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We had flown into Ouarazazate late on a Thursday night in May of 2008, and had a not very restful nights sleep before waking nervous and excited (to be honest it was mostly nervous by this time). Final preparations and briefing took place outside the hotel in full body armour, boots etc preceded a short minibus ride to a line of gleaming KTM 400 enduro bikes. After instructions on the GPS devices on each bike, we slung our legs over our allotted bike before heading 500 yds down the road to fill up with fuel. It was only really here, after tales of slippery tyres, that I realised that all the bikes had brand new tyres on them. It was just a surface indication of the preparation lavished on the bikes.
After a short ride along the road, it was onto our first tracks. Hard-packed and stony, the tracks needed caution initially as I got used to the bike. We rode along a plateau and then dropped down into valleys with villages along the banks of dried river beds. The villages were a startling reality check; virtually all the houses appeared to be built from mud and straw, with a number of them crumbling and apparently abandoned. We went through a number of such villages receiving friendly waves from the children. More plains and tracks along the sides of hills. Caution was needed, as the tracks were cut with washouts where rains had scoured out channels across the path of the track.
Again there were sharp contrasts between the barren plains with only sporadic scrub and the river beds which although dry had large lush green shrubs with pretty pink / purple flowers. We were riding up the Vallee du Dades (Valley of the Roses) sometimes apparently literally. Time was spent in a dry stony river-bed, the riding hard as we bounced and rattled across the rocks. Nonetheless, the views were still able to force me to stop; one such was a spectacular hill clearly showing it’s curved rock strata dark against a clear blue sky.
Coming up from the river bed we stopped for lunch. Surprisingly only about five minutes after stopping John from Motoaventures arrived in his Unimog, a large robust-looking 4x4 which provided support throughout the tour. Onboard was not only our picnic lunch, but a complete medical kit, water, fuel, spare parts and even a spare bike. Along with John was Hussein, our mechanic, whose diligence throughout the tour ensured that the spare bike was never needed. The afternoon started across plains and through tiny poverty-stricken villages where the children waved and held their hands out. We had been told that they wanted to slap hands, and warned that their 12 year old hands were more than a match for soft British bikers. So it proved for me when one young tyke took a backswing and the resultant blow of our hands was eye-wateringly hard and left my hand stinging for a couple of minutes.
We followed the route of a river for a while, the vegetation both more plentiful and much more lush; habitation clearly also followed this vital resource. It had already been a day of culture shocks and another was around a corner as a group of women were washing clothes in the river, then hanging the clothes on bushes to dry. If I had thought about it, the sight should not have surprised me, but it did. How different is their life from mine.
Our surroundings were starting to become more mountainous and the tracks rougher. After one particularly rocky, rutted downhill section, I was amazed to come around the next corner to find an old Renault 5 going in our direction. It had obvious just come down the exact same stretch. As we so often did, we got a friendly wave from the driver. The track wound along a hillside and through an archway dug through an imposing rockface. From here the track took us into a medium sized town. It was the first time I really noticed the smell of the country we were travelling through. It was not unpleasant. It was the rich and complex aroma of a busy Moroccan town. The smell of cooking mingled with that of a donkey and the fumes from vehicles.
As we came up out of the town, the three girls in the group really seemed to get a new lease of life and started to push the pace. For the next twenty minutes we charged along at a surprising and slightly worrying pace. I say worrying because from before the trip even started I had been concerned about being the slowcoach. At 44, I was not the oldest in the group (the honours go to Sven), but I am not that fast, and having everybody waiting for me for five days did not appeal. Now here I was on the first day, hanging on to the back of the group, going as fast as reasonable sense dictated, and breathing hard. The track dipped and twisted with large rocks, washouts and a variety of different surfaces to watch out for. It was not looking good until we eventually stopped. I was gratified and relieved to see everyone (except Patsy, of course) looking slightly frazzled and a few muttered comments about “arms killing me” etc. Shortly afterwards we hit a road and quickly to our next stopping point, a petrol station with café attached. Cold soft drinks all around. We had been going for around 5 hours, I felt knackered and it was around 3pm.
Then came our choice for the day; it was either along off-road tracks up into the Atlas mountains and back to our hotel a journey of some 96km or a shorter route of around 50kms all on the road. John succinctly posed the question “So, who wants to take the homo route back?”. Unsurprisingly there were no takers, although it was slightly daunting to consider we were only 60% of the way through the days riding. I quickly downed two energy bars, an electrolyte drink, and as much water as my stomach could hold. We were off again.
Initially we raced across flat barren rock-strewn plains toward the distant mountains. The nearer we came to the mountains, the more twisty the track became until we were snaking up hillsides with switchbacks every hundred yards. I was leading the group trying to negotiate the terrain, keep up an acceptable pace and every now and then grab a quick glance at the GPS to check we were going the right direction. It was easy to follow the GPS, you were represented by a little arrow, and you just followed the line on the screen. No other symbols were needed, or present, on the screen. It was therefore disconcerting when I glanced down to see an arrow, but no line. Cue five large motorbikes trying to turn around in a narrow track. Patsy was of course waiting at the junction I had missed with a wry smile and a comment about what a good lesson it was.
Still up on a high plateau, Patsy took us into a sandy dry river bed. The advice was to sit slightly back, keep the throttle open and avoid other bikes tracks. It was a blast in all senses of the word. The advice worked, although the sensation of both wheels moving around underneath you was initially unnerving. Some of the guys were really flying, and when we stopped everybody was buzzing. The terrain changed again as we came down from the heights of the mountains with the track snaking along the hillsides and then doubling back on itself. The difference with the descent was of course that we had the assistance of gravity. This was definitely not an advantage when I came into one corner too fast and spotted the drop I was heading for if I ran wide. I scraped around the very outside of the corner, the fright / shock giving me a massive jolt of adrenaline. A little more caution required. I eventually did get into a rhythm with the bike and the track; it all seemed to flow and I was feeling good. A stop to watch a group of camels topped this off as a really memorable section of the day.
Eventually the track came down onto a wide dusty plain. It was getting late and the sun was now quite low. The bikes in front were kicking up dust and combined with the low sun made visibility difficult. As we came into a village, it seemed that the sun really was getting to me, as I saw a massive bundle of crops swaying along the track. As I passed and looked back, it was a woman carrying a huge harvest across her back. Real life in Morocco.
We emerged onto a road, and after five minutes were standing in front of the hotel, exultant. It was 7.20pm and we had covered 270kms virtually all on rough tracks. Ten minutes later the adrenaline wore off, and it hit me. Shattered does not begin to describe it. Exhausted. Numb. In shock. Incapable of doing more than sitting. What an incredible day.
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