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.