Adventure in Morocco

We're back! From Morocco as you can imagine. And we have many pics for you

So here is the report day by day.

Morocco is a modern country compare to some others so I don't know if I can say it was an adventure but believe me it was not always a five stars trip, we had some big trouble and that was clearly an off-road oriented trip.

Chapter 1: From France to Morocco


It's Friday, I work only on the morning. After a lunch with my girlfriend I have to kiss her and say goodbye. I'm going to drive from Toulouse to Séte where we're going to take the ferry. In Séte I will meet kktos (from ADVrider) and Christian. They come from the area of Montpellier.

Christian is an old motorcyle driver, he's used to drive enduro bikes but for the trip he's going to take his DL650. kktos he's going to come with his 12GS. I'll take my 990Adv. The DL and my 990 are going to suffer a lot in Morocco...

Once on the dock in Séte I meet Christian who's already there. kktos is going to arrive some minutes later. That's not a surprise but we're not the only ones to go to Morocco for off-road



We're going to meet a lot of guys from Desert Tours or Raid de l'Amitié.

That's our boat, we're sure we're going to Morocco



We put all the bikes on the car deck before the crew close it for the journey. We'll see our bikes again in 36h, that's going to be long...



Last goodbye to France before we start cruising along the Spanish coast down to Gibraltar and then to Tanger.



On the Sunday morning Gibraltar was close to us, in a few hours we'll ride in Morocco We cannot wait anymore, everybody is exciting, at least me



We had to do some papers at the customs services before being free to ride.





For this first day the plan is to drive to Fes, South-East of Tanger. Our road book is a mix between road and track. That's the first day so we're going to start softly...





Soon we arrived at the start of our first track After 36h on a boat it's a real pleasure!





In the North of Morocco there is a lot of vegetation.



Early in the afternoon we arrived close to Fes.



kktos and Christian started installing crash bars on the 12GS. I bought it at my local BMW dealer for kktos because his dealer was out of stock. After that we took a good shower and decided to visit Fes by bike.









After that we went to a restaurant where Christian and kktos went last year during their previous trip in Morocco.

Up to there everything is ok...

To come, Chapter 2: the HD handlebar.

Good so far.

Wow. Strange lands and cool pics.

Salam

Already back ???

Nate

After a good night of rest in the hotel La Perla in Fes we decided to start the day with a sort of typical breakfast with mint tea. We were under the sun, quite nice!



Then we start our road with wonderful view (nb: the best views will come later... )



We were driving slowly on a small road when a car coming in front of us and passing a truck hit me The guy didn't stop and my friends were to busy to be sure I was safe to catch him...

My zegas were quite destructed, the GPS is broken but the worst is my handlebar, broken in two part :huh





I was not too much hurt, some piece of skin were missing even if I was wearing motorcycle clothes, I just had some pain on my knees and my shoulders. I am alive.

Now we have to react to avoid loosing one day because of the crash. Christian decided to get back to Fes to find a new handlebar while kktos and me were dismounting the old one and trying to fix the zegas.

Christian came back with a kind of HD handlebar. That looks ugly on my bike and that will not make things easy for off-road but at least the trip is not over for me.



We had some trouble with the diameter of the handlebar. The stock one is bigger in the middle so we had to stop to ask some guys to fix that.





The handlebar move on any bump but that will do the work, it's just a new sensation

We lost half of the day and we're hungry so we stopped on the road to have a meal with grilled meat. That's very good







Some parts of the track were very muddy, we know that few days ago it was rainning here.



The view is getting better and better!





I have to tell that at this point of the road we are quite high, more than 2000m and it's really cold, close to 0°C. We are in the middle of nowhere and the night is coming. Except some small houses there is nothing here.

kktos asked a guy for a place to stay but according to him there is nothing close to here.



Then we find some building. kktos drove over there to see if there was somebody while Christian and I were driving on the track to see on the other side of the moutain if there was a place to have rest.



kktos told us that it was some government building, unused. But there was two employees still living here and they were ok to invite us for the night

While we were looking around we saw that somebody tried to install a ski resort here :huh In the middle of nowhere ?? That looks unused for a long time...



But the snow is close to us. In winter I think there is snow everywhere here.



Our room is not a 5 stars room but that don't matter, we have a roof for the night!



We talked with our new friends for a few hours then we went to sleep. We didn't find sleep before 2 or 4 in the morning because of a dog outside, crying to death... :dog

what? a guy hits you? wow - lucky. You might start a new KTM fad with the HD bars!

More Please!

On the morning we start early, just the time to thanks our new friends and we were on the track again.





As yesterday we didn't see many people in this area...





One of the local guy told us the track we planned to ride was close. A river destroyed a part of the track. Hum... should we trust him or not ? It's hard to trust somebody in Morocco, sometimes they send you on a track just because they have friends in the next village and they want you to spend your money over there or something like this. We're going to check by ourself!



This is a typical village that you can find in the moutains.



When the track came to the river we saw the guy was true, no more track after that... Let's go for a U turn!



After a long track we took the road again, not a very exciting road, quite straight



We start (ok, I start...) to feel hungry so we stopped to have a lunch.



After the lunch the road/tracks were still straight but the view was nice





At the end of the day we reached Missour where we stopped in a travellers hotel according to all the adventure stickers we saw on the doors.





Too cold for the swimming pool, maybe in one month it will be better

Great stuff Aurel, keep it coming

DW

This is one of my dream rides! Thanks for the write up!



-H-

Nice trip report.
This seems to a popular route around the country - everybody seems to do the loop in the same direction.
Looks like you had better weather than us for the first part your trip. We got stuck in mud on the route down to Fes, and had to ride around on the road to Missour due to rain and strong wind. It was after dark when we got into Missour and stayed in a hotel in town, parking the bikes inside the restaurant downstairs!! The next day we hit some nice tracks down to Boudnib and some fantastic weather.

Just been looking at your pictures - can we fast forward to the bit where the V-Strom's clutch died, and you had to tow it home.:eek1 :eek1
Looks like you had some real bad luck on that trip.

Good good and good again!
Lovely Morocco!

I have a pic taken in the same identical place overlooking Fes's Medina! Amazing place!

By the way coming back from my trip in Tunisia I had a similar accident and I broke my handlebar and smashed my Gobi bag as well . I did managed to fix the handlebar by putting another smaller bar into the hole of the proper one and finally I get home riding!



Ciao

Nic

Good to hear from you..welcome back to the forum...great trip for sure....(should I trade in the Gas Gas and join you???)...

Keep the pictures coming....

Looking good!!

amazing thread
incredible pictures

too bad for the HIT and RUN.... wish you'd caught that guy (morocco DOES have GREAT "eye-for-and-eye" penalties.... suppose he knew that

glad you had fun
a trip of discovery by some BRAVE souls

well done
thanks for sharing this with us