Back to Blighty...well, almost

11/08/2005 Casablanca to Gibraltar

Well, where to start again. Been too long since last blog. Forgive me blogger for I have sinned, it has been several weeks since my last blog. Back in a rather temperate and quiet version of blighty just now. Gibraltar seems, at least to us freshly returned from " The Dark Continent" to be a place of wonder and complete civilisation. OK, it may have only been a few days that we were away from it, but to return is something wonderful and refreshing...even as I write this at 2am in the Hotel Foyer.

The ride from Casablanca was sadly quite dull, being mostly motorway for the greater part of the 220 miles before Tanger and the ferry back to Europe. Passing through Casablanca was quite hair-raising with no real form of roadmanship, and with the horn being much in favour of mirrors or indicators. A large proportion of the traffic was made up of "Petit Taxis", most of which were beaten up looking Peugeout 205's or Fiat Punto's painted red and with large roof-racks on top. Almost all of these little cabs bore the scars of many a previous encounter with some clearly larger and tougher vehicles.

Along the motorway were host of intersting and amusing vehicle to take our mind off the monotony of what were distressingly straight roads. There were the ubuiquitous white Taxi cabs which seemed to stop where ver there was a stray person on the roadside, who would then cram in amongst whoever was already there. There were the Moroccon holiday makers returning home to France, Belgium, or Holland with their vehicles fully loaded and another load quite literaly on top of that on an oversized roof-rack generally covered in a brightly coloured tarpaulin or canvas. Then there were the cattle trucks. You see cattle trucks in the uk from time to time, and the animal lovers amongst you probably tut and tsk at the horrendous conditions at which the cows or sheep or pigs are being subjected to. Imagine then, if you will, a heavily loaded and rather beaten up old Ford Transit van, with an oversized roof-rack and half a dozen dazed looking cows aboard, cruising down the motorway. No time for animal rights here it seems. The beasts were lashed by their noses to the rack and presumably, though we never ventured to that side of the vehicle, by their posterior quarters too. At one stage we saw a man sitting, legs dangling over the motorway, atop a speeding truck full of such beasts, with seemingly no care for falling to his death on the motorway below.

Arriving at Tanger Port we were directed by a badged and uniformed man into a siding before we had chance to purchase our tickets. Aware that we had the choice of several ferry companies, a couple of possible routes and a fast or slow service we had been keen to secure ourselves the best possible price for our ticket. We were haranged into parking where we didnt really want to, whisked along with a badged "official" into a ticket office, proccesed, charged and dispateched on the opposite side within a few minutes. Non of the advertisments in the office seemed to display our chosen route of Tanger-Algeciras however, and our "official" seemed to me to be keeping the tickets from our gaze. The ads all pointed to the ferry going to Tarifa, which while only 20 miles down the coast wasn't where we wanted to be.

We were whisked out of the office and instructed to follow our "official" down to passport control, where I caught a glimpse of the tickets which apearred to say "Tarifa". After much discussion, Steve was left in the Passport stamping queue, and I was taken back to the ticket office where our tickets were duly stamped "Algeciras". I still wasnt entirely happy, all the ads in the office had pointed to a ferry to Tarifa and a coach connection to Algeciras, but we had a stamp and the ticket office guy spoke good English and we'd asked him already.

Walking back up to the passport stamping queue our "official" said "Now you give me good tip and I go", something we had become used to in Morocco even after our brief stay. I politely declined several times before he took on a look of being hugely ill done by and shrunk off into the crowd. We waited almost an hour for the passport stamping procedure, then proceded to board the ferry. By far the poshest we had encountered so far, it was a huge trimaran that would make the crossing in 35minutes we were promised, though exactly to where we weren't sure. There was some comotion in the queue as we were ushered to the front, almost resulting in fisticuffs as one particularly irate Moroccan lept out of his car to confront the ferry worker who'd let us squeeze to the front.

Once on the ferry we got our customary drink of one Coke, one water each and retired to the aft deck to watch Africa slip away behind us and Europe appear off the Port bow. Chatting to an English couple on deck it became even clearer we'd been sold a duff ticket as they expected to be returning to Tarifa where they had left their car that morning. Arse. However, Tarifa was a lovely place, once we'd cleared Customs and Passport Control where I thourough going over by a sniffer dog and for the first time had to remove and open my panniers and top-box. My jar of Marmite sailed cleanly through however.

The road from Tarifa to Gibraltar was the first time in a couple of days that we'd actually had to go round any corners so was quite refreshing despite fuming that we'd been sent 30 miles down the coast from where we wanted to be. Passing into Gibraltar however was quick and painless and proved to be something of a culture shock after Morocco. The traffic lights and street signs looked huge. Not because they were oversized, but simply becuase we didnt have to stare and squint at them as we had done for the past weeks to glean the information we needed. Everything was in English, and it was all far too easy. Our brains had become accustomed to disecting every sign and trying to pick out relevant information from it but there was no need here. It was all far too easy.

We stopped outside a Natwest Bank, Steve withdrew some £ Sterling and I called home. My mum and dad had offered to put us up in Gibraltar for the night. I'd been keen to find our own camping, but on getting here a hotel bed for the night had seemed like an increasingly good option and there were no campsites signed anywhere. Arriving at The Rock Hotel Gibraltar, we felt very out of place.

Climbing the marble steps to the resption, our dusty boots and bike gear seemed totally incongruous with the surroundings. The first smart receptionist directed us to the second, when I said my father had been in contact. The second receptionist was on the phone. After a few seconds we realised he was on the phone to my Dad! We waited and chatted to one of what was by now one of the customary observers that always seemed to gather around the bikes wherever we stop. An Ex-Army chap, he asked us our route and before we had finished explaining, launched into details of his own trip "back in '74, hitch hiking through Portugal" whereupon any further explanation of our trip seemed irrelevant. We stood for a while while he told us of his near death experiences, unable to get a word in edgeways. He drifted off and we checked in to the very lap of luxury.

By any standards a 4 Star Hotel might be considered luxurious, but after 6 weeks on the road and the last 4 nights in Morocco, this was almost too much. The room was large and spacious, there was a brightly white-tiled bathroom, power shower, sit-down toilet (with paper and not just a tap or half filled plastic water bottle) and soft, clean white towels. Not to mention the monogrammed robes. The balcony, or maybe terrace would be a better description, was as large or larger than the space where we have erected 2 tents and parked 2 large motorcycles on several occasions, and with a commanding view over the harbour and the Straits of Gibraltar. As luck would have it we arrived late in the evening and so caught a great sunset over the ships coming and going. Steve, on arrival, immediately stripped and donned his capacious white robe and strutted onto the terrace sporting a large cigar and glass of whisky to celebrate the birth of his first nephew, Henry Thomas, born today in the early hours while we toiled and sweated through Africa.

Walking through Gibraltar town was almost like stepping back in time. Well, I imagine so anyway, never having actually done it of course. Its what I imagine middle England to be like in the 50's or 60's, kind of like Heartbeat but without Nick Berry. It was also pretty much deserted as we arrived at the first Pub en-route just before 10pm. Just in the nick of time we ordered pie and chips and a pint of (almost) proper beer to wash it down, then a few more to wash those down too. We strolled back towards our humble accomodation with a policeman. Not just any policeman mind, but a proper Bobby on the beat. A Scouser, he had the arduous task of patrolling almost 400 yards of closed souvenir shops along cobbled streets, protecting the Gibraltese (?) populous from the scurge of every modern town...a plague of Fruit Machine robbers who'd been taking extra advantage of the £2,500 Jackpot on some of the machines. However, on our leisurely stoll back along the beat we saw no evidence of these bandits - one armed or otherwise.

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08/08 - 10/08 Fes & Fes to Casablanca

Casablanca a city, we were told, of some 6,000,000 inhabitants received us in unaccustomedly temperate style. After the baking climate of Fes and the ride there, the 26c shown on road gantry's and electronic signs outside shops seemed positively cool. Indeed, the ride from Fes had, at times, been almost cold. Utter luxury we thought as not to break a sweat during a ride was by now something very unusual indeed. Might even get another day out of those socks! After several sets of directions and mis-directions we were led to a campsite by a French motorist at the South side of the city.

There was a hand-operated barrier blocking the dusty entrance to the site, and the elderly chap there told us in a mixture of unintelligable languages and mime, that the managment of the site were out to lunch, or maybe asleep, and might return sometime in the next 3 hours whereupon he might allow us entry to the site. The French motorist had led us to believe that there may be another site close by so we rode on, hoping for better luck, but on finding noting but dusty roads and car parks we returned to the original site "Camping Les Desert" to try our luck again. In our own mixture of unintelligable language and mime we described to the gate-keeper that we would like to go in and pitch our tents, then pay when the managment saw fit to return. This however was not acceptable to the officious old bastard. I wasn't in the mood to be held up by some cantanquerous old git but had no choice but to sit in the shade of the office and wait it out. I took out my book, but before having time to find my place we had gathered the usual crowd of curious onlookers. A bunch of young girls had gathered and were asking in amix of Arabic, French and English what were our names and presumably what we were up to. They were good company and happy souls, and before long the managment arrived back from lunch, processed us through the books and we were finally allowed to pass into the site.

It seems there's 3 or 4 people for every job in Morocco. In fact sometimes there are 2 or 3 people where there needn't be any at all. We were led by a dusty looking chap to a series of unsuitable pitches, ranging from right by the gates which we feared may be too noisy, to right outside some kind of holiday chalet which we feared may be too noisy, and finally to a fairly spacious pitch under a couple of small shade trees which seemed like just the spot. No sooner had we unfurled our tents, then the music started. Or musics perhaps. It was after all, our "guide" in Fes had explained the Moroccan holidays, and clearly everyone on this site was very much on holiday. Our guide had said there was a lot of camping in Morocco, but not like we were camping. They did it big style and stayed for weeks on end in one spot.

Their tents, big frame tents, were surrounded by compounds of bamboo fencing. They had proper kitchens and fridges, and most noticably huge stereos. The ones that didn't have huge stereos had cars with huge stereos, with which they appeared to have a running competetion with the others, each in a vain and ever increasing attempt to drown out the other.

However, the tents went up quickly, pegs were bashed and bent into the ground amidst much cursing, "trunks" were donned and we headed off for our first dip in the Atlantic. And surprisingly and pleasantly warm it was too. There were small ocean rollers breaking over a little sand bar and it was the perfect refreshment, and one of the longest spells we've spent in the sea so far. The beach was fairly crowded with holiday makers, many of whom had erected big sun-shades on the beach. Not like the little ones you see on UK beaches, but big gazebos. As with much of Turkey, the Moroccans seem unable to dispose of their litter. Beautiful beaches are marred by piles of rubbish discarded rather than put in a bin. Mind you, there are no bins! That would be a good place to start I guess. Even on the roads though people just chuck their litter out of the car windows. Madness.

Returning from the beach we sought out the toilet block to cleanse ourselves of the days road-film and sea salt. The "gents" was a large squarish open-roofed room made mostly of concrete blocks. There were what looked like a few shower cubicles, which although with no door or curtain seemed like just the job. In each one there was a hole in the wall where you might have expected a shower head, and a small brass tap below like you'd fit in your garden to attach your hose to. The holes in the wall were dribbling slightly as we disrobed, or dis-shorted and turned the taps. Nothing. In fact, even the dribble stopped! Poking our heads back out to the main area, we saw a group of 5 or 6 young boys probably between 8 and 12 all in their swimming trunks taking it in turns to hose each other down with a long length of yellow tube attached to the cold water tap, in fact the only working tap, from one of the wash-troughs. There was nothing else for it. When in Rome and all that. They seemed more than happy to hose us off, while we quickly applied shower gel and washed off as much salt as possible in the shortest possible time. They seemed totally unfazed by it, more than likely a daily occurence to them it was something rather unusal for us!

We rode into Casablanca in the evening in search of a good meal and some sights. We had a meal and saw bits of the city. There seemed to be no discernable centre however and the meal wasn't entirely what we'd hoped for. The traditional Tagine was rather bland in comparison to some of the more highly spiced dishes we'd become used to. There was an internet cafe up the road from the restaurant, but after deciding to settle in for a long evenings blogging the connection was down and we had to leave it. Returning to the bikes we found another self-appointed "Guardian".

It appears that everyone is out to make a buck from foreigners in Morocco. Huge generalistaion I know but so it seems. Wearing a dusty blue overall, this youth hovered around the bikes as we sorted ourselves out, finally coming out with some well practised English "Hey Mister, you give me money!" as we were about to leave. I politely declined, which it seems is the best thing to do.

How to describe Fes?! I guess first thing to do is to split it in 2. The "New Town" is, as the name suggests, mostly modern 20th century building and architecture of the local style (if style is the word) with something approximating a street layout that makes sense and almost a discernable centre.

The old town is something quite different. Stepping out of the "Petit Taxi" and following our "guide" through the old arch was, again, like stepping back in time. Back to dark ages almost. You could quite imagine those same streets 500 years ago and more when (we were told) the city was founded and not a lot appears to have changed. The tiny streets were packed with people going about their business, buying and selling in shops and souks, working in the (unfathomably stinking) tannery softening and dying camel, goat, sheep and cow skins and making bags, shoes, hats, wallets and everything else imaginable from them.

There were the ubuiquitous carpet shops, spice shops and other shops which presumably made most of their trade from tourists. As we entered, led by our trusty guide, lights would be flicked on and all the wares displayed for our perusal. Even if we'd wanted to buy things our limited luggage space on the bikes prohibited all but the smallest of purchases. Some of the streets were dimly lit. Some of the streets were not lit at all, and there was rarely a paved or even surface to walk on. Our guide, having lived there for 24 years, set a cracking pace with which we were barely able to keep up. Again rubbish, sandbags for building work and old perishable goods littered the streets. Sometimes, down a dimly lit alley, the rubbish would move and there would be a scrawny cat, sometimes a scrawny figure of a man sleeping quite literally in the gutter. There were people riding donkeys through the streets, stalls selling everything imaginable from barbecued corn on the cobs to Sony TV's.

The old town of Fes contains more than 350 mosques, our guide told us, and as evening turned to night the sound of prayer rang out all around us. It didn't seem so intrusive as that as we had experienced in Turkey, and likewise the mosques themselves were less stylised, without the huge pointed towers, favouring instead simple rectangular towers.

It had been a hectic day for me. The better part of the day was spent in the workshop of Ali (with the emphasis on the "li"), diagnosing and repairing, after a fashion, the problem with my bike. Literally on arrival at Fes, my bike had coughed, spluttered and finally died.

We'd ridden 207 miles through the desert, on winding mountain roads and through dusty villages in temperatures of 48c and no doubt more. I'd been feeling the heat that day. No amount of water seemed to rehydrate me, each stop we'd take on a litre and a half which by the next stop would be contained in my socks, trousers and t-shirt, leaving large tide marks of salt. Just as the bike was breathing its last breaths, a little bike appeared next to me and the unhelmetted, shaven headed rider shouted over " You want a nice hotel, 3 stars, with air conditioning and a swimming pool? Its a good price, not expensive?! Follow me!" With which he rode off as I coasted to a stop on what seemed quite a busy dual carriageway.

I thought I'd simply run out of fuel, so switched to reserve, but still the bike wouldn't go. It would've been unusual to run out as normally I'd have another 40 miles or so in the tank before reserve and invariably Steve runs out before me anyway, so I thought maybe the ridiculous temperatures had caused some fuel to evaporate. No such luck. After a few tries it was clear it wasn't going to go. Our friend on the little bike reappeared and we sent him off again saying we'd try and fix the bike.

I backed it down the road a bit and then up onto the kerb and under a shade tree. Having a look around I saw that there was a pipe off the engine. Looked like just a breather pipe which shouldn't cause such trouble, but I dont know enough to rule that out. Couldn't see where it should reattach, so off came the luggage, out came the spanners and screwdrivers and off came the tank. The pipe was duly reattached , but still the engine wouldn't fire. That was it, my technical knowledge had run out and when the bald-biker appeared again and offered to fetch us a recovery truck which would take us to a hotel where in the morning the Honda mechanic would fix the bike it seemed like just the very job.

The truck duly appeared and my bike was precariously winched (by hand) aboard and even more precariously strapped down. I rode in the cab with the driver with Steve following on behind, the drivers assistant watching over the bike (though quite what he'd do if it moved was beyond me) and our newly appointed guide on his little Suzuki leading the way. The bike was dismounted outside the Hotel Errabie, even more precariously than it was loaded and secured in an alley next to the hotel.

The room was cheap at 200 Dirham (20 Euro) per night, and had a little bathroom with shower. Luxury it seemed. There was however no air con as promised and the night was uncomfortably. Still unable to rehydrate properly our beds were soaked with sweat by the morning.

As arranged, Ali arrived at 10am. I was concerned.

The bike which carries you (up to now) 8000 miles through desert, up mountains and along motorways is a precious thing. If something's wrong you want a specialist. To me it looked like I'd gone to the Doctor with an ingrowing toenail and been referred to the butcher next door. Ali arrived on a smoky and battered scooter, with a dirty t-shirt stretched over his large belly, oily jeans and well worn sandals. He set about examining the patient with our guide translating all the while. No tools were brought which concerned me further and Ali made use of my small selection, dismantling half the bike, disconecting fuel hoses sending fuel pouring over the ground and finally roughly removing the fuel tank, snapping off the fuel tap in the process.

Nevertheless, after much toing and froing and with a few lengths of blue wire which appeared from somewhere he'd rewired the fuel pump direct to the battery. Unfortunately my battery was flat after so much attempted starting so we swapped it out with Steves and after a couple of attempts the bike fired back into life. A proper repair apparently could only be affected back at Ali's workshop so I followed him and the guide back there and the bike was backed down a steep ramp and through a tiny doorway into a small workshop.

Reassuringly there were tools on the wall, in some sort of order and pictures of bikes pasted to the walls. Maybe he knew what he was doing after all. 3 or 4 hours passed while Ali toiled with various relays and wires, surfacing every now and again to declare via our guides translation that "this is the problem!" and holding up some relay or other that he's pulled out of somewhere, before reassessing and refitting and burying his head in the wiring again. Eventually the root of the problem appeared to be a dodgy wire with a tiny and frail looking connector beneath the fuel tank that supplied power to the fuel pump. This he sharply snipped off with a huge pair of shears more suited to trimming wool from a sheep and produced and alternative from his box of tricks.

"Another one like this you will not find in all the world" translated our guide as Ali, beaming through his own genius, produced a little electrical connector of the type you might wire a lamp with. One of those little plastic ones with the screw connectors. Anyhow, seemed to do the job. The bike was reassembled, Ali fashioned a crude fuel tap to replace the one he'd snapped off and I was despatched, with our guide as pillion, for the test ride. 200 yards up the road the bike died again.

Ali had forgotten to turn back on the fuel tap, and my recently half recharged battery wouldn't start the bike again so the guide flagged down a passing scooter to relay the message back to Ali who turned up a few minutes later. Fortunately I'd come to rest at the top of a bit of a slope and Ali leapt at the chace, hopped on the bike and with a push from another onlooker was off down the road, the bike bursting back into life. He then disappeared into the distance. I was left with the guide standing in the baking heat.

5 minutes passed and Ali was nowhere to be seen. No probs I thought, he'd told stories of riding a Tenere, a similar bike, so I imagined he'd be off getting a bit of a charge back into the battery. We retired to the shade and another 10 minutes passed. I was getting concerned.

Coming over the hill I heard the failiar sound of the big Twin engine and before we could get out of the shade back to the roadside Ali shot past, standing on the pegs. Moments later he circled back and declared the bike fit and well. But of course he had to demonstrate. I was instructed to hop on the back while he showed me it was working fine. I jumped on, donning my helmet, and with shorts, t shirt and sandals for protection off we sped.

Ali was like a man possessed. Using the customary "horn instead of mirrors or indicators technique" we shot through the new town centre and out onto the ring road. I'm not a fan of pillion, I've maybe done it 2 or 3 times in my life and have hated it each time. Maybe I'm a control freak, but I think riding pillion requires a lot of trust. Usually at least the rider is someone you know. Usually you know they're a decent rider, usually you know they know the bike. Not so now.

Here I was, shorts, t shirt and sandals hanging on for dear life as someone I didn't know rode my bike, a bike they didn't know through busy streets at speeds I wouldn't have ridden myself. I'm not sure whethere the horn technique was to urge traffic out of the way or to attract as much attention to Ali riding a big bike fast through his city. We stopped for some water and shared the big bottle out of a plastic cup which when the bottle was half gone I was instructed to carry. The cup was wedged into the instruments and off we sped again.

Out beyond city limits I began to worry. Not least because we we now reaching speeds of 100mph, but because I felt at any moment I might be cast off and ALi would speed off with my bike, either intentionally or otherwise. At one point, lurching over the second speedbump at 80mph both my feet came off the footpegs and I let out an involuntary yelp. Ali turned round and laughed at me as I urged him to slow down. Barely without slowing we shot off the road and down a dirt track under some dense trees. A track no doubt leading to the slaughterhouse of unsuspecting tourists I felt.

Still doing 40 or 50mph we bumped along, over tree trunks, down a dry river bed and finally there it was before me.

Green Diamond Camping. And a lovely place it was too, swimming pools, grass and everything. Clearly we'd taken the back way in. As we rejoined the main road a black Mercedes pulled alongside and asked us for directions. Ali spent the next 1/4 of a mile looking into the car while still riding and passing on the route. As the car pulled away, and still riding, he grabbed the plastic cup, turned round and asked me to fill his glass. I hadn't dared to loosen my grasp on the bars, and had had to carry the bottle too so politely requested that he stop while we had a drink. Very refreshing it was too.

I explained that he may be riding a little quickly for me and the ride back to the workshop was slightly less terrifying than the ride out there. Once again I was despatched for a test ride with the guide as pillion and this time returned without trouble. The trouble began when it came to paying though. Various prices kept cropping up, each one higher then the previous. He had done almost a full days work on the bike but it seemed he was out for what he could get. After about on hour of arguements, a visit to the main shop and Ali's Boss, back to the hotel and our guide offering to fight him or call the police Ali was despatched with 1300 Dirham for his trouble, a fair price indeed I thought.

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07/08 Nador(ish), Morocco TBC
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06/08 Isla Plana to Almeria TBC
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05/08 Las Cassas TBC
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03/08 & 04/08 Barcelona, Spain TBC
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02/08 Soldeau, Andorra TBC
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01/08 Valras Plage, France TBC
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30/07 & 31/07 Monistrol d'Allier, France TBC
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29/07 Nice/Monaco TBC
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28/07 La Spezia, Italy TBC
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26/07 & 27/07 Lido di Oste, Rome, Italy TBC
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25/07 Sicily, Ferry, Napoli, Pompeii TBC
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23/07 & 24/07 Mussomeli, Sicily TBC
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22/07 Ali Therma, Sicily TBC
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20/07 & 21/07 Ferry Cesme to Brindisi TBC
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19/07 Cesme, Turkey TBC