(1) on the way through northern Europe 
with Frank Butler
We sailed past Gibraltar (right) and across to Africa. At the nearest point there is only fifteen kilometres separating the two continents. What a difference those few kilometres make.
Getting off the ferry at Tangier I was waved into the customs queue…then I was hurriedly waved to the front of the queue. It struck me that the guy doing the waving didn’t have a uniform, which means that he is a senior member of the customs or…or he has nothing to do with it. My guy turned out to be the latter…the trick they use is hurry, hurry. It goes some thing like this. “Passport give me your passport” “OK very good, have you filled this form” he shows you a form that you have never seen before. “OK I will fill for you, registration, where is your registration, please hurry or you will have to wait a long time” you give him your registration “OK I will fill for you” he fills in the form and then goes and butts in on one of the Customs guards and thrusts your forms at him. He takes them and holds them, the guy then comes back to you and explains that he is only doing this to help you he does not get paid for this service to humanity.
This is when you nod sagely and wait…remember pay nothing until the job is done and you have the documents back in your hand. To pass the time ask questions that you already know the answer to…just to hear the bullshit…how far is it to Casablanca from here “oh my friend it is a two day journey, it would be better if you stayed in Tangier this night and tomorrow I can find you a guide”. That should read… "a bit less than four hundred kilometres straight down the motorway". It passes the time. Eventually the Customs guy comes over, signs your papers and says "enjoy your stay in Morocco". Now you have to haggle about the value of the service that you new friend has extended to you…it's got to be worth 10 dirhams (1 Euro) just for the bullshit.
Roads in Morocco are surprisingly good, but the Police are mad for speed traps and on the National roads the limit changes every couple of kilometres…so it is probably cheaper and less hassle to take the toll roads where possible as the traffic is light. All the lorries take the other road, so there is less need to overtake and the speed limit is a constant 120 kph. Eventually you will have to take the National roads and if you have ever been to India you will un-doubtable have flashbacks. The worst is the big white coaches that do the intercity run they drive them as if they were sports cars, it’s so bad that they even put advertisements on the television to try and slow them down. The rest are just your average third world drivers…lots of enthusiasm but little ability…as my school report used to read.
Anyway, Morocco turned out to be a lot better than I had hoped…I thought it was going to be a constant hassle with people trying to sell you carpets all the time. I know that this is rather a cliché but if that’s what you feel, then that’s what you feel. It has turned out for me that this is only true in the tourist places….which unfortunately turn out to be some of the more interesting places as well. But there is plenty of country where people are just getting on with their lives, they are friendly and leave you alone. They seem to love the bike…everyone knows about the Dakar and as Beem has the Dakar name plastered on the side it is like travelling with Royalty.I had made arrangements to meet John, my brother in-law in Marrakech, so I rode from Tangiers straight to Marrakech. John was flying in from England for £54 return which is a fantastic price for a three-hour flight. I booked us a couple of rooms at the Grand Hotel Tazi, this hotel had been recommended by the Horton’s in Spain … cheap, traditional and well situated. They even gave me a receipt from their visit which I showed to the manager on check-in, which I think helps my cause when negotiating a price for a long-term stay. I got a 20% discount.
From the street the Tazi looks like a little hole in the wall hotel, but when you come through the doors it’s huge. The reception area is full-on old-style Casablanca…big settees and brass lamp-shades, all the eccentric expats congregate there in the evenings as it is one of the few places in town that sell beer. Sit there for ten minutes and something strange will happen (I am saving those stories for the book). Anyway the place is huge, and has got lots of character and a swimming pool, all for twenty euro a night including secure parking for old Mr Beem. So I have made the place my base-camp for a while as I explore the area and get used to being in Africa. The Souk |
Marrakech is probably best known for the Souk (Market), a labyrinth of narrow and twisted alleys. It covers an area of at least a couple of acres. What ever you want you can find it there (except a 21 x 90 x 90 front tyre of reputable make, but that’s OK) So far I have purchased a belt…the starting price was forty Euros. I got it for seven, it’s probably worth five, but that is pretty much how the Souk works.  Shoes |
Brassware |
Ceramics |
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I was coming back from the Internet café across the road, when I saw an Africa Twin, a Transalp, a KTM, and a Ducati all covered in dust parked outside the front of the Tazi. They all had Austrian…no read it again, Austrian – Waltz…not Kangaroo plates, so I went up and started speaking to the two girls and a guy suitably covered in dust standing beside the bikes. The girls had come down from Austria by plane as a surprise for the guys. The had met up in Agadir, apparently a nice town on the coast, south-west of Marrakech and had then convinced the guys that what they really wanted to do was go to Marrakech for a couple of days shopping. During the chat the other guys turned up, they had been out looking at Hotel options. I told them that the Tazi was a good bet, but they had already agreed to a hotel around the corner. So the four guys and the two girls headed off around the corner with the promise of “see you later”…I had hoped that at least one of them would have said “We’ll be Back” but I guess that only happens in the movies. We arranged that I would film them leaving Marrakech on the way back to Agadir as I was desperately short of Bike footage, we arranged to meet outside the Tazi at 10:00 am. 
They brought along a Belgian guy called Pierre (right), who was riding a Honda Transalp. He had been wandering around Morocco for the last month riding ‘off Piste’ as the French like to call dirt roads. Pierre wanted to have a chat with me as he was planning doing a big ride sometime soon. I said I would be only too happy to share my limited knowledge but first I needed to film some bikes…so he said he would come along for the ride. Six bikes covered in dust and loaded up are a thing of beauty, not for their appearance but for what they represent … Freedom. As we made our way out of town it was the first thing close to respect that I had seen from a Moroccan taxi driver since I had arrived. Usually, they own the road and it was nice to see them ‘pull their heads in’ for a change. Six big bikes with their headlight blaring in your rear view mirror should get you attention. We rode out of town filming all the way. Myself and one of the Austrians rode straight through a stop sign at a major junction and would have been killed if anything had been coming. I was too busy filming him to look at what was going on. Afterwards we both had that stupid nervous smile that comes when you know that you have really fucked up, that was a lesson… We stopped off at a small town about ten kilometres outside Marrakech and got some welding done on two of the bikes. One had a broken luggage rack the other needed some foot pegs for his surprise passenger. There we had a cup of tea and made plans for the rest of the day. The two bikes with the girls on wanted to take the quick way back to Agadir along the main road. The other two and Pierre and myself wanted to go for a ride in the High Atlas Mountains. They would take the roundabout way back to Agadir and we would return to Marrakech. So we split up and we headed back toward Marrakech to take the road to Asni. We ended up just outside Asni at about 3:00 pm, and had a late lunch of tagine, which is a Moroccan staple, a sort of stew cooked and served in a dish with a conical lid. We had the beef one, very nice. Pierre and myself decided to turn back toward Marrakech as in the afternoon in the hills it gets a little chilly and Pierre had spotted a ‘Piste’ that he wanted to explore. We said goodbye to the boys and back down the windy road along cliff sides and over plunging gorges, passed little Berber settlements all the time with the snow covered High Atlas in the back ground. We took a little road off to the right about half way back to town it was clearly marked Piste. I had explained to Pierre that if it was too rough that I would probably turn back as I didn’t need the practice and Beem didn’t need the abuse. Now would be a good time to air my thoughts on what this trip is really all about. I set off from PNG (Papua New Guinea) in 2002 with the idea of taking myself AND the bike around the world. If neither or only one of us makes it, I will have failed. That doesn’t mean that it has been all for nothing or that I have not enjoyed trying but it does mean that I will not have achieved my goal - Me and Mr Beem around the world. That is why when I ride off road I avoid ruts and potholes. I go around rocks and I don’t hammer the bike. I don’t look like a Dakar rider when I am off road, I look as if I am going to get the newspaper. My idea of fun is getting Beem and myself safely to the end of the track. If I fall and break a leg or I twist the forks, I can’t just phone the boss and tell him that I won’t be in for a couple of weeks or put Beem in the shed until I have enough money to fix him. It means a serious interruption to the trip. Or it might just be that I am a shit off road rider ? Anyway the piste road wasn’t so bad and Beem wasn’t taking too much of a hammering so on we went off road. The map was slightly out and it took quite a bit longer that expected to cover the fifty kilometres, so by the time we arrived back on the tar road it was dark. Again, hitting a donkey and cart up the arse whilst bedazzled by oncoming lights was not part of my plan either, so again nice and easy at night, or better still be in a Bar somewhere when it's dark, not on the road at all. Pierre had agreed to help me with some filming the next day. I was having a real problem. Every time I would get the camera out someone in the frame would start waving their finger. Or if I was polite enough to ask first they would decline. So I wanted to use Pierre as a cover, to film him walking down an alleyway. That way they would not be able to complain … and it worked. So Pierre was able to help me overcome my problem and I was able to tell him the little I know about bike travel, all in all a fortuitous meeting. I have been in Marrakech for two weeks now and will soon move to Casablanca to get my visa for Mauritania and my Yellow fever and Cholera shots…lucky me. |
