Classic airheads and Norwegians invade Morocco

The plan that Myself, Tim and Ian had come up with was to reverse our normal route which would hopefully leave the pistes that we knew were damaged and still under torrential rain to dry out for a week, but we changed the plan even further that night and agreed with the group that we'd put in a big, long and wet road day to get as far south as we could to escape the terrible weather.

The Morning saw us leave Chefchaouan in the rain and head south, Past Moulay Idriss and Fes, aiming for the Cascades D'ouzoud and the spectacular gorges there....

Moulay Idriss in the rain
(what you cant see here are two very tolerant policemen, who were initially confused when we pulled into the French stylee 'left turn lane' and used it as a layby....The Moroccan cops are, as a rule, extremely nice and polite with tourists, and although you do find a few bent ones, it's surprising how relaxed they can be in some ways)

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Just south of Fes, and we stop at some services, always a good place to grab some good food in a relatively short time, by Moroccan standards :D

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Don't avoid stopping at a petrol station because of the image...you really do get some top grub, and the through-flow at the bigger ones is so good, it's always fresh and served faster than at most other places :)

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I have to skip back an hour or two here......and comment on the ride through Fes :blast

Shepherding a dozen bikes through a city like Fes can be a bit of a 'mare...its so easy to lose people in the apparent chaos that is Moroccan big city traffic, get the group split up at lights, roundabouts, junctions....Moroccan drivers ( in particular the lobotomised ones who drive the petits taxis and their psychotic kiffed up relatives who drive the filthy tankers and overladen Mitsubishi trucks) nip in and out of traffic like a ferret intent on slaughter in a rabbit warren and it can get quite hairy unless the group dominates their road-space and have their wits about them

Tim and I have ridden together for many trips, we know the score and work well together...I knew Gary had led a lot of ride-outs and that he's a solid guy as well but prior to this trip, I think I'd only ridden with Gary the once, if at all...it was a proper pleasure riding with the pair of them through Fes though ...Tim lead and Gary and I sat at the back, and it just sort of gelled perfectly....we were guarding the lines, covering the lanes instinctively so that cars couldn't get in amongst the group and split us all up, and it felt like a fast royal escort ride rather than a chaotic dash through a mad bad city.

For the Vikings, it meant a stress free and interesting ride through the bustle of Fes, with no dangerous intrusions or hassle from pushy taxis or fume-belching trucks, and for me, it meant a much less stressful shepherding ride, so :bow:clap:kissy2 to the pair of them :thumb2

That may sound a bit odd, but if you've ever lead or 'backmarkered' a ride in difficult circumstances, it will make total sense :)
 
I have to skip back an hour or two here......and comment on the ride through Fes :blast

Shepherding a dozen bikes through a city like Fes can be a bit of a 'mare...its so easy to lose people in the apparent chaos that is Moroccan big city traffic, get the group split up at lights, roundabouts, junctions....Moroccan drivers ( in particular the lobotomised ones who drive the petits taxis and their psychotic kiffed up relatives who drive the filthy tankers and overladen Mitsubishi trucks) nip in and out of traffic like a ferret intent on slaughter in a rabbit warren and it can get quite hairy unless the group dominates their road-space and have their wits about them

Tim and I have ridden together for many trips, we know the score and work well together...I knew Gary had led a lot of ride-outs and that he's a solid guy as well but prior to this trip, I think I'd only ridden with Gary the once, if at all...it was a proper pleasure riding with the pair of them through Fes though ...Tim lead and Gary and I sat at the back, and it just sort of gelled perfectly....we were guarding the lines, covering the lanes instinctively so that cars couldn't get in amongst the group and split us all up, and it felt like a fast royal escort ride rather than a chaotic dash through a mad bad city.

For the Vikings, it meant a stress free and interesting ride through the bustle of Fes, with no dangerous intrusions or hassle from pushy taxis or fume-belching trucks, and for me, it meant a much less stressful shepherding ride, so :bow:clap:kissy2 to the pair of them :thumb2

That may sound a bit odd, but if you've ever lead or 'backmarkered' a ride in difficult circumstances, it will make total sense :)


made sense to me:)

note to self design anti truck and taxi machine gun mounts for all models of of moto morroco machines:D:D:D:D
 
By the time we got to the turn off for the road to Ouzoud from the N8, it was dusk...anyone who has been up that road knows it's a twisty, nadgery bit of tarmac with some pretty serious drop-offs up the gorge, and it's a good hour's ride in the light, let alone in the dark.

We had pretty much sorted ourselves out as a riding group though, quite surprising for a bunch of guys who had only been on the road for 2 days (it usualy takes 4-5 days before things fall into place) and a credit to everyone on the trip.

Riders sorted themselves out quite naturally into pairs or small bunches, tiptoeing at various speeds around the hairpins and sharing the light from a hugely differing Lumen outputs ranging from 'FEKK ME!.... MY EYEBALLS!!!' On fully HID'd up 1200GSA's down to 'hmm, the candle in your headlamp appears to have sooted up your lens sir' from the dimly glimmering airhead front lamps (in fairness, i have to say that wasn't the case with all of them.......:augie)

Moto-Morocco trips have never stayed at Ouzoud before- we often go there, but it's half a day out of Marrakech and doesnt fit with our normal, natural schedule as a stop-over place, but with this group, spurred on by the need to get out of the weather and bolstered by their ability and pace, it made a lot of sense to be there...

It did however mean that we were staying at a place that we'd not even tried before, but aided by the rough guide, some previous reports and word of mouth, we headed for the Hotel Paris alongside the river....after a false stop where (and we should have known better:blast) we were lured into the yard of a completely different hotel....'Yes, Hotel Paris, here my friend, you come, we make you special deal my friend, very nice, lovely jubbly' we dismounted in a pleasant courtyard of the pukka 'hotel Paris' and the negotiations commenced :blast
 
The Hotel Paris is dry :tears
We though, carry beer in the Landcruiser :JB

So after a moderate meal, a cold shower and lots of beer and cheap Spanish table wine, (we wont be using that place again if we can help it :blast) and a lot of sitting around talking Bollocks as usual, we had a fairly early night after the briefing about the next day's plans.

It rained all night:(

We were a little despondent about that, as we'd put in a massive day's riding that day to escape the rain, but in the morning, it was still raining :(

Never mind, we were all there to ride and so we reconvened over breakfast to see what we could do with the day, with the objective of making Marrakech that night.

Some of the guys were tired, or wanted to see Marrakech with as much time to spare as possible, so several bikes were going to follow Ian in the support truck, while the rest of us planned to do a piste that, checking with the locals and even adding on three hours for hiccups, fag breaks and punctures, should get us into Marrakech for 5 pm that afternoon, 6 at the latest.


:rolleyes:


:D

What came next was the most epic, arduous and yet most satisfying and exhilarating 48 hours that we've yet had on one of our trips.............................................
 
What came next was the most epic, arduous and yet most satisfying and exhilarating 48 hours that we've yet had on one of our trips.............................................

Never mind you having a long crap behind a rock, get on with the trip:thumb
 
One of the good things about staying in a different town is that we get to try some different routes, or timings along them, and there is a lovely and long piste that goes past the 'Cathedral rock' near Azilal.

Neither myself nor Tim had done this piste, but we'd read Tim Cullis' reports from the area and were keen to go and explore it.....

A pic pinched from Tim C on his Advrider/UKGser thread 'A piste too far' classic
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The Cathedral rock

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And the piste we were aiming to ride;

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The only person in the Moto-Morocco team who had done it was Ian, but he'd done it in a 4x4, so with his description, a good bit of plotting on the laptop and some time spent with the maps, we had the route we wanted nailed down....the plan saw us getting to Marrakech at between 3 and 5 depending on conditions :augie

The area is quite high up to start with, and the piste goes even higher, so we also checked with multiple locals to make sure it was open and not snowed in.....Multiples. because a Moroccan will never ever tell you he doesn't know, he'll just guess the answer, not out of dishonesty but out of a genuine desire to help.

This means if you ask the directions to somewhere, you'll always get pointed on a route, whether that be in the right direction or simply their 'best guess', often hopelessly incorrect.

The same with 'is it open' or 'is there snow on the piste' type queries...if they don't know, but it's sunny locally, 'No my friend, is open, no snow, no problem' :blast

Check and recheck, if it's critical....and even then, be prepared for the unexpected.

Having established that it seemed likely that the route WAS open, and obtaining estimates of how long the section we where unsure would take ranging from 90 minutes to 2 days, we had breakfast and discussed the day with the team.


Several of the guys decided to head straight for Marrakech to take in as much as possible there, and would follow Ian in the support truck/trailer.

Before we got suited up and ready to go, the falls were a must....

Now, remember i mentioned that it was wet? :rolleyes:

This is what the falls normally look like;

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You can walk quite safely ( in the Moroccan , rather relative definition of 'safety ;) ) across the top area of the falls, scampering over the eroded rocks to get a good view of the falls.

Neil in 2006;

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or if scampering isn't your thing, you can normally crawl timidly to the edge and at least peek over.........:augie

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Today though, the El Abid River (The Ouzoud part is actually just Arabic for 'olives', because the area if covered in Olive trees) was showing us its full might :eek:

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Tim wasn't impressed though, so he put on his most stupid hat and sulked :D

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Time for the off....gentlemen, start your engines (full wet weather gear on still ) :(

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It's usual to ignore these signs, as they are placed at every place that has basically ever had a bit of water running across the road, ever.

Sometimes though, they should be taken seriously

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oh yers - done that. :blast
if you've ever lead or 'backmarkered' a ride in difficult circumstances, it will make total sense

Mrs Og puts it well; Herding cats. :rolleyes:

great read! :thumb2 MORE please. :)
 
Jiiii-ha; the Vikings-in-Morocco-report! :clap:roll:bounce1:thumb2:clap
More! Please give me more! :)

:thumb2 Liv.
 
We set off from The Cascades D'Ouzouod and went through Azilal, where we refuelled all of the bikes....standing instructions on trips are that we refuel all bikes every night, even the big tankked ones, as we know how quickly things can go wrong sometimes.

From Azilal, the weather started improving and the sun broke through for a while, so we had a lovely ride along the fast twisties after Azilal to the reservoir Bin El Ouidane, which boasts the biggest Hydro-electric dam in Morocco.

It's forbidden to take photographs of the dam so you'll have to go there yourself to see it, but it is a beautiful place :D

The view of the reservoir from the road above;
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5 miles up the road along the side of the Reservoir, we found a wash out that a bunch of guys were digging out.....it was easily taken though and we carried on for another few miles until we came around a corner and found this

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A 20 metre wide 3 metre deep gap in a fairly serious road, with boulders bigger than cars and 4 foot diameter concrete water pipes strewn around the landscape as if a petulant giant had gone amok with a house-sized spade :(

The destructive power of water never fails to impress, but this one was going to be a problem :blast

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Tim said at this stage that it would be silly to attempt to cross, as it was the first proper day offroad with huge potential for damage to bikes and riders, the only route would involve several hundred metres of serious rubble and anyone attempting it would be a fool.:rob

So off I went :D

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Of course, Tim was right, and it could only end one way :blast:rolleyes:
It took Gary 3 hours to get across the boulder field to where i was lying 3/4 submerged in freezing crappy brown water.....well, probably nearer 30 seconds but after my lips had turned blue and I'd lost sensation in my legs and left arm, all of which were submerged in the rather fekking cold water, i sort of lost track of time :eek:

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After managing to get back to the end of the road to join the others, it was concluded that it wasnt worth trying to get all of the bikes across.....we probably could have done it, but there was a significant chance that the road betond would be blocked and although the weather was improving, the piste further on could easily be totally impassible, so we looked at options and decided on another route to Marrakesh that evening, going over an easier pass .

The bored coppers at the dam looked slightly amused as we went back past them for the second time that day, and we found our way onto our new route, which very soon started getting prettier as we got higher and higher :thumb2

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As usual, a photograph on a screen can't hope to capture the scale or beauty of scenery like this :eek:

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Gary decided to try and out-stare some local kids in one of the villages we stopped next to.

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C'mon then, if you think you're hard enough!!!

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