the street in front of the hotel, very very different compared to how it would look in Morocco.



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.



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.

[MartinW]

Keep them coming.

I was in Tangier a few weeks ago and saw that Rolling X-Ray system scanning a group of GS's.

[Juvecu]

I plan to finish off the last few days in relatively quick succession, we still have a surprise on the ferry to report on

[Fat Rat]

[Juvecu]

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.