Klara ate my shorts

Monday 25.04.10

Having a late brunch and packing up our tents for the last time during our 3 nights in a row in tents camping / no shower "challenge", we had intended to go further north through some of the more scenic parts of the atlas mountains then head west towards Marrakech, and then south towards Ourzezate before getting too close to the city.

As we drove off, we could feel the temperature drop rapidly from 35*C all the way down to 12*C, and even getting a few light showers of rain.

On the way up a mountain road my intercom had died and I suspected that it no longer would take a charge. Jim was in the front leading so I figured I'd just overtake him and have him stop so we could chat and investigate further.

I opened the throttle and pulled in real close towards Jim at about 85-90 km/h in the opposite lane when all of a sudden two things happened simultaneously: My rear wheel locked up completely and the engine died just as I was overtaking Jim. I shouted something like "OH SH*T!! JIM!! TROUBLE!! STOP!!"

Of course the whole reason I was overtaking him was because of the dead intercom so he didn't take notice at all..

I was sliding along on my now locked backwheel trying to maintain upright at 80 km/h and decreasing, trying to understand what had happened. Did I do a crappy job with the rear brake caliper? Did my whole engine just seize up solid? I imagined the worst scenarios as I slid to a halt. Jim had noticed I no longer were to be found in his rearview mirrors and were coming back around.

I jumped off the bike and did a quick overlook, I can't remember if it was me wondering where the hell my top luggage bag had disappeared to or if it was Jim laughing and pointing, when I noticed it.

One of the two bungie cords strapping it to the seat had snapped in two, whereas the bag incredibly had found its way back onto my rear tire where it caught and got jammed in there between the tire, exhaust pipe, chain and rear shock.

The bag was shredded open and my clothes and underwear took some abuse. I had to throw some away eventually, good thing a fire didn't start as the pipe was very hot and had melted some zippers on a jacket.

After Jim had finished laughing, taking pictures with BOTH his cameras AND filming with his video camera, he suggested maybe we should get it out of the road. We did so, and he helped me pack all my gear into a makeshift bag, namely the MC rain cover.

As we were packing, coincidentally 3 polish guys on similar bikes to us stopped by for a chat. One guy nodded with sympathy and said "yes, same thing for me, happen close to Romania".

Continuing into the mountains we saw some awesome sight and except Klara eating my underwear and us meeting Keith for a chat, a retired englishman all alone on his bike for a month in Marocco, nothing much happened. Keith had passed us earlier when I had the underwear incident, but he said he did not recognize our plates and thought we were Germans(?). He said that in his experience they are very serious bikers and not of the chatty kind, so that's why he'd passed us. (You should have been here with the Ural bike Dirk.. ;)

We enjoyed incredible sights and some fun riding on twisty asphalt roads.

We spent alot longer riding than planned and had to give up getting to Ourzezate that day, ending up in Beni-Melell instead. We checked in to the first hotel we could find and reluctantly parked our bikes in the street, allthough with a guard hired to look after them.

Tuesday and Wednesday 26-27.04.10

Our bikes were untouched in the streets of Beni-Melell and after a quick breakfest and a failed search for a place to buy myself some new sunglasses, we hit the roads again determined to get to Ourzezate.

We were trying to navigate to a famous waterfall but had misses a turn way back. Jim's bike Ida had started to run rough on some RPMs so he really did not want to backtrack and drive longer than necessary, so we continued south.

We only stopped for lunch in the shadows of some trees up in the foothills of the Atlas range where we met a man named Muhammed, a local teacher in the area who had stopped near the same spot as us to pray in the direction of Mekka.
He had some decent english skills and we talked about everything from culture to religion while eating our rations, it was pleasant.

Some more incredible roads and riding through the Atlas ranges finally got us to Ourzezate before nightfall, and we checked into a hotel called "La Perle du Sud", an overstatement in itself. "The partially clean Pebble of the south" would be more fitting.

Thursday 28.04.10

We've been staying here for two days now, sort of like a vacation in the middle of the vacation. Both us and the bikes needed some rest after all the rough riding and camping in the desert.
Jim has also tried to identify the trouble with his engine, changing spark plugs to tightening engine top bolts with only limited success in eliminating the problem completely.

The hotel is nice enough, it even has a bar and a "nightclub" in a bunker-type basement. Normally alcohol is forbidden here, but these semi-western type hotels still serve their guests. The DJ in the nightclub plays like it's new-years eve in 1999 every night, or more like 1979 by his choice of hits of Bee-Gees and Boney-M.

Curious what sort of huge parties were going on down there, me and Jim strolled on downstairs to have our first drink in weeks. Except for one guy looking like part of staff sitting alone in a corner and the bartender and a stonefaced dead-serious DJ hiding behind his booth, there was no-one there..
The light and smoke show going full tilt, speakers threatening to blow up by the volume overload.

I figure the DJ was hired at some point in time by the hotel manager to apply his "talent" for the guests, and the DJ decided he was damn well GONNA play until 4 in the morning EVERY night regardless if there were any people in the club or not, or if non-important reception desk man pleaded for him to turn down the volume due to complaints from the guests. Fight the battle disco warrior, fight the battle.
Different cultures..

Anyway, we ordered our drinks, Jim asked the bartender if he could make a Mojito, to which he promptly said YES, then disappeared up the stairs to the reception for 10mins, came back and said: "sorry, no.." So we ended up getting a basic rum and coke, and he even asked us while pouring them if it was enough. Funny.

Ourzezate tries to be a Moroccan Hollywood as this is the place where the big american film studios come to film their desert epics. Films like Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven and many others have been shot here.

Wednesday after a good nights sleep we drove out to the studio sets and bought tickets for a tour. It involved getting a 10min long guided tour looking at props in a dark storage hall to an indefinitely long self-guided tour driving out to a huge castle built for Kingdom of Heaven. We poked around and took some photos, quite impressive structure actually, all construction rigs covered in plaster with real wooden and metal catapults and siege engines outside the walls. I will have to see the film again.

Today Thursday 28.04.10 we are packing up here in Ourzezate and heading back south towards the desert again and a place called Zagora. From there we had planned to do another off-track run west before heading into Western-Sahara and then the coast. But with Jim's bike not 100% we are doubtfull about getting too far off-road again. We shall see. :)

That`s a 50 meter long skid mark

What`s going on here then.. ahh Klara must still be mad at me..

Some pretty hefty skidmarks on those boxers if I ever saw some

Polish guys stopping for a chat 

 

Keith

Where we found Keith

Twisy roads ad infinitum, a bikers dream :) 

 

Strange looking mountain

Getting more green

GIVE ME THE LAST PEPSI, OR I SWEAR I WILL DRIVE RIGHT OFF THIS CLIFF!!

Amazing scenery all in one and the same day

A chat with Muhammed under a tree during lunch

Out of the mountains for fuel and dinner at a gas station 

 

Arrived at the hotel in Ourzezate

At the film studio set

Don`t worry Klara, she`s all fake and plastic and you`re.. eeh metal and plastic

Jim: "Let us in you filthy pig-dogs, we bring news from the Northern Territories!"

Magnus: "...and cake."

Me: "Man it`s bright outside, where are my sunglasses"

Jim: "Imbecil! Can you not see those are catapults at our gates! We are under siege!"

Jim: "Magnus are you sure it is safe to lean on that siege engine??"

Me: "Hah, no worries, Ridley Scott knows how to build them props strong!"

"MERDÊ!!!"