Border Run II

Well, it is that time of year again! I have my R1200GS in Russia as a temporary import, so I don't have to pay import duties, but that means that every year I have to take the bike out of Russia, and then bring it back in to renew the temporary import. Kind of a major pain, but also a good excuse for a road trip.

Last year I went to the Latvian border and stayed in Velikiye Luki, which turned out to be a dump... This year I had planned to go to Ukraine, but decided at the last minute to go back to the Latvian border, but to spend the night in Pskov, an ancient Russian city, rather than Velikiye Luki.

Had hoped to leave on Friday evening this time, but had to work until about 22:00 on Friday, so that was out! Had an early night out on Friday, and then left about 06:30 Saturday morning for the Latvian border. The ride up was pretty dreary--cloudy, cool, with rain from time to time. Certainly could have been worse, but wasn't that exciting, either. Made it to the border by about 14:00, and there was basically no line, so I zipped right in. Better yet, this time they didn't make me go into Latvia, like last year, which saved me a lot of time. Basically I was able to leave Russia and turn around and come back into Russian in less than an hour! No fuss, no muss, all very easy.

So by about 15:00 I headed up toward Pskov, which is almost 200 km from the border post, got there a little after 17:00. Unlike last year in Velikiye Luki, found a hotel right away, and a nice place at that. I pulled up just as a wedding party pulled made their festive entrace to the hotel...

Anyway, I had a pretty uneventful evening, rode around town, checked out the monasteries, etc. Unfortunately my camera's lens was filthy, so none of the pix turned out.

Next day I had a pretty uneventful ride back to Moscow.

To Fez and Home

May 6

Today would be an easy day--just up to Volubilis, some Roman ruins, and then over to Fez, where I would spend the night. A measly 113 miles...


It was only a couple of hours ride to Volubilis, through very different countryside from recent days--open, hilly farmland, etc., very pretty:

Volubilis itself is pretty cool, apparently it was one of the most far-flung of Rome's outposts, which is pretty easy to believe. It would be interesting to know what the inhabitants thought as the strength of the empire and the security provided thereby slowly ebbed away--when did they realize that their city, their way of life, was doomed? Here are some pix:


After a few hours at Volubilis, I set off for Fez, which was also only a few hours away. I reached Fez by early afternoon but had a hard time finding a hotel near the old town. I finally found a rather nice one, settled in, and headed out to explore the old city. It is a cool old city, like Marrakech, but smaller, and I was able to wrap up whatever shopping still had to get done. Here are some pix:




May 7
After Fez I thought it would be a quick easy ride up to Tanger, and on to the ferry and back to Spain, only about 200 miles to Tanger. But I chose a rather small road heading out of Fez that looked interesting, and it turns out that the road I chose was one of the worst roads I've ever been on: paved, but very broken, uneven, etc., you can kind of tell from these pix:


And once again the GPS was completely useless, so I was more or less lost the whole time, although I was pretty sure that I was heading in the right direction!


I finally got to the port in Tanger, found the ferry, and met these French guys waiting in line:
Here's my bike waiting to get on the boat:
After the ferry I had to kill some time before Hana and David could meet me at the warehouse, so I had to wait here for an hour or two :-(:

Through the Mountains (again)

MAY 5, 2010
Little did I know it when I set out from Erg Chebbi, but this was to be one of my longest and most challenging riding days ever, even though it was only 370 miles. I set out from Erg Chebbi, heading toward Todra Gorge, which I'd heard was pretty spectacular. From there I would head toward Imilchil, a small town in the Atlas Mountains, and kind of play it by ear after that.
The ride to Todra was pretty uneventful, and I got there by late morning. The gorge was OK, here is some of the terrain just past the deepest part of the gorge:
But the scenery after the gorge was pretty cool, and the road was quite nice. I got to the little lake-side auberge by about 14:00 and had some lunch, but decided against staying there--it wasn't anything that special, and there was basically nothing there. I decided it was too early in the day to stop riding, so decided to keep going to Imilchil. Imilchil is famous because every year there is some kind of wedding festival there, where all of the young men and women from the region come there and have some kind of ceremonies for seeking their spouse. Apparently it draws busloads of tourists and has sort of turned the locals off on the whole tourist thing. Anyway, I got there and it was another dusty Moroccan village, and it was still early (15:00?), so I decided to keep going. Here is where the trip started to get interesting...

Once through the gorge, the road was paved, but not very well, and it kept going up and up--up to above 2000 meters eventually. The views were pretty cool, but for a variety of reasons--mainly the complete lack of a shoulder--I didn't feel safe stopping for pix usually. The pix I did take didn't turn out that well, so there are not that many...

By the time I got past Imilchil I started looking for a place to stop for the night, and decided to head toward a town called al Kebab (or something). I started descending from the mountains through a beautiful valley covered in poppies and other flowers--very nice:

I got to some town where they were having some kind of market day or something, and my GPS told me to turn down a road that was chock full of pedestrians and stalls selling whatever they sell at these things. There were a few other vehicles trying to make their way through, so I figured it was OK. Finally picked my way through the crowd and hit the open road again. This is about where I got lost. Or rather I should say I went "off the charts" provided by the GPS. I was on some pretty small roads at this point, and they weren't on the GPS. And there weren't any road signs, so I really had no idea where I was, although I did know (thank you GPS) that I was heading in generally the right direction.

So then I started climbing into the mountains again, which I didn't really expect. Was slightly concerned at this point, but didn't really know where else to go, so kept going. Here is a nice shot of a lake that I saw:

The road kept climbing after this lake, past herds of sheep, etc. I think I got back up to almost 2000 meters again before the road started descending again, and I saw signs for al Kebab. I finally got down to some kind of main road and more or less figured out where I was, which made me feel better.

I wasn't really ready to stop yet, so I decided to push on, at least to Khenifra. It was kind of a hot, boring ride to there, and when I got there I wasn't that impressed, so after filling up the bike with gas, and me with a couple of cold cokes, I decided to keep going, even though it was now about 17:00. Looking on the map, I spotted what looked to be a lovely valley, maybe 60km away, with what looked like would be a resort area, Sources de l'Oum-er-Rbia, right in the middle--it looked like a perfect destination!

This turned out to be one of my greatest navigational blunders ever. Off I went, after about 30 km I reached the turn off toward the valley. After a few kilometers, this road turned into gravel. And then rough dirt/gravel. I pressed on rather slowly as the sun started to set. But no worries, because I could see that I would soon reach the main road traversing the valley, which is presumably where all of the auberges would be. Sure enough, at dusk I reached the waterfalls, and spotted the adjacent town. Upon riding into town, however, I realized that it was a dump, and the only hotel was one of the most unappealing places to stay I have ever laid my eyes on. It would soon be dark, and now I had no idea where to stay...

This time I set off like a bat out of hell to the north along the mountain road, trying to get out of the mountains before dark. I kept riding through what can only be described as a desolate wildnerness and did not emerge before darkness fell. Crap! I hate riding in the dark even in the city, and in the middle of the mountains in Morocco I was distinctly uncomfortable. I didn't really have a choice, however, so I kept going, although quite slowly. I finally came to a town and found what looked like a decent motel-type place...what a relief! But it was closed! I finally got out of the mountains but now once again my GPS was completely useless, it did not show the road I was on, nor could it tell me how to get to Azrou, the nearest large town, where I figured I would spend the night.

I finally found some road signs, got on the road to Azrou, and probably pulled in about 10 at night, having ridden all the way from Erg Chebbi in what may have been my most epic ride.

Luckily I found a rather nice hotel full of German tourists and serving nice red wine and good hot food, it was very nice to finally relax. In the morning as I was packing up the bike several of the German tourists came over to chat before getting on their tour bus and seemed rather amazed that someone would come to Morocco by themselves. To each his own, I guess!

The Desert

MAY 2, 2010

After two nights in Marrakech, I was ready to hit the road again. I had planned to ride down to Oaurzazate, and old French Foreign legion town, and stay at Bikers Home, which is run by a Dutch guy and his Morrocan wife, and get the full intel on the various pistes that I wanted to check out. Unfortunately, I found out yesterday that Peter is leading a tour, so there is no one home at Ouarzazate...not only would I have to ride further than I planned, but I would really know what pistes I could try to tackle on my own. This was a very unfortunate development, but that's what happens when you don't make any advance plans.

I really didn't know where to go for tonight's ride; I figured I would check out Ouarzazate, and if I liked it I would stay, and if not I would keep going to Zagora, down on the edge of the Sahara.

May 2 is my own personal holiday, the day I got back from Desert Storm, so I try to do something special every year on May 2. Today turned out to be pretty cool!

Anyway, when I went to get my bike (I had moved it closer to my new hotel), I had another first--a couple of cats were sleeping on my sheepskin seat cover (one of them scampered before I could take a pic):

I shooed the cats away, and pulled the bike out onto the main square--a little more sedate at 7:00 am!

Leaving Marrakech, I headed back toward the Atlas Mountains, but this time toward the Tizi-n-Tichka past, further east than Tizi-n-Test. This pass was easier to drive, the road being wider, but it was also quite nice, and I stopped for breakfast at a nice cafe at the top of the pass. A few kilometers from the top of the pass I made a left off of the main road onto the road to Telouet, another ruined castle type place. The road was quite nice, and the castle itself was pretty cool.

This was a nice stop and all, but the best was yet to come, lots of great riding left before I reached Zagora. After leaving Telouet, I took the piste between there and Ait Ben Haddou, another well-preserved mud village. This piste was generally well-graded and very easy, but fun nonetheless. Here are some pix:

This was a pretty fun ride, although when I got to Ait Ben Haddou it was too hot, and a bit too late, for me to hike up to the city, so I only took some pretty mediocre pictures of the place (not even good enough to post). Depending on whether I liked Ouarzazate, I potentially still had a long way to go--all the way to Zagora, including another section of piste that I wanted to do. So after a couple of cold cokes at Ait Ben Haddou I set out for Ouarzazate.

I arrived at Ouarzazate in forty minutes later, and decided that it probably wouldn't win any prizes for most charming or interesting Moroccan city, but I did have some business to take care of there; Peter from BikersHome had told me that there was a supermarket in town which had wine, etc., so I decided to stop there and stock up before heading down to Zagora and then to Erg Chebbi, where I figured I wouldn't find any such luxuries. When Peter said "supermarket" I pictured a fairly grand affair, and I rode by the actual place several times, and had to stop and ask for directions, before finding it. I finally found it, parked in front, where these kids offered, or rather insisted, to watch my bike if I paid them a couple of dirhams:

The place was not what I would call a supermarket, about the size of a large 7-11, but it had a decent selection of stuff, including wine. I bought a couple of bottles of Morroco's finest and poured them into my handy wineskin on the bike. No reason to dawdle in Ouarzazate, so I decided to head down to Zagora.

So I left Ouarzazate toward mid-afternoon, and still wanted to check out the mud building at Tamnougalte and ride down the piste between there and Zagora. This was a nice day's ride, but unfortunately I only had half a day to do it...

Once at Tamnougalte I turned off the main road to find the ksar or whatever this type of mud building is called. Here it is:

At the time it was cool enough looking but there were tons more mud buildings to come...anyway, I had hoped to go inside, but the place seemed deserted until I had remounted and headed back down to the road, when from the corner of my eye I saw someone sprinting toward me down the hill...I figured it was the caretaker looking for a donation, but I'd already lost interest in a tour and instead just set out down the road to the south. The road soon turned to a piste, although a good one, and I road it for a couple of hours. This was one of my favorite roads of the trip, because it went through some villages, oasises, up hill and down, etc., it was pretty cool. Here are some pix:

But by now it was getting kind of late, maybe about 17:00 or so, I had a long way to go to Zagora, and I didn't want to be stuck on the piste when it got dark. This piste runs parallel to, and a bit east of, and across the river from, the main road to Zagora, so after going ten kilometers or so I was able to find a way across the river and on to the main road. Some cool terrain along this road:
I pulled into Zagora right as it was getting dark. I had hoped to stay at a nice hotel there, but once again couldn't find the ones listed in Lonely Planet and ended up staying in the first decent-looking place I saw, the Hotel de Palmerie or something like that. It was pretty hot, about 97 degrees, and the town definitely has a more African feel to it. I walked around a bit, lots of people in arab headgear and robes, more so than further north. The hotel was a fine place to stay, with a pool and cold beer, so I took a plunge, pulled a bag of potato chips from my bike, ordered dinner, and had several beers before heading off to bed. Here's a pic of the cheesy Timbuctou sign by the hotel:

MAY 3, 2010

Set out early the next morning, with Erg Chebbi as my destination, via N'kob, which supposedly was pretty cool. This meant that I had to backtrack 60 kilometers or so to the turnoff for N'kob. This road through N'kob was one of the most boring of the trip, just hot, dry, dirt. There were a couple of cool spots though, like this old fort:
N'kob itself looked pretty unimpressive from the road, so I didn't even bother to look around, just stopped for a drink and kept going. By now it was pretty hot, somewhere north of 90 degrees. Had to stop after another hour or so for another drink, was too damn hot! By early afternoon I was approaching Erg Chebbi, and against all the odds, the terrain got even more boring--flat, dry, dirt:
I had scoped out several hotels at Erg Chebbi via Lonely Planet and the interweb, because I wanted to stay at a place with parking, a pool, and a good view of the dunes. For one of the first times ever, I had a hard time finding a place, and had to go to 3-4 places before finding a hotel with a room. I guess I was lucky, because the place I ended up staying (Dar el Janoub) was very nice, with all of the desired features (plus they served wine!!). Here a pic of the pool:
This was also the most expensive place I stayed in Morocco, I think more than 150 euro a night, although that included dinner.

Anyway, most of the next couple of days were spent walking around the dunes, at least in the morning and evening, when it was cooler, and there are better photo opps (better lighting, shadows, etc.). Here are a bunch of pictures, as you can tell I really enjoyed taking pix out in the desert, this is a small sample of the pix that I took:

MAY 4, 2010

The next day I also stayed at Merzouga, but after exporing the dunes in the morning, I decided to take a day trip to visit the Source de Bleue Meski, which is a pool/oasis in the desert made by the Foreign Legion and used by them as a rest spot. I love this kind of thing so road about 90 kilometers each way to check it out. Here it is:

The touts were pretty annoying here, wanting to sell this or that, but of course no stickers which I would have bought in a flash. After a couple hours at Meski I rode back down to erg Chebbi, stopping at a museum/shop for the obligatory dinosaur shot:
The next day it was time to leave the Sahara, and head back to the Atlas mountains. I had read about a little auberge on a lake in the mountains north of Todra Gorge and Agoudal, so decided that I would like to stay there for the evening. I set out early, with Todra Gorge as my immediate destination.