MOROCCO BOUND

A Solo Motorcycle Journey to North Africa

15 Sept 2002 (Sunday)

Rear terrace garden, Hotel El Ayachi, Midelt, Morocco

The ride back up the Draa Valley was uneventful and cool, in comparison to the ride yesterday. I did manage to stop and take those pictures that I had to forgo in the fight with the sirocco winds on the way out. Returning to Ouarzazate, I took a quick break to refuel and make use of an Internet café! It was only a 14.4k dial-up, but it was a connection back to my wife. I sent a quick email to let her know I was alive, and then hit the road again.

I turned to the east along Route 32; destination Errachidia, only 307 kilometers away. I was following the ”Route of the Kasbahs”, along the Dades Valley. The Dades valley developed into an important region because of the Dades and the Todra Gorges, which brought life-sustaining water out of the Altas Mountains to the edge of the desert.

The towns that grew along that 300km stretch were protected by the series of Kasbahs that give the route its name. The road was straight and fairly smooth, and I made brisk work of the first sections out of Ouarzazate. But then I noticed the low dust clouds following me eastward.

I was maintaining a fair pace of about 130 km/hr and was amazed to realize that the winds and the dust clouds were gaining on me. As they got closer, they began to rise in elevation too. Soon they blocked the sun and I began to feel the push of the winds from behind. The next thing I knew, I was in a dream. I was riding close to 70 mph, but there was no wind noise. I felt no wind resistance, and suddenly the fan on my radiator kicked on. I could hear it clearly. It was almost unearthly.

Then the full force of the sandstorm caught me and visibility dropped down to 3 dashes on the road to my front. I stopped to try to get a picture of the inside of the storm but realized that was not a good idea when the winds almost rocked my 500lb BMW off its center stand while blowing from the rear, not the side! Looking around and realizing that there was no place to seek shelter, I remounted and literally rode like the wind. I could not believe we were so perfectly aligned. I flicked on my high beams, had my four-way emergency flashers going, and prayed that a bus wouldn’t come hurling out of the sands to hit me head-on. At times, the moving sands seemed like a brown river as they made the road disappear beneath their flowing surface. On occasion, parts of the road were drifted over until there was less than a car’s width of clear asphalt. As I rode in the stifling heat and grit, all I could think was this was the polar opposite of that day when Jed and I rode south from Nordkapp. There it was 2C, near zero visibility, and driving rains were coming off the Barents Sea 300 miles above the Arctic Circle. Here it was close to 35C, near zero visibility, and a driving sandstorm was blowing me across 200 miles of the Western Sahara. What an experience.

I eventually pulled into Errachidia with 305 kilometers (189 miles) on that single tank of gas. I stopped at the first gas station and filled up. The pump stopped at 10.5 liters (2.7 gallons). I had ridden 189 miles on 2.7 gallons of gas? That was how strong the winds were at my back. My fully loaded BMW K75S touring motorcycle got over 70 miles per gallon in the last four hours. That is 3.4 liters per 100km. Amazing. The wind almost doubled my normal fuel mileage. Yes, this was a “thump your chest and howl” kind of a ride. What an experience.

After refueling, taking off my gear, shaking the sand out of every crevasse in my body, and drinking an ice-cold coke, I looked around to decide what to do next. Errachidia is at the mouth of where the Oued Ziz flows out of the Middle Atlas and into the desert. Deciding that I had experienced enough of the desert for this trip, I turned left and followed Route 21 northward along the river and into the mountains. I was looking for cooler climates and less winds. I immediately began climbing in height, slowly escaping the winds of the lower desert. My first plan was to stop in Rich (town of, not economic status), but when I rolled through it without a single sign of any type of accommodations, Midelt quickly became the next possible stop.

It was only another 75 km away, but the rapidly fading light forced me to increase the ride tempo. As I climbed higher, the temperatures began dropping, and I felt as spent as the countryside around me. Sleeping in the high open plains of the Middle Atlas was an option, but not one I really wanted to use. It was getting colder, and I realized I had not had anything to eat all day other than an American Pop-Tart pastry for breakfast. I had drunk three liters of fluids already today, but food just had no attraction in the heat. Come to think of it, I hadn’t really eaten much of anything in the last three days I had been in Morocco. (Extreme heat has a way of making you lose your appetite.) Given that, I suddenly felt cold. It was clouding up, but I didn’t understand the extreme temperature change. Then a sign flashed by that read “Col du Jbelayachi, 1900m”, and I realized I had climbed to over 6200 feet. The Middle Atlas Mountains are deceptive in their smooth rise out of the desert. Coming down off the Col I could see the lights of Midelt at the far end of the valley. It was a sight for red and sandy eyes. I rode straight through Midelt, from one end to the other, then turned and went back to find the best hotel in town. I am not ashamed to say that I wanted one with a bar. I needed, not one, but SEVERAL beers, and a long, warm shower.

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