A Film..

Det er godt over ett år siden en filmsnutt av turen ble lovet, og her er endelig noe som det kanskje går an å vise frem. :-)

                                                     Del 1

                                                     Del 2

                                                    Del 3

It's been well over a year since I promised to put up video from the trip, and hopefully here's something finally worth showing.

(P.S Remember to select at least 480 or higher resolution when watching the video. Youtube defaults it to a low 320)

Summary

It has now been exactly one week since our return from the big trip, and it's about time to write a few words about it all.

In short, it was fantastic.

The wonderful feeling I got whenever I`d packed up my bike, riding out of towns/places, knowing I had everything I needed for the foreseeable future right with me there and then was one of the best parts of the journey.

I'd say that 5 weeks for this trip was just about the right amount of time. We covered many kilometers, some 12 000 of them, and very different places in that space of time and distance.

The Bike

I am very happy with the KLR, it fit the job just right. It handled very nicely ON the roads as well as OFF, with the exception of deep sand, however had I put more off-road oriented tires on it and travelled with a lighter load I am sure it would shine also in this area. The engine started up and ran stable throughout the trip, and nothing on the bike failed, even though there was plenty of rough riding as well as a few incidents.

I would not have changed anything on the bike for this trip, except maybe put a big windscreen on it for the highway legs. There is too much wind buffeting putting stress on the upper body and neck without one.

Going 120-130km/h and with a headwind as well is torture after only a few hours. But if I did put a windscreen on it would have to be easily removable and stowable or even adjustable in size, as I would not want the full size windscreen for off-highway riding, due to the warmer temperatures.

The Ride

The best part of the actual riding was through the excellent twisty asphalt roads up in the atlas mountain range and also going off-road into the desert was a real challenge and I learned much.

The worst part was highways. The highway legs were always long in duration, almost always without any interesting sights to look at, and very tiring for the body. Of course the good part about them is that you cover a lot of kilometers fast.

The Companion

The best! An excellent bike rider, Jim is a great organizer and very good at keeping a good overview over the planning details. He is also very punctual and patient. Which fit well, because a lot of the time I was not. Always of good humor, positive, and quick to bring out the Yatzee or some other game to dish out a beating or get one served whenever times were slow. :)

The People

It is a very different culture for sure, and one that I believe takes more time to make sense of.

When we met and talked to that local teacher at the side of the road, he asked us what we thought about the culture and the people. We said that we really hadn't got that many impressions of the culture nor the people, and that we were mostly spending time seeing the landscape and staying out of towns. He said that it made him sad that most tourists he met said the same thing, and that we were missing out.

We could tell him however that the people that we ourselves had made contact with were very polite, hospitable and friendly. The people that made contact with us almost always expected money to start falling out of us if they just kept talking long and loud enough, this is of course understandable in poor areas, but it seemed as long as you were a western-type tourist you were free game for just about anyone regardless of wealth. You got a lot of the "sheep-with-money" treatment.

The Route

The route changed a lot from the original Bergen - Conakry (Guinea). In some ways I wish we could have gone all the way there as planned. Riding from A to B without ever seeing the same things along the route I think is optimal. The downside of course is the hassle of trying to get your bike and equipment all the way back home at the end of the trip.

Having written that, I am glad we opted to take the advise about Mauritania seriously, our source was good, and even though we might have made it through just fine, I don't want to "play" with bad odds when it comes to religious extremists.

The route we did take was surprisingly good. We got to see just about every interesting spot in Morocco and even some of the Sahara. The landscape there is incredible, and it changes so much in very short distances you feel like you are in entirely different places and climates everyday driving through it.

Other

All in all I am very happy with having made the trip. After finishing it the mind does start drifting towards thoughts of: "That was fun, and not too hard.. WHERE NEXT!?".
One thing is for sure, the planning and preparations stage took much longer then expected, and for any potential future trips, I will make sure that I have more time available for it.

South America is for me, very tempting ...
I would still like to go further into Africa, either on the original route or the eastern side down, or even from South Africa up. There is always much instability in some African countries and who knows when and if it will get much better. Time will show.

Me and Jim took a lot of photos and even filmed some, both with our seperate helmet cameras and Jim's hand-held one. We intend to put our heads together and pick out some keepers(h) to upload into a photo-album, and also try to edit a short video of the trip. We have set a deadline by the end of July. I will update here when/if we have anything interesting to show. :)

Right now I am sitting at Schiphol airport waiting for my connecting flight to Split. I had a short week of flying duty, and now I'm going to Croatia for one week on a sailing boat cruising the Adriatic with my sisters Louise and Linda, her boyfriend Andrew and my father.

I am looking very much forward to it, and hope it will look something like this:

No more cabins available? FINE! I'll sleep up here, again...

Thanks for following me on this page and for all your comments and feedback, I had a lot of fun writing this!

Last Days

Friday morning we left Hotel Montana outside Ellwang and braced ourselves for a looong day on the highway.

We needed to get all the way through Germany, and most of Denmark, the long way through the respective countries. The route went: Wurzberg, Kassel, Hannover, Hamburg, Flenzburg, and then into Denmark via Hoptrup, Aarhus and finally ending up in Randers where we were gonna stay for the night at Jim's parents farm. We travelled from 9 in the morning to 11 in the evening covering some 1100 kilometres. 

Jim's bike was running smoothly so whatever he did the night before seemed to work. As a precaution he had disconnected all the home-made wiring he had done himself, meaning the charger outlet for his GPS and - unfortunately for his  freezing hands - the grip-heat system.

Since his GPS wouldn't stay charged without an outlet, I put it on my bike instead. Not that we had much use for it. I turned it on and it said something like: "Stay on this boring highway for the next two-thousand-eleventy miles and hours until you hit the North-Sea" So I turned it off again. Jim's fuel tank is a bit smaller than mine and he usually wants to refill at around the 200km mark, which usually is a good time for a break anyway. My 450km range is of little use here, so I only refill every other stop to keep the weight down.

The ride was uneventful as it has been for the most part through Europe these days. We have put all our focus on getting through as many miles as we can manage and the weather has not been good, so unfortunately I haven't got much of any photos to post here.

Arriving at the farm of Jim's parents we chatted for a while and had supper before going to bed, they only had one guestroom for us so they put the Norwegian outside with the cattle... I kid, I got to sleep in their brand new camper-van. :)

We didn't get much sleep last night since we had to get up and go at around 5 this morning to reach Hirtshals for the 7:00 check-in time, destination Stavanger. We skipped breakfest and after Jim and his father helped me push-start Klara we were off for the short hour and a half drive on the highway to Hirtshals. I had forgot to turn off my grip-heat the night before and my fancy "only ON when ignition ON" relay switch system had failed somehow, discharging the battery. No problems though, the battery re-charged nicely on the drive up. I monitored the generator output voltage enroute and turned off lights and of course grip heat to give the best charge, so in a way I suffered emphatically with Jim in the freezing morning fog. (until I said "screw this!" and maxed grip heat half-way there. "Sweet sweet grip-heat defrost my blue knuckles.")

I had accidentally booked a sleeping cabin for this daytime-only ferry, but I was very glad to have one afterall for a little nap-time enroute. Jim was able to upgrade his ticket as well, so we both got to rest a bit.

The ferry is, surprisingly for an early Saturday departure, completely full. Alot of tourists with their camper-vans onboard, so I imagine it will be a race to get off the ship ahead of them so we dont' get stuck going 40 on the Norwegian "Highways".

The M/S Bergenfjord docks in Stavanger at 20:00, less than two hours from now. I've already been booted out of my cabin by the cleaning lady, and all the chairs onboard are taken, so as I write this I am sitting on my butt at the reception area floor.

We intend to drive all the way home tonight, aiming to be in Bergen at around 02-03:00 depending on the local ferries.
We could have stayed the night in Stavanger of course, but since we are both scheduled to fly already this Monday morning we want to push on and at least have 1 full day at home, for prying off our unwashed-for-over-a-month biker clothes with a crowbar and such.

I will write a summery of sorts later this coming week.

I finally cracked and put a sticker on my bike. Arab portion says: "Hey Arab brother, check out the idiot tourist who bought this overpriced sticker!"

<-...enter bratwurst joke here...->

Asphalt bobsledding, w/o bobsled...

The M/N Excelsior docked at port Genova this morning at 10:00 o'clock, not 03:30 as we initially thought. But we were still content, being able to sleep longer and even have some breakfest was nice.

After clearing out our cabins, we were eventually allowed down onto the car deck to get our bikes ready. The paper checks by Italian officials went quickly and smoothly and we were fast on our way North towards Milano.

After picking up a pair of sunglasses (finally!) we continued past beautiful lake Como and crossed into Switzerland after a quick lunch at the border.
Rain was forecast but we did not encounter any until shortly after driving the first few miles into Switzerland, from then on we've had it all the way. It has been a pretty frosty drive today, from Italy through Switzerland, Austria and into Germany. Temperatures starting at 18 and dropping down to 5 where we are now, and that's without the 120km/h rain and wind-chill.

We had aimed ambitiously to ride all the way up to Hamburg today, but we had to call it a day at a highway stop near Ellwang, Germany.
One reason being it is dark, wet and cold, but mostly due to Jim having serious problems with his bike Ida.

It started at a gas-station in Lustenau, or rather "it didn't start", when Jim tried to turn on his ignition after re-fuelling. Everything was completely dead. After some quick troubleshooting checking circuit breakers and measuring the battery with my multimeter we didn't find any obvious faults. I suggested we try and push-start it to at least see if we could get the engine turning. But when he'd mounted his seat and covers again the ignition worked fine all of a sudden. I told him it was probably just a short somewhere due to all the rain.

We drove off again with Jim up front, bike not really running very smoothly, but still working. After just a few kilometers we got to a roundabout close to the highway on-ramp, all of a sudden while in the left-turn of it I could feel the backwheel sliding out from underneath me. As a reflex I put my left foot down to try and stay upright, it got caught under the pannier again, like the day before, and did little to help the situation. In 2-3 brief seconds both Klara and me were on the asphalt sliding seperately along, doing a half piroutte before stopping. Me on my back, legs facing the now stopped car who was behind me, and Klara resting on the left pannier. It may sound very dramatic but it was not, I was driving very slowly (30-40km/h tops) and hardly banking into the turn at all.

I got up and didn't feel much discomfort at all except maybe a bruised heel. The nice german man driving behind me had stopped and came running out asking me if I was OK. I was, so I thanked him, picked up the bike, cursed what I thought was a slippery oil-slicked roundabout and drove 100m to where Jim now had stopped.

I didn't really see any oil-spill in the roundabout, so I started re-tracing my steps. I had noticed my rear wheel had locked up very easily while using the rear-brake lightly just minutes before the roundabout, but I didn't think much of it then. Then I remembered I had driven all around that gas-station looking for a hose to check my tire pressure while Jim was mounting his covers. I probably drove over oil-spills there.

The bike looked fine, with only some shredmarks on my pannier to show for the incident. Those frames are strong I tell you, someone must have done a decent job welding them. :p
I did a "burnout" to try and burn at least some of the oil off, and sure enough the tire was still very slippery. I took it very easy for the next 50km and did gentle s-turns to clear the sides of the tire as well, now its all good again. Note to self: "Take it easy out of gas-stations"

I thought I would keep my mocking-rights over Jim, as he had a small wipeout coming off the bike in Marocco after hitting deep sand on the road at high-speed, but now no longer.

After another hour or so on the highway Jim was not happy with going much further as his bike was intermittently threatening to stall. We've been doing some more troubleshooting here at the highway "Hotel Montana Ellwang", and Jim just came back from a short test-ride right now with good and bad news.

The good: Whichever wire was jiggled or tightened seemed to work.
The bad: Not even German policemen likes to see people ride around without a helmet, even if it is ONLY a 200m ride down the side-road for a quick test-drive. "You wear ze helmet in Denmark, no?" What are the odds? ;)

Left alu.pannier, good for crash protection...

Cruising M/N Excelsior

Monday morning saw us getting up at the crack o' dawn, checking out of the hotel Miramar (our home for a week), packing our bikes and heading North.

We figured we would have plenty of time for the drive to Tanger via Rabat. Though on Sunday evening as we were double checking the route and our tickets for the ship, we first saw that Google maps gave an estimate of over 11 hours for the trip, also there were some small writing on the tickets about latest check-in being 4 hours before departure, departure was at 23:59. 

We didn't believe Google, but still departed earlier than we had planned, just in case.

The first hour or so back on the bike riding was really enjoyable after so much time off it. I was all smiles and giving Jim the thumbs up and such as we sped away on the nice asphalt roads out of Essaouira. Only letting off the throttle when passing carts pulled by mules or horses so not to scare them.

 Klara has a loud exhaust pipe, very loud. So loud in fact, that when I drive behind f.ex scooters/mopeds, the men driving them starts to lean down trying to listen what the hell kind of sound their engine just started to make, until they turn around and notice Klara growling like a B-17 bomber plane on take-off power. :)


Anyway, hand-signals are our only means of communication now, and has been since my intercom died somewhere in the Atlas mountains. It's too bad really, because it was one piece of technology you really want to have working all the way on such a trip. I don't know what killed it, probably Jim was tired of me singing him songs so he sabotaged it, the bast.
We were using it alot in the end, quizzing each other about French words. I credit the intercom with helping me learn how to count to 100 in French. We would be driving along some boring road and I would go: "HEY!" (to open the transmission) "Jim, what is 76?"

Still, we've done good without it and agreed on a few basic hand-signals. It also gives us lots of time in (relative) silence and lets the mind drift off in whatever direction it wants for hours on end. So for me that is akin to a Homer Simpson brain monologue: "..road...road...goats...more road...slow smoking car...waving children...must honk my funny-sounding horn(!)...smiles...happy....road...sheep...more road.."

After a quick stop in downtown Rabat at Jim's friend to pick up some equipment we stored there, we continued onto Tanger. We had made good time on the highways and figured we still had plenty of time. At aprox. 20km outside the city though the road split to two directions: "Tanger Port" and "Tanger Port Med.". I was not sure where to go, but Jim pointed to the med(iterrian?) one and I figured he had checked beforehand. "port med" was another 50km and further South of the city. It turned out to be the wrong port. It was a huge construction area where they were building what WILL be the correct one in the future.  I guess their first priority was to put up directions for it and THEN start building it.
 
Anyway, after skidding on some wet mud on the road near the work site twice, nearly laying down the bike, and nearly twisting my ancle off underneath the low custom-mounted pannier when trying to stay upright at speed, we finally stopped to ask for directions. Turns out we were supposed to drive to the city port where we first arrived afterall. The man we asked said it was only 14km or so if we went off the highway onto a shortcut. We should have known better, because the distance was closer to 30 something and in heavy traffic. The clock was ticking, and the 4 hour before check-in deadline was only 20min or so away. We were overtaking as many cars as we could trying to get there in time. I was imagining worst-case scenarios with difficult port officials who were so eager to take our bribes or generally make life difficult for us when we first arrived.

We got there 12min after the deadline and got through allright enough. We were given orange "Genova" signs to put on the bikes, then one of the "officials" ran us through the "hurdles" we needed to get our papers in order. For the right price of course. After everything were signed and stamped we were allowed to line up with our bikes to load them onboard. There were alot of other "adventurers" there with us driving everything from motorbikes to huge off-road semi-trailers.

We drove onboard the Italian registered ship MN Excelsior about 2 hours after we got there. After strapping down our bikes and grabbing our stuff, we went upstairs, checked in and got our cabins.

The ship is nice enough. It seems like an older outdated cruise ship taken out of service and now used for these shorter ferry trips. It has 3 restaurants (1 open), a swimming pool (no water), a fitness room (closed) and even a casino, also closed.

There are mostly Moroccan passengers on-board and most of them bought tickets with no cabin included, since they are cheaper. Fair enough, but this being a 3-night voyage it means there are people camping and sleeping just about everywhere, making it look like a refugee ship of sorts.

We have sailed for a day and a half now, and arrived at the port of Barcelona this morning at 8:30. We will be staying here until 14:00 then depart for Italy and the port of Genova. We decided on going with this ferry option back when we were in Merzouga. We figured we had already done the long highway transit legs through Spain and France on the way down, and would rather get an extra day or two in Marocco instead of swatting 1437 flies and mosquitos with our heads riding at 120km/h on the boring highways for days again. Been there, done that and all..

The Excelsior is scheduled to arrive in Genova at 03:30 Thursday morning. We will be stopping by Milano or Luzern to buy me some long awaited sunglasses(!), then it is power on through as far North as we can get. Hopefully Hamburg by the same day.

It will be a hectic few days through Europe for sure, but until then we will be eating pasta and playing games here in the lounge at deck 7 "The Pacific".

Waiting in line to drive onboard the M/N Excelsior in the background

Jim passing time with a cappuccino and some games on his phone

Relaaaax

Well, we are still in Essaouira, if only for so much longer.

We have enjoyed our stay here so much that we first postponed our departure by 2 days, by skipping a planned routing via Marrakech, then further postponing another 2 days by skipping a stay in Rabat.

Essaouira is also known as the windy city, and so the kitesurfing has been really good.
There has only been one or two days with difficult or weak winds, and those days we've either rented surfboards or kayaks.

The one day with just surfboards, the waves were quite small, so I ended up paddling around helping windsurfers and kitesurfers who had crashed and lost their board and such.

I also got to try my talents as "life-guard" when one french windsurfer did a huge jump but ended up crashlanding wrong side down and busting his knee. I didn't see the fall, but I heard a scream of pain, and shouted to him asking if he was allright, he was shaking his head both hands clutching his submerged knee. I quickly paddled my longboard over to him and grabbed on to one of his arms pulling him halfway up on the board.

Up until then, the waves had been tiny, but all of a sudden here comes 2 or 3 quite big ones completely disrupting my rescue attempt. I lost my grip on both him and the board and we went tumbling inside the wave. When I came up again for air, I accidentally nudged the surfboard in his direction, it went full speed towards his head and hit him right in the face as he also had just recovered from the big wave and was looking in another direction..

Some life-guard I was..
Anyway we got to shore and he was helped further from there. I met him and his girlfriend a few days later and he was on crutches, he was still thankful even though I torpedoed him with my board.

Besides doing all kinds of watersports we have browsed the markets in the local medina, eaten good food and tried both Hammam and massage.

The Hammam we tried were in the cellar of our hotel, I've never tried it before, Jim has, and we both agreed this guy was crap. We went to a 5 star hotel and spa instead and the treatment and quality there were sublime.

When we first came to Essaouira we had intended it to be the place where we really were gonna enjoy ourselves and also stay at the best hotel we could find, which didn't mean much since most had been very reasonably priced earlier along our route, and also not very fancy.

Well, as we drove into the city we saw a big sign saying Atlas Hotel 5 stars, and we both pointed to each other nodding and grinning.

Fast forward to the incredible looking lobby and reception desk where the nice looking non-bhurka wearing lady has just told us the price of a room. Jim looks doubtfull and says: "hmmm well... I... Magnus what do you say...?" and I, without thinking much about it, go:"Allrighty, sign me up for some of this!" Jim looks at me like I am leaking brains out of my nose, and I go: "oh did she say xxxx Dirhams, I thought she said... riight, so only one night then to test it I guess.." Jim is still not believing what is coming out of my mouth, so I go: "...riiight... so maybe we should look around for what other hotels are around.."
Well Jim was right of course, the price was way high, and we still found a nice enough place to stay, and we could spend all the money we saved on kitesurfing rental and good food/drink instead.

Not much else to report at this time, except maybe the removal of our beards. That's right!

Jim was itching and getting annoyed by his face-doo so he cracked first a few days ago. Staying unshaved for the longest amount time was sort of one of our semi-challenges. I also used it for the purpose of scaring away the most weak-hearted hustlers and small animals. Such uses will shortly no longer be needed, and I would still have an untanned skin "beard" if I didn't let some sun get through eventually.

I will probably not let my beard grow as long as this again unless I enlist as a sailor, so being the kid that I am, I decided to shave in a way that would give me the most amount of beard types in one shave. I started off with "huge side-burns", then "the donut", next obviously "the fu-man-chu", "the wife beater", "the cop stache", "the dirt-lip" then all off. It was funny! I'd post pictures, but I don't want to scar any retinas.

On Monday, 7 hours from now, we are starting on our journey home. It sounds like a very short and quick affair when saying "just going home" but the reality of it is one week of travel, 3 nights on a ship to Italy, and 2800km to ride on our bikes. We've prepped our bikes tonight, and we are ready for the first leg up to Tanger, about 700km.

Time to get back on the road for these slackers!

Club Mistral, where we rented all the fun water-equipment, only a short walk from the hotel

Some of this..

More of that..

And plenty of this!

From desert to coast!

A quick update of the last week

Thursday 29.04.10
We left Ourzezate and rode down to Zagora, planning to stay there for two days checking out the local marketplace and doing a short daytrip further South.

In the evening after eating at a local restaurant, Jim needed to refill his cell-phone with a calling card. We went to one of the many tele-shops and long story short, a friendly guy helped him and as a favour we agreed to just come into his little carpet and jewelry shop to take a look, no obligations..

Well Jim ended up being shown all kinds of stuff, he found a symbol in metal that he liked, but wanted it in a smaller size. Well the guy didn't have it, but he was gonna take us to a friend who did.

Reluctantly we walked along to the other shop, being asked to sit and presented with the option of several cups of tea. After having been shown another 20 or 30 icons or symbols, each picked up slowly out of a bag and meticously positioned in front of him on the table, each NOT the one Jim had wanted, his patience were running thin(ner).

But it was hard to get the message across, and it went something like this: Jim:"Do you ha.." Trader:"How about THIS my friend, it is made of pristine quality by the finest craftsmen!" Jim:"I was actually loo.." Trader:"I GIVE you SPECIAL price, 200 Dirham for these two" Jim:"I really didn't..." Trader:"You must see this one, it is a very unusual, very special piece." and so on and so forth, until we finally got away.

Friday 30.04.10
We unloaded our bikes and made a daytrip from Zagora to a place further South in the desert called M'Hammed. The towns' naming process of which transpired in the following manner: Ahmed The Explorer: "What shall we call this place? Izmael, my brightest advisor, what say you?" Izmael: "How about Muhammed oh honorable explorer of deserts?" Ahmed:"WHAT?! Not Muhammed again, praised be his soul, there are already 11 968 towns, villages and roads with that same name, praise be it and all which bear its name.."
Izmael: "hmm you speak the truth as always Ahmed, what about this... M'Hammed?" Ahmed: "YES, original AND with a nice ring to it, genious Izmael, genious."

Not much to see in M'Hammed, we've been quite spoiled by incredible views from our earlier escapades out into the desert, and the only things we really did take notice of were all the tourists arriving and leaving all the time. It had become of a bit of tourist trap complete with annoying hustlers and tradesmen using every trick in the book to try and seperate tourists from their money. The road into town even had huge yellow warning signs saying things like "WARNING! You are entering the desert, please pick up your trash" making it all kinds of funny.

We had a quick lunch and started heading back to our hotel in Zagora, enjoying our now sporty and light bikes with lots of power to spare.

Saturday 01.05.10
On this day we completed the second longest leg of this trip, traveling from Zagora west first 120km on dirt roads to Foum Zguid, then an additional 550 through Tisint, Tata, Akka, Guelmim, and finally arrived at a local inn at Mihrleft.
The leg felt alot longer than it was, mostly due to very strong, and very hot headwinds for most of the ride West.
Even though my helmet fits tight enough normally the combination of the speed of the bike and the wind, pressed my forehead so hard into the front of it that it felt like I could put my fist between the helmet and the back of my head. Very tiring for the neck and upper body.

Getting closer to the coast the winds calmed and temperatures dropped from 38 degrees to an "icy cold" 21 degrees. Having more or less acclimatized to the desert we really were messing with our body's "thermostat", and I have gotten a slight cold because of it.

We pressed on longer than normal that day and even drove after dark. Reason being because we really wanted to get to the coast, giving us more time to spend there once we arrived.

Sunday 02.05.10
Another day of transport getting from Mihrleft and as far North as we could reach before dark, finally ending up in a place called Tafrout. Before leaving though we spent a few hours at a beautiful beach with the name Legzira, known for its amazing cliffs and arches. The visibility that day was not very good due to alot of haze but we still looked around and took some photos.

We were stopped by two policemen on the way, surpisingly, since at every other checkpoint (and there have been many) we've been waved on by smiling nodding police.

I think these were just bored. We saw only one to begin with, I was up front, so I pulled over, shut down my engine and flipped up my sun-visor so he could see my face, Jim pulling in behind. He asked the standard questions, nationality, occupation, departure point, destination, bussiness etc.

All of a sudden he noticed my helmet camera and became very excited. "..a camera you say, really!?!" He yelled something enthusiastically to his partner in the nearby guard shed and he came running out with big eyes. "A camera you say, really?! But how do you see it?! (the film)" Amused that they were so interested I went on about how it worked, and that I could watch it on a laptop f.ex.

I also may have mentioned that Jim had such a laptop as they really wanted to see some film. The other officer had swiftly quizzed Jim about this, and Jim shouted up to from the back in Danish "Magnus...? Did you or did you not tell them I have a laptop with me?". To which I replied "eh... maybe... sorry!" Well he explained it away somehow, but the officer that came out of the shed was still staring at the side of my camera with big question marks in his eyes.

I thought it was an absurd situation so I decided it was a good idea to start recording some of this and get this guy on video. "Are you filming??" "no no, see, its red, that means off, it's off now." "oh good."

Then he asks where the film is? The tape? Where does the film go? I show him the tiny 1x1cm micro-SDHD card, and he doesn't look like he can accept the fact that it is the actual "tape".
He still wants to see some road movies and keeps asking about if I can show him, finally he asks if I cannot show: "an officer of the gendarmerie royale de Maroc the film?"
I tell him: "n'est pas possible"
To which he disappointedly replied: "You can go, have a nice day".

We rode on to Tafrout and stopped there because it was getting darker but also because the mountains and huge rocks surrounding it looked like something out of a cartoon, a very strange place.

Monday 03.05.10
Driving further North passed Agadir we set our sights on Essouira a coastal city.

All this getting up early each day and packing our bikes before doing long rides is taking its toll on us. We have decided to adjust the route some and just take 3 or 4 days and be beach bums. The area around here is perfect for all kinds of watersports, so we are planning to either surf or kitesurf or both for the best part of this week.

After stopping at a few coastal towns and talking to the local surf-shop dude (who speaks english! Hooray!), we were told Essouira had it all, allthough with a more or less permanent strong wind of 20-30 knots each day.

Tuesday 03.05.10
After checking out a few watersport places around the beach last night, we found one we really liked. Since I already kitesurf some in Norway, I have persuaded Jim to try it as well, we rented equipment and got an instructor each. Jim got to sit on the beach learning to fly the smaller kites, I (apparently) tried to kill myself by drowning in the unfamiliar strong winds and choppy waters trying to perfect my going upwind skills. The instructor admitted the conditions were not the best for beginners to intermediate. Allthough promising me that if I came back tommorrow (and paid them again) I would finally be able to go upwind.

We are giving it another try tommorrow, then we'll see if we'll maybe try regular surfing instead.

Either way, surf is definately up! :)

What good is a hotel room if I can't turn it into a makeshift gypsy camp with my laundry

If the dark void that has appeared where Jim's face used to be is anything to go by, it appears I am riding alongside Death, destroyer of worlds

Jim is shown all kinds of symbols by a man I can most accurately describe as Ghadaffi's lost twin brother

Rocky roads from Zagora to Foum Zguid, some with these guys hanging around

Another day, another combat ration, another lunch under the shade of a tree

Sorry strange desert bug, but when Klara gets going where she's going she is not easy to stop

Still haven't found a single shop to buy sunglasses, still squinting like an albino straight out of bed and eating sour lemons in the sunlight

Pictures of just 2 of the 6 or so dogs I found lying around sleeping heavily, appearing like some freak dog-massacre at the cafe in Legzira

Don't worry cat, these dogs barely bothered to lift as much as an eye-brow as we parked our bikes inches from their noses

My picture of the Legzira arches in the haze

A picture taken on a nicer day (not mine

Tafraoute: Looks like we took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up in The Flintstones' city of Bedrock

Scenic on the way to Essouira via Agadir

Some locals stop to chat while we are having lunch al fresco

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!!!"