Tuesday 23 February 2010
The race to Tunis
We’re back in Africa now, time for an update with what’s been going on since Morocco. The drive out from Morocco was a little unsettling. We witnessed the remarkable transition from the green slopes of the Atlas mountains to the dry stone and dust of the beginnings of the Sahara. It began to feel extremely isolated in parts, though we were never more than a few dozen kilometres from towns. On an aside, it’s incredible to see the spread of gum trees all over the world. We passed large groves of obviously intentionally planted mature gums lining the sides of the highway in Western Morocco, where nothing else was growing. We’ve seen established gums everywhere else we’ve been, England, Spain, Italy. The line the streets leading to ancient Cusco in Peru, and fill public gardens in South Africa. Go Aussie trees! Anyway, back to the trip. We got pulled over by cops for the first time at one of the innumerable police stops, and only an hour later we got stopped again for a couple of infringements, namely overtaking on a double white line. When the cop first mentioned the infraction I was taken aback, I was honestly shocked that they would be enforcing that, considering how many times we’ve seen it so blatantly flounced. The fine was 45 Durmah, about $7 Aussie, an amount I was also shocked to hear. Matt amazingly though was reluctant to pull out the trivial sum from his wallet (I didn’t have any cash at this point), playing hardball. This paid off, they decided to waive the fine, requiring us to merely promise to be safer in the future. We sped away, but there were even more numerous police checks from then on as we were so close to the at-war Algeria, and our paranoia that we were being monitored was starting to get the better of us. We made it to the border.
The occupied town of Melilla was a bit of a saviour. We found a hostal run by a total gent who let us park our bikes in his foyer. The town that night was hosting some sort of carnivale, and had a terrific amateur street parade, apparently being put together mostly by a catholic school. The highlight was an alligator on one of the floats that was being rather egregiously provoked by his co-floatee, a man who seemed to consider his role as somewhat like a lion tamer, but with reptiles. There were salsa bands, reminding me of my time on the salsa circuit, a couple of brass bands, and a lot of Disney characters. Quite a pleasant way to spend an evening. That night we got a ferry to Malaga, scheduled to arrive at around 6am.
Our plan was to get to Barcelona within two days. This was always a bit of an ask, as it was around 1000 kms. We started by riding to Granada, and had a very pleasant catch-up with Ananth and Rachel, two friends I had made in my previous semester at uni. In the afternoon we tried to get as far as we could, but it was terribly cold, so by the time we had got to Mercia, we couldn’t go on, and got a place to stay. This committed us to 600km the next day, a big effort at the best of times. And it was a hell of an thing. I’ve got few memories of the day, just drizzle, grey skies, and bitter cold. There were periods during the day where I thought I actually wouldn’t make it. It was extremely uncomfortable.
So we made the ferry, and it was quite nice. Leaving at 10pm, continuing till 6pm the next day, to Civitavecchia, Italy. The ferry was one of the larger ones, with a couple of restaurants, cinema, lounge/nightclub, casino etc. It was quite nice.
As we were riding the bikes out of the port in Civitavecchia the first intersection had a sign post to, of all places, Rome. We stopped, and were struck with the idea that Civitavecchia was the port town for Rome. We had 24 hours here, why not spend it in Rome, so off we headed. After almost an hour driving along cold, badly lit and rainy roads Matt concluded that Rome didn’t sound nearly as good as a warm bed, so we decided to stop at the next hotel and reattempt the next day. The next day was beautiful, a pleasing development, and off we went. Rome took a while to get to, but once there we realized we had inadvertently been loaned the keys to the city, because, on motorcycles, we were unstoppable. The normal, nightmarish traffic around the Piazza Venezia, down the Via dei Fori Imperiali to the Colloseum was no problem at all, particularly after the dangerous crazy of Morocco. Parking is also a delight, we pulled up metres from the Trevi fountain for a nice cafe latte, parked immediately outside the Piazza San Pietro in front of St Peters cathedral for a bit of walk around. Rome in 3 hours.
We raced back to Civitavecchia in record time (I won’t mention the speeds involved) because we thought we were late for the ferry. Turned out the ferry was delayed because of high seas for 11 hours, now departing at 3am. According to our previous schedule this now meant that we would be arriving in Tunis 24 hours later, also at 3am. We thought that would prove to be interesting. The ferry was cool. It was a bit more utilitarian than our previous ferries. Less deck space, basically just a cafeteria –like area. And this time, when we booked “deck space” as our accommodation type, they meant it: we were sleeping on the tiles. Maybe this trip has hardened me up, but I slept like a baby, and was oblivious to the continuous Arabic music, and presence of a couple of dozen others doing their best on the furniture of the cafeteria.
The sea was beautiful, it was a pleasure to occasionally walk around on the outside deck space. Made me think I’d like to have more to do with the ocean. Soon enough we arrived in Tunis, and now I’ll Tunisia for another post.
The occupied town of Melilla was a bit of a saviour. We found a hostal run by a total gent who let us park our bikes in his foyer. The town that night was hosting some sort of carnivale, and had a terrific amateur street parade, apparently being put together mostly by a catholic school. The highlight was an alligator on one of the floats that was being rather egregiously provoked by his co-floatee, a man who seemed to consider his role as somewhat like a lion tamer, but with reptiles. There were salsa bands, reminding me of my time on the salsa circuit, a couple of brass bands, and a lot of Disney characters. Quite a pleasant way to spend an evening. That night we got a ferry to Malaga, scheduled to arrive at around 6am.
Our plan was to get to Barcelona within two days. This was always a bit of an ask, as it was around 1000 kms. We started by riding to Granada, and had a very pleasant catch-up with Ananth and Rachel, two friends I had made in my previous semester at uni. In the afternoon we tried to get as far as we could, but it was terribly cold, so by the time we had got to Mercia, we couldn’t go on, and got a place to stay. This committed us to 600km the next day, a big effort at the best of times. And it was a hell of an thing. I’ve got few memories of the day, just drizzle, grey skies, and bitter cold. There were periods during the day where I thought I actually wouldn’t make it. It was extremely uncomfortable.
So we made the ferry, and it was quite nice. Leaving at 10pm, continuing till 6pm the next day, to Civitavecchia, Italy. The ferry was one of the larger ones, with a couple of restaurants, cinema, lounge/nightclub, casino etc. It was quite nice.
As we were riding the bikes out of the port in Civitavecchia the first intersection had a sign post to, of all places, Rome. We stopped, and were struck with the idea that Civitavecchia was the port town for Rome. We had 24 hours here, why not spend it in Rome, so off we headed. After almost an hour driving along cold, badly lit and rainy roads Matt concluded that Rome didn’t sound nearly as good as a warm bed, so we decided to stop at the next hotel and reattempt the next day. The next day was beautiful, a pleasing development, and off we went. Rome took a while to get to, but once there we realized we had inadvertently been loaned the keys to the city, because, on motorcycles, we were unstoppable. The normal, nightmarish traffic around the Piazza Venezia, down the Via dei Fori Imperiali to the Colloseum was no problem at all, particularly after the dangerous crazy of Morocco. Parking is also a delight, we pulled up metres from the Trevi fountain for a nice cafe latte, parked immediately outside the Piazza San Pietro in front of St Peters cathedral for a bit of walk around. Rome in 3 hours.
We raced back to Civitavecchia in record time (I won’t mention the speeds involved) because we thought we were late for the ferry. Turned out the ferry was delayed because of high seas for 11 hours, now departing at 3am. According to our previous schedule this now meant that we would be arriving in Tunis 24 hours later, also at 3am. We thought that would prove to be interesting. The ferry was cool. It was a bit more utilitarian than our previous ferries. Less deck space, basically just a cafeteria –like area. And this time, when we booked “deck space” as our accommodation type, they meant it: we were sleeping on the tiles. Maybe this trip has hardened me up, but I slept like a baby, and was oblivious to the continuous Arabic music, and presence of a couple of dozen others doing their best on the furniture of the cafeteria.
The sea was beautiful, it was a pleasure to occasionally walk around on the outside deck space. Made me think I’d like to have more to do with the ocean. Soon enough we arrived in Tunis, and now I’ll Tunisia for another post.
Saturday 13 February 2010
Fes
This has been another interesting day. We got on the road earlier than we’ve ever managed before, revving away from the curbside of Beni Mellal just before 9. The day was glum, overcast and cool, and but reasonable riding conditions. We got some good distance under our belt before stopping for a remarkably good, simple breakfast at a truckstop, and thought the day was progressing well. The rain began extremely lightly, just a fine drizzle that after some time prompted me to stop and put the plastic bag I use for waterproofing over my satchel bag. We stopped again about 60kms further on at Kenifra for coffee, and had a guy approach us asking to shine our shoes. I acquiesced mostly because this was one of the few times I was wearing shoes that wouldn’t be ruined by the procedure, and thought the guy seemed well-meaning. He did a good job, my faux-leather motorcycle boots hadn’t looked this good in the store. It felt a shame to immediately get up and motorcycle through mud. There was one thing though: for entire duration of the shining he tried to talk to us in French. Our French didn’t stand up to the interrogation, but our non-comprehension did nothing to diminish his enthusiasm to communicate. I really got to like that guy.
It was getting colder and the rain was getting heavier. It was also rather hilly, the real Atlas mountains were further to the east but we were still working through the foot hills. Visibility was starting to become an issue. I stopped a little further on to try the ‘toothpaste solution’ to stop the visor fogging up. All I can say is that they must be using a different brand of tooth paste. After applying it to my visor and glasses, as these were also fogging up, the effect ended with a view like I just wasn’t wearing my glasses. I stated I wasn’t comfortable riding like this, so I cleaned my visor and we moved on.
When we got to Azrou we were pretty cold. Matt’s lower half was saturated again, his pants and boots being all for looks with no waterproofing. As we ate chicken and chips for lunch (again. I’ve eaten about 7 chickens since I got here) the rain increased. It was 80km to Fes, our goal for the day, but it was not looking to be pleasant. It was much colder here. The moment I put down my visor, my glasses fogged up to the point I had to stop. So I was riding with my visor up in heavy-ish rain, and Matt was re-chilling his saturated pants, and we were both looking forward to other things. There was also fog, or probably low-cloud, as we were quite high, and that reduced vision considerably further. I was getting slower and slower and Matt disappeared into the mist ahead. Finally, being unsure where even the side of the road was, I decided to stop and put in some contacts. My left ring finger became completely numb from the cold. As I was flexing it to try to circulate some blood I was pondering how long frostbite takes to kick in.
Not long after that, the rain stopped, and it became sunny. The scenery was amazing, very varied rocky terrain, then changing to plains with groves of trees. My gloves dried out. I was happy. Matt I’m sure was pleased. Then we arrived at Fes, Morocco’s most amazing city.
Don’t waste your time with the other cities, Fes has it in spades. The medina is incredible. Ali Baba, 1001 nights, Alladin, exactly like that. It has the incredible dye pits where they tint the leathers used for clothes and bags, that was demonstrated, as many enthused to tell us, by Catrina Rowntree on Getaway. We won’t be staying here long enough to see it all though, we’ll be leaving early to continue our mission to the coast.
It was getting colder and the rain was getting heavier. It was also rather hilly, the real Atlas mountains were further to the east but we were still working through the foot hills. Visibility was starting to become an issue. I stopped a little further on to try the ‘toothpaste solution’ to stop the visor fogging up. All I can say is that they must be using a different brand of tooth paste. After applying it to my visor and glasses, as these were also fogging up, the effect ended with a view like I just wasn’t wearing my glasses. I stated I wasn’t comfortable riding like this, so I cleaned my visor and we moved on.
When we got to Azrou we were pretty cold. Matt’s lower half was saturated again, his pants and boots being all for looks with no waterproofing. As we ate chicken and chips for lunch (again. I’ve eaten about 7 chickens since I got here) the rain increased. It was 80km to Fes, our goal for the day, but it was not looking to be pleasant. It was much colder here. The moment I put down my visor, my glasses fogged up to the point I had to stop. So I was riding with my visor up in heavy-ish rain, and Matt was re-chilling his saturated pants, and we were both looking forward to other things. There was also fog, or probably low-cloud, as we were quite high, and that reduced vision considerably further. I was getting slower and slower and Matt disappeared into the mist ahead. Finally, being unsure where even the side of the road was, I decided to stop and put in some contacts. My left ring finger became completely numb from the cold. As I was flexing it to try to circulate some blood I was pondering how long frostbite takes to kick in.
Not long after that, the rain stopped, and it became sunny. The scenery was amazing, very varied rocky terrain, then changing to plains with groves of trees. My gloves dried out. I was happy. Matt I’m sure was pleased. Then we arrived at Fes, Morocco’s most amazing city.
Don’t waste your time with the other cities, Fes has it in spades. The medina is incredible. Ali Baba, 1001 nights, Alladin, exactly like that. It has the incredible dye pits where they tint the leathers used for clothes and bags, that was demonstrated, as many enthused to tell us, by Catrina Rowntree on Getaway. We won’t be staying here long enough to see it all though, we’ll be leaving early to continue our mission to the coast.
Marrakech
Marrakech does exotic well. This place has all the elements. 100m from our hotel is a wide tiled square. It is perpetually filled with fruit and spice vendors, performing monkeys and their owners, live cobras posing with their charmer unprotected from the passing crowds. Jungle rhythms from bands of drummers, Celtic traditions (weirdly) from bands of African stringed instruments, and the classic wail of the Arabian pipe (not sure of its name) rise up above the activity. The massed crowd is a mix of po-faced tourists, entrepreneurial Moroccans and local townsfolk, crisscrossed by scooters, motorcycles, hand drawn and donkey drawn carts. Over all this a low smoke from the many incense burners and a large barrel fire create a heady atmosphere. From our rooftop terrace I can see the tower of Marrakech’s largest mosque, surrounded by a stand of palm trees, and can hear from the narrow street three stories below all the activities of the innumerable tiny stalls, passing tourists and the scooters moving dangerously fast through them. Not bad, almost makes up for the violent diarrhoea I’ve been stricken with over the last couple of days, I suspect from a suspect kofte tagine. I’ve been recuperating basically, recovering from the illness and from the riding, which Matt and I have concluded is taking more out of us than we suspected.
Morocco has been great though, it’s feeling like travel proper, the occasional dirt road, navigating with Arabic signs (not going well) and of course the insane traffic. Riding from Tangier to Casablanca I lived out the one image I had coming into this whole trip, that of riding along a coastal highway with a raging sea on one side and the swirling sands of the Sahara sweeping across the road surface. Morocco’s really green at the moment, it’s probably the time of year, but most of our riding thus far has been through very green fields. Land that looks very productive, but we can’t work out what they’re growing. It looks like clover, like they’re keeping the fields fallow. Maybe it’s part of the sowing cycle.
We stayed in Casablanca for a couple of days, quite an interesting place. I’ve been told previously that the city is a bit of a hole, and I guess that’s accurate. It has an old town which is extremely authentic, a seething mess of alleyways and ramshackle buildings. It would be, and I guess is where tourists go but it certainly has an edge to it. The rest of the city is rundown, the modern centre wouldn’t look out of place in a French regional town except for its uniform dilapidation.
Tomorrow we prepare to leave Marrakech for road north to Fez. We’ve made plans now to circumvent Algeria. We weren’t getting a lot of good reports from the place, the border issue with Morocco was annoying, and more pertinently we haven’t yet got visas for the place. So now the plan is ferries from Spain to Italy and then to Tunisia. Should be good.
Morocco has been great though, it’s feeling like travel proper, the occasional dirt road, navigating with Arabic signs (not going well) and of course the insane traffic. Riding from Tangier to Casablanca I lived out the one image I had coming into this whole trip, that of riding along a coastal highway with a raging sea on one side and the swirling sands of the Sahara sweeping across the road surface. Morocco’s really green at the moment, it’s probably the time of year, but most of our riding thus far has been through very green fields. Land that looks very productive, but we can’t work out what they’re growing. It looks like clover, like they’re keeping the fields fallow. Maybe it’s part of the sowing cycle.
We stayed in Casablanca for a couple of days, quite an interesting place. I’ve been told previously that the city is a bit of a hole, and I guess that’s accurate. It has an old town which is extremely authentic, a seething mess of alleyways and ramshackle buildings. It would be, and I guess is where tourists go but it certainly has an edge to it. The rest of the city is rundown, the modern centre wouldn’t look out of place in a French regional town except for its uniform dilapidation.
Tomorrow we prepare to leave Marrakech for road north to Fez. We’ve made plans now to circumvent Algeria. We weren’t getting a lot of good reports from the place, the border issue with Morocco was annoying, and more pertinently we haven’t yet got visas for the place. So now the plan is ferries from Spain to Italy and then to Tunisia. Should be good.
Ferry
We’re on the ferry to Tangiers, crossing the cusp of the Mediterranean, the rolling swell pushing out into the Atlantic. It was another connection that we barely made, setting off from Seville with what we thought was plenty of time, but arriving at the ticket office in Tarifa we were told the 3pm ferry was weighing anchor in 5 minutes, so we should get a move on. For the second time we were panicked when the ticketing agent asked for some official sounding aspect of our motorcycles, as we were confronted with the propect of our hastily prepared arrangements of motorcycle ownership and insurance being put to the acid test. This was mostly because they were asking in foreign languages. If they had merely asked for our rego number, they probably wouldn’t have provoked the surprising response of panicked and furtive looks, much sub-audible mumbling and, in the French case, a denial that we had registration numbers....
Seville, Espana
Seville. I like Seville. It’s a lot better than lots of other places, for example, Barcelona, or the labyrinthine nightmare that is Valencia, or the knife capital of the universe, Albacete. In contrast to these places, Seville is the place that people who live in Utopias aspire to. Old and new, combined so happily. Beer is cheap, tapas is plentiful, and dispite the sub 20 degree evening the streets are teeming with happy, pleasing people. Barcelona in comparison is a town where to tarry on its desperate streets but for a moment will result in you being unintentionally at the pointy end of a drug deal, thugs with one hand stuffing mounds of powder into pockets and lifting bills from your wallet with the other. This dystopia may in fact be better than the reality facing Albacete, where the number of outlets vending knives, knife-like items and accessories to knifing imply a staggering influx of said items into public circulation. Our very hotel sold ‘stabbers’ on the cheap, Matt marvelling at the range and reasonable price of the butterfly knives, an item with no decent purpose. The near vacant streets suggested ‘the knife’ reigned supreme.
I am routinely impressed with the human mind’s ability to adjust. Only days ago I mistakenly believed that driving at 130kph plus was a reckless danger. Now I treat speed as a plaything, often pretending that I’m racing at the arcade, making zooming noises in my helmet. Needless to say, the riding is starting to become a lot of fun. I’m pretty much over the fear, there’s the occasional moment where your stomach drops, say when you feel you’re not quite going to make a corner, or a truck does something unexpected. Mostly though it’s fine.
We have seen some awesome roads. Coming out of Barcelona the tollway south has an amazing array of bridges, tunnels and vistas over the Mediterranean. The road connecting Albacete to Valencia and Cordoba is the smallest one we’ve yet traversed (excluding a stretch in France) and cut through some of the beautiful fields, gorges and valleys of rural Spain. It also gave us a little practice moving the bikes around corners. We slightly mistimed our arrival in Albacete and ended our ride that day about an hour and a half after dusk. The temperature dropped quickly after dark, and the darkness coincided with our first effort at serious mountain turns. Matt’s nerves were shot, and I dropped my bike, while stationary, sadly not for the first time. My excuse is he stopped suddenly. My leg was pinioned under my bike, and if I was by myself I’d be vulture food, but an unnamed stranger, sitting in an idling car meters from where we stopped on the lonely mountain road, leaped to help the bike from my remarkably unshattered leg. He asked if I was ok, I said ‘si’, and he went back to his darkened car.
Seville is the first town we’ve arrived at that was part of the original plan, so effectively we’re back on track. Our mad dash across western Europe to make up for the inactive ferries is at an end, and our days can now be less punishing. We’re going to try for Morocco tomorrow, the ferry port being an easy hour and a half ride south.
I am routinely impressed with the human mind’s ability to adjust. Only days ago I mistakenly believed that driving at 130kph plus was a reckless danger. Now I treat speed as a plaything, often pretending that I’m racing at the arcade, making zooming noises in my helmet. Needless to say, the riding is starting to become a lot of fun. I’m pretty much over the fear, there’s the occasional moment where your stomach drops, say when you feel you’re not quite going to make a corner, or a truck does something unexpected. Mostly though it’s fine.
We have seen some awesome roads. Coming out of Barcelona the tollway south has an amazing array of bridges, tunnels and vistas over the Mediterranean. The road connecting Albacete to Valencia and Cordoba is the smallest one we’ve yet traversed (excluding a stretch in France) and cut through some of the beautiful fields, gorges and valleys of rural Spain. It also gave us a little practice moving the bikes around corners. We slightly mistimed our arrival in Albacete and ended our ride that day about an hour and a half after dusk. The temperature dropped quickly after dark, and the darkness coincided with our first effort at serious mountain turns. Matt’s nerves were shot, and I dropped my bike, while stationary, sadly not for the first time. My excuse is he stopped suddenly. My leg was pinioned under my bike, and if I was by myself I’d be vulture food, but an unnamed stranger, sitting in an idling car meters from where we stopped on the lonely mountain road, leaped to help the bike from my remarkably unshattered leg. He asked if I was ok, I said ‘si’, and he went back to his darkened car.
Seville is the first town we’ve arrived at that was part of the original plan, so effectively we’re back on track. Our mad dash across western Europe to make up for the inactive ferries is at an end, and our days can now be less punishing. We’re going to try for Morocco tomorrow, the ferry port being an easy hour and a half ride south.
From the catalogue
Those of you reading the blog may have noticed some period without an update. This has been because my normal method of updating, wifi at McDonalds, has been sadly hard to come by for a while now, so I´m switching to internet cafes. In the interim though, I have been writing posts, just not posting them. So now, if your schedule permits wading through some awkward prose, I´ll put up these posts, as well as some of the videos that we´ve been making,
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