You are never alone in Africa…

Soundtrack: Suede – The Power

Yes I am alive and doing good, so is the VFR, though it is totally disassembled, maintenance is what I spend alot of time with here in cold Spain.
Take a look at the link above, while reading the lines below. This song is by Suede from their album “Dog man star”.  It was the favorite song in my ears and my mind during my adventures in West Africa. I guess I did not have the power back then, but who knows if it will come again one day..? The lyrics can be seen here
I know I owe you readers a brush up on my experiences of Africa as I saw and felt it, and here is the start, while my memory is still fresh:
Exit of Rabat with a visa in my pocket was not that hard, just one have to loose the tail of begging people and avoid straight on collisions with taxi’s, people walking across the street without noticing you. I do recommend not going there in the Ramadan period, it is hard to get something to eat during daytime!
Off I went from the hotel and guess what the fucking guys at the hotel was waving me off, I guess they were not that bad. My compass was heading South-East towards the Atlas mountains. I wanted to see these great mountain crest’s situated from North of Algeria to the almost Southern part of Morocco, and I had a little less than one month to reach the border of Mauritania, the start date of the Visa stated 18th of September, and today was 24th of September. The clock would start ticking when I reached Mauritania giving me 30 days to explore the country. But until then I had plenty of time to kill in Morocco and Western Sahara.
The roads were okay near Rabat, but as I progressed my way out in the countryside they became more and more demanding. But what an experience, I met many nice people on my way, and saw a lot of funny things, including totally overloaded Mitsubishi and old Mercedes-Benz trucks transporting everything from people to goats. On my way I encountered a heavy thunder-storm and rain I has not seen it before. But I was lucky, I stumbled into a nice group of road maintenance men who supplied me with shelter from the rain and nice food not to mention a strong pipe of tobacco (hashish). Moroccan people are great, and one soon get the feeling if they are trying to hustle you or if they are doing you good.
The first night sleeping underneath the stars after leaving the hotel in Rabat was nothing to write home about. First it started to rain, next thing I remember was waking up almost doing the brown thing in my boxers (I guess diarrhea is something you just have to live with in Africa), it was a hard night, not much sleep. I was too lazy to put up my tent and instead I just used it as a tarpaulin to keep me dry from the rain.
Next day it was time for me to lend a hand to a bunch of people in an old wornout Mercedes (yes they love Mercedes-Benz down here). It had blown a seal. aqua (water) they needed, and I had plenty with me, one never knows what is over the next hill side? That is what I love about travelling… 
One thing that struck me hard about Morocco, was the condition these people lived in. When entering most of the cities, it was like stepping back in time, stepping into an “after war situation”, when thinking of the towns these people lived in. The buildings were literally falling down on their heads. Gas stations totally ruined, shit and garbage in the streets. People riding donkey drawn carriages, totally chaotic, maybe too poor for some Europeans to experience. But even though, people still smiled and came over to me for a chat, I guess it was normal for them. The children playing around and probably skipping school. For me this was adventuring, I had laid Europe behind me and all the safe things. This was the place on earth were everything could happen, and it did. Every second something took place just in front of my nose, something I had not seen before. The life they lived was not to be compared with any life in Europe. They lived    under much more extreme conditions, and they had adapted to these, they simply had to!
Anything can happen in Africa, and it does. But remember, there are always solutions….
I ventured on towards Khemisset and Khénifra and the roads began to take an even more demanding shape, and so the weather, it was getting more cold, and I had to stop and get more clothes on, not to freeze.
On my way to find shelter on a cold Friday evening in the dark Atlas mountains I ran into a funny French guy riding a Honda African Twin. The guy’s name was Dominique and he was hiding in the area of  Ali Ou Ikko and had found himself a nice place to camp for the night (which can be hard to find in West Africa. Trust me, it is even harder when you get further down South, people are everywhere, even where there are not supposed to be people). As I went off road and spotted  a perfect place which could not be seen from the road, Dominique came out of his tent and was quit surprised of seeing a guy on a street bike in these harsh areas. We spoke for an hour or so and he supplied me with a hot cup of coffee while I manage to get my tent up. Dominique was on holiday alone and toured Morocco, his wife was back home in France. After a nice meal which consisted of way too expensive meal (they hustled me) I bought in a small village earlier the same day I felt asleep after a cigarette or two. All in all, what a great day…
Waking up early in the mornings is normally something I hate, but while travelling I had found a good rhythm getting up at around 6-8 o’clock, taking some breakfast which consisted of coffee/tea and some bread with cheese. It is also necessary to get the things packed down and hit the road before the temperature reaches too high Celsius when you get further down South. I waved Dominique off, hearing the V-twin buzz down of the road. I finally had the chance to take a shit now that I was alone again, I found a good place and left my mark, I had not been the only one doing that. Dominique had left his mark too (you should not be a girlie travelling like this). Neither did we find the same place to camp for the night, we also found the same place to take a dump!
After packing down my things and hitting the road I didn’t ride for long before I met 5  bicycle riders near Ait Hani, some kilometres from where I’ve been camping the evening before. They were talking about which road to take. Many of the roads in East Morocco near the Atlas mountains were either blocked by water or bridges that had collapsed due to the heavy rainfall in the last couple of days. Most of the guys in the group wanted to take the easiest route back  home, due to low finances, two of them wanted the hard way. They had plenty of bucks left and wanted to continue.  While speaking with them the police came by and stopped for a chat. One of the officers was very keen to get a ride on my VFR. I tried to tell the dude that it was not handling like a normal bike due to all the weight. He finally gave up bugging me after one of the Moroccan guys on the bicycle told him nicely to piss off. I asked my new friend on the bicycle which way was the best to go. He told me that he would advise me to take the main road because of the bad weather and not the smaller off-road leading up in the mountains. I choose not to follow his advise and instead I took the dirt road leading up to something that would become very interesting and challenging on a street bike.  What the hell I was out for adventures not the Autobahn… It turned out to be more demanding than I had thought to begin with. It was like  riding on soap, totally muddy. The front wheel skid on the road and suddenly I was lying underneath the heavy Ussel Mammut. The right hand alu box collapsed like it was made of butter. Luckily I was okay and my laptop was still alive!
After some 50 kilometers and a couple of hours I met two French guys on Yamaha XT 500’s, fighting their way in the other direction. We all stopped and had a chat. One of them was Gégé, a French guy that had travelled down to Cape Town and up again on his XT many years ago. While we were talking a couple of European 4×4 came by, also French dudes, and very organized.
Later the same day I met Dominique and the two bicycle riders again in Tamtatoucht, while I was trying to cross a river where the water was streaming with furious force. Dominique had crashed his bike on the dirt road like me. We agreed to turn back to the nearest Auberge and let time fix our problem and return the morning after. TO BE CONTINUED..!