The ferry ride from Genova to Tanger was long: 46 hours. 46 hours without internet. But we were prepared. Our e-book readers were loaded – and we had stuff to sort out. Immigration and temporary import of the motorcycles were done on the ship by the Moroccan authorities. So everyone had to line up in a big queue in one of the ferry’s lounges to get to the one officer handling it all. The good thing about this: the people on the ferry get to know each other. Everyone helped each other to prepare the formalities and exchanged travel plans. People visiting family, someone riding the route of specific 2006 Paris - Dakar Rallye, people going back home. The next morning we met fellow biker Ali from London who knew the processes in the port pretty well – we just followed along and sailed through the checkpoint without even having to answer a question. Ali was headed to Tanger while we took the route south towards Chefchaouen. The landscape was pleasant: green hills and it was rather warm than cold. It started to drizzle eventually, but not too bad. Chefchaouen’s famous blue probably comes across better when the sun is shining but it didn’t really matter to us: We’re in Morocco! Everything beforehand was just a prelude. This is where the journey really starts.
After a cold night’s sleep – the temperature dropped below 5 degrees – we left Chefchaouen towards Fès. The first 100 kilometers were beautiful riding again through the mountains, sometimes rainy and stormy though. There were a lot of police checkpoints, but we never had to stop. Is it easy to spot that we’re tourists? Apart from the checkpoints there were a lot of stray cats and dogs on the roads, some (not stray) donkeys and old Mercedes W123s. And men wearing djellabas.
When we reached Fès, one of the four Imperial Cities of Morocco, we found it to be quite empty: it was Friday. And accordingly, most people were not working. Most shops in the Medina, which is said to be one of the world’s biggest, was pretty deserted.
The next morning, we packed up and were delighted to see that the rain was gone – and that our navigation device sent us on a little adventure on agricultural roads.
The paved roads were just as fun to ride though.
On a B-road, we reached a plateau. No one else seemed to use it, we had it all to ourselves. The sky was beautiful, the mountains were on the horizon – motorcycle heaven.
We stopped in a town called Beni-Mellal for the night and had dinner at a butchers’, just as Ali had recommended.
From there, we headed straight to Marrakesh, Morocco’s tourist magnet. But we didn’t take the easy way: We went straight through the Medina – with our fully loaded motorcycles.
We had successfully located the parking lot we were looking for but were heading into a dead end when some kids on mofas offered to guide us to the hotel. There must have been a misunderstanding about the name or something like that – we ended up crossing the medina not finding it... The cool thing was: Everyone was cool about it. No evil looks, no harsh words. Some people maybe thought we were mad, but they kept it to themselves. And even when Momme knocked over a basked full of hats with his panniers, people just laughed and picked them up. We took the following pics the next day when there were about half of the people we saw the day before.
Not only did we have time to explore the Medina the next day, but we also went looking for a mechanic who could adjust the preload of Thies’ bike’s rear suspension. And we found… Dr. Snoopix. The team there did a perfect job in no time.
We had dinner on one of Marrakesh’s many many roof top terraces.
And then it was time to hit the road again. We continued south-westwards. Into the Atlas mountains.
And while it all looks pretty pittoresque in our photos, it was also a little bit sad – we came through the region that was heavily affected by the the earthquake last year. We drove through a lot of villages with lots of collapsed houses; especially those built on hillsides.
We continued south taking the Tizi n'Test, a pass with an altitude of more than 2000 meters. The highest peaks close by have more than 4000 meters. What followed was incredible roads through incredible landscapes. Sadly our cameras (smartphones) cannot really capture the greatness here (lack of skill might also play a role), but we were amazed just by how scenic this part of Morocco is. We went to the towns of Talioune and Tafraoute, the latter being surrounded by rings of mountains and really laid back.
Until here, it was all rocks and mountains, green and red, cold nights and mild days. But that, dear friends, was about to change.