MOROCCO BOUND

A Solo Motorcycle Journey to North Africa

 

 


10 Sept 2002 (Tuesday)

Los Pinos Campground, Peniscola, Spain (yes it is spelled correctly)

 

    What the hell have I gotten myself into?  I am sore, dog-tired, and am sweating like a pig.  I have just ridden the absolute farthest I could ride in two days, with no meal stops and very few pictures, and I’ve only managed to ride 1500+ km.  What is wrong with me?  I knew it would be warmer in Spain, but I’m stripped down, sitting here on the marble floor of my camera solo (single room in a campground), with the ceiling fan going full blast just trying to cool down.  It is 9 o’clock at night and I am still overheated as sweat is dripping off my chin.  And I’m not even half way to Morocco yet!

 

    How to recap the day?  Was up at 06:00 am and quickly packed.  Had the Petite Dejeuner (continental breakfast) at 06:30.  I was loaded and rolling before sun-up.  Blasted down the A7 autoroute to Nimes, then took the A9 west towards the Spanish border.  The storm system that I had ridden in yesterday continued unabated, closing the autoroute in two different places due to flooding.  The newspaper headlines said that there were 30 dead in the flashfloods along the Rhone yesterday.  South of Monteilmar, the Ardeche and Rhone Rivers joined and flooded everywhere.   Just past Nimes the terrain began to open out of the Central Massif valley and the winds began to pick up too.  The climate began drying out, the vegetation became sparser, and the Med was glittering in the sunlight far off to my left. Ran hard and fast all the way to Perpignan, then dropped off the A7 and onto the ribbon of two-lane (N116) that ran northwest and up into the Pyrenees.  The N116 through Prades was indescribable.  Steep sided valleys, twisty smooth asphalt, and slow moving traffic that was perfect for picking off one at a time in the tiny passing zones.  Almost every valley junction was protected by a large stone fortress.  Mile after mile of canyon carving paradise the climbed slowly up into the mountains.  Cresting out about 2/3rds of the way up was a high alpine valley that was like a bowl scooped out of the side of the hills.  Nestled inside was the town of Mont St. Louis.  For almost two hours I laughed and leaned and accelerated like there was no tomorrow.  The K75S sang gleefully at finally being released into the element it was designed for.  Rarely did the posted speed limit exceed 50km/hr, but rarely did we heed that.  Still, I began to realize that it was impossible to get to Andorra by accident.  This grin-inducing twisty road was, in fact, the only paved road into Andorra from France.  Since Andorra also had no airport, all French commerce had to arrive via this highway.  It is the third smallest country in the world (behind Vatican City and Monaco), has only 65,000 residents, and was the 2nd hardest country I had ever tried to get to (Russia being number one). 

 

    I crossed the border at over 6,000 feet in elevation, and still climbed another thousand before beginning the descent into the interior.  Andorra has a way cool passport stamp too!  My impressions of Andorra were mixed.  The scenery and topography were spectacular with the entire country being less than 20 miles wide. Terrain was so steep that there probably isn’t 10 acres of flat land in the entire country (hence no airport).  However, since there was basically only one main paved road that ran from east to west across the country, the traffic was terrible.  It took me an hour and a half to ride the 42 miles across Andorra to the Spanish border.  It was also packed with tourists because Andorra is somewhat of a tax haven.  Gas was very cheap, and premium items even cheaper without the normal 15 to 20% value added tax most countries add on.  I could see why the French and Spanish choose to buy big-ticket items there.  But if you are going to visit Andorra by bike, do so from the French side!  The three high Cols you must pass over to get there are worth the trip.  On the west side, the ride down the mountains into Spain was anticlimactic.   It was very fast, multi-lane and somewhat perilous with the traffic running like the Daytona 500.  The scenery descending into the Basque countryside is stunning, with the huge mountains and the steep gorges, but you don’t really have time to sightsee if you are keeping up with the traffic.  I even had a BMW 7 series sedan pass me at over 100 mph on a blind corner.  I had no idea how he knew there wasn’t someone coming.

 

    The rest of the day was spent on Spanish back roads as I tried to work my way back over to the coast south of Barcelona.  Hit several Guarda Civil (military) checkpoints during the day.  Roadblocks and machine guns, they take their jobs fighting the Basque separatists very seriously.  Unfortunately the temperatures were rising and my time was ticking.  It was all quite scenic, in a dry and desolate kind of way, but I didn’t have time for pictures.  I’ve been on the road 38 hours and have only gone 1500km!  I still have 800km just to get to Algeciras.  One of my options is to stay tomorrow night in Granada, then hit Gibraltar on Thursday.  I will have to have a day of rest before crossing to Morocco.  That 3-day return ferry from Tangier, Morocco to Sete, France is looking better all the time.  I’ll try to find an internet café tomorrow and let Teresa know where I am, and see if I can book that return ferry and save 1000 miles of riding on the way back.

 

 

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