Hi all, Sorry its been a couple of days since I last wrote, a lack of a suitable internet connection I'm afraid.
We left the luxury hotel at Quarzazate what, 3 days ago now and after messing around in Quarzazate trying to find a garage with an airline, to pump up the rear tyre that had been punctured to the correct pressure, we left with a full tank of fuel and headed on the R307 road to Demnate, which we expected to be a piste, but was in fact a fairly good narrow, but tarmaced road, passing a group of the first camels we had seen, grazing freely by the road, in what was, more or less, a desert like terrain i.e. flat and barren for miles and a more or less straight road, heading for the mountains in the distance and once into the mountains, the roads became more interesting with lots of twists & turns and spectacular views, the road was quite tricky in places, where it had deteriorated, but we found that they were repairing it along the way, but had to watch out for the sudden changes in road surfaces from tarmac, with potholes, to gravel, particularly as most of the damage was on the bends. After Demote, we were on normal roads until we arrived at our intended accommodation at Zebra Camping, Cascades d'Ouzoud.
Camping, you might say? we had no intention of camping, I'm carrying enough kit as it is, but they do have some small bungalows (rooms/huts) it was difficult to describe, but it was actually okay, the only pain being that the toilet/shower block was about 100 meters away.
Whilst at Zebra Camping we met up (pre-arranged) with none other than Tim Cullis who is the acknowledged expert on motor cycle travel in Morocco (over 40 years worth, if I recall correctly) and was on a solo tour on his KTM690. We had a walk to the nearby waterfalls (hence Cascades d'Ouzoud) which, in my eyes, was a rather tacky tourist attraction (but then I am a miserable B), the waterfalls were quite spectacular, but spoil by too many stalls and locals selling tacky souvenirs. It was good exercise too, going down the stairs to the bottom and then up again
Afterwards we had a good meal at the Zebra (no beer) and Tim gave us some great advice for our our route planning for the rest of this trip and even worked out a route and downloaded it onto Grahams GPS.Next morning, after breakfast, we had a short ride down the road with Tim, before we parted our ways, with Tim heading off towards Imilchil (thanks Tim, great to meet you), where we had already been, and us initially heading towards Marrakesh and then turning off shortly before the city to take the R203 towards Tahanaoute, stopping to refuel, I worked out that the little GS was now doing over 80mpg (full tank to full tank) giving over 200 miles to a tank full, but then I'm a gentle rider.
We got to Asni by late afternoon and took the turn to Imil, a dead end road, which ended at this village in the mountains which catered for walking and other mountain activities. Tim had given us the name of a place to stay there, we drove past the hotel owned by Richard Branson, which is only for rich folks and were caught in a procession of vehicles making their way up the narrow mountain road, both of us had close encounters with a very aggressive driver of a transit van who was in a hurry and was overtaking like a crazy man, we just let him by, he was only just getting out of the van when we arrived at Imil.
Sorry Tim, but there was no way I was going to stop at that village, it was dirty and there where lots of dodgy looking characters around, touting for business. We found somewhere to turn around and headed straight back down again, the only concession was that it was a good ride down.
We couldn't see anywhere to stay at Asni, so carried on the route that we had intended to take the next day, towards Agadir and the coast, when we spotted the Tsar Shama Hotel at Ouirgane. It looked a bit posh (expensive) with a long drive and extensive grounds, but were tired and had enough of riding. So, after establishing a price of 500 MD, with breakfast, booked in (after adding drinks and dinner it was 860MD) It was a nice hotel, lovely grounds, large swimming pool, spa, several reception rooms, good food, should have perhaps stayed 2 nights to take advantage of the facilities. One minus factor is that when I pulled back the sheet, to get into bed I spotted a bug, it was only a small bug, which I squashed, but it did put me off a bit, as I knew the bed had been made up after we arrived (I saw it before it was made up) So I got out my silk sleeping bag liner and slept in that instead.
Next morning we were off on the R203, on a great mountain road, twists & turns, up and down, honestly as good as anything I have experienced in the Alps, when we arrived at the highest point of the road at Tizi-n-Test, it literally took your breath away the view was amazing, I wish I had a camera that could capture it all, I don't know how far it was you could see, but its many miles, there is a restaurant there and sat on the terrace drinking coffee & biscuits & that view.The ride down from the mountains was great too, then we reached broad expanse of flat plains, all the way to the coast at Agadir. I didn't like the look of Agadir, it looked too busy for me, we headed for the coast road towards Essaouira (N1) thinking there would be lots of places to stay en-route. There was not, it was a not a bad road, the view was good, it has lots of twists and turns, but it was windy, a strong wind blowing in from the sea and at times blowing the little GS and me around on the road, and I was tired, but we kept going, until we arrived in Essaouira at about 5pm. There was a back up plan...
We had accommodation booked at Dar Dayana, within the old city walls & the Medina, from Monday 2nd to Sunday 8th May, as our respective wives Ceri & Tracy are flying out to join us for 5 nights.
Arriving outside the city walls we quickly realised that you cannot ride in and parking is controlled by what appeared to be dodgy characters, who find a parking place for you and charge for parking, it all seemed a con to me and I wanted to find out if we could get into the Dar Dayana first anyway. We were approached by a guy who told us we could park, as it was for cars, but he had a garage nearby we could park at, I tried to explain, in my poor french, that we needed to find out about accommodation first and I started to walk away, leaving Graham with the bikes, the guy got verbally aggressive towards me and I responded in kind, using a not entirely kind 4 letter word.. he got the message. (I was tired)
I walked off to confirm we could get booked in a day early, the accommodation is a small riad, with a very nice garden in the central courtyard, the owners are French, but the place is run by a local, who doesn't live here. There are no other guests planned to be here the week we are here so all is good.
So, this stage of the trip will be collecting the Mrs from the airport the morning and keeping her happy for the next 5 days, which will not, unfortunately, or fortunately, whichever way you look at it, involve motor cycle activities, so, nothing more for the next 5 days!