17 April 2001 - Chefchaouen

First day in Africa, and it's looking up. Woke up at 9am to sunny skies. Went through for breakfast to discover a bevy of young American girls, loudly proclaiming how they couldn't believe they were in Europe. I couldn't believe it either. After my toast and tea I went outside and chatted with the two guys I had shared a dorm. One was a biker on a touring holiday that had decimated his riding buddies until only he was left. After some discussion with the hostel owner, he informed me of a car mechanic-cum-motorcycle enthusiast. So I paid up, retrieved my passport and headed over to get my tyres changed. Luckily the bike enthusiast also ran Gibraltars race team, so he duely obliged with swopping my TrailWings for the MT21s I had brought with me. I left the road tyres with him to swop back on the return leg. Repacked, I discovered that a bottle of squash had exploded in my bag. I headed back across the runway, around the bay, and into the ferry port of Algerciras.

Foreign ports appear to be much larger than ours, but I put this down to decent access roads at ours. Algerciras port is huge, and at one end there are ferries to Ceuta and Tangiers. I got my ticket and went to wait in the queue, where I met two English couples in a Volvo also on their way to Morocco. We chatted about routes and border formalities, and they accepted my plea to tag along during the formality of the border crossing. If anything I thought it'd be good to have someone watching the bike while I did the paperwork. After unloading the ferry I lost them as I stopped for fuel. I gave my last 800pstas to the guy at the pump and pointed at the green 95 octane hose.

I wasn't prepared for the border, which was a sea of pedestrians. An official waved me through to the non-Moroccan area, which was almost deserted. I started to panic as I couldn't see my new friends and their Volvo, but a tall dressing-gown clad Moroccan explained in English what I had to do. As I was half way through gettting my passport stamped, the four of them rolled up complaining about the poor signposting. We did the passports first, then vehicle documentation, then rolled forward 10m to customs. Here two officials were helping a man unload several tonnes of avacados from the engine bay of an old Mercedes. Finally we were away, and into another sea of bodies on the Moroccan side of the border.

Breaking free I just wanted to put some miles between me and the border. However the border town of Fnideq was an eye opener. The best description I can think of is "war zone". There was rubble, rubbish, burnt out cars, and aimlessly wandering people. The bridge to Tetouan was out of action, so the traffic was diverted across the river bed. I guess this only happens in the dry months.

Finally on the road again I missed the sign for the Tetouan bypass, and rode through the middle of town. Rome it ain't. A young guy rode alongside me on a moped, and while he thought I was English he said that he had a brother in London, and he was a student and he wanted to know where I was from. Thinking I would fox him, I said "Allemange", to which he switched into German and told me he had studied in Germany for three years. I ignored his attempts to stop me, and with a wave sped off into town.

The road to Chefchaouen is a super-moto wet dream. There are more bends than you can shake a stick at, but far too bumpy a surface for sports bikes. Fully loaded on new knobblies I used a moderate right wrist, but it was a glorious ride none the less. I stopped on an outcrop to take in the view, and out of nowhere appeared a bloke with a bundle. We had a conversation in English about various things, he offered me some hashish, I declined, he offered to sell me a camera, I declined. When it was clear I was leaving he asked for some money. I hadn't changed any money into dirhams yet, so we went our seperate ways.

Just outside Chefchaouen I pulled over by a group of ten French dirt bikers. All on big-tanked, light weight competition bikes, they'd come from Paris by lorry, and looked like they were off to do some serious sand blasting. Finally I entered the town, and in persuit of one of the Rough Guide recommended hotels, passed two more bikers working outside a hotel on a BMW F650. I circled around and parked up next to them. They were also French, but on their way home after three weeks in Morocco. They said that this hotel was good, so I checked into the Hotel Rif.

All my stuff in my room, I hiked off to the bank and changed £100, which should last me the ten days I planned to be in Morocco. The hotel was 60 dirham, about £4 a night. Next I went for a wander and headed into the medina. This was a maze of steeply sloping passageways, with a huge variety of shops everywhere. Eventually I arrived at the square with the kasbah, where I sat down at a cafe and sank my first African Coke. Presently a couple of university students from Birmingham sat down next to me, and we spent an hour or so people watching, chatting and trying mint tea. They both thought it was too sweet and full of leaves, I thought it was pretty good.

On my way back to the hotel I stopped in at a cyber cafe and sent an email home to let my mum know I was alive, and let my friends know I'd been offered drugs already. Back at the hotel I watched some of the Leeds v. Deportivo game on the tv, and chatted to the French guys about my planned route. Over the ubiquitous Michelin 959 they pointed out places they thought were worth seeing and doing. They were pessimistic about my chances of making it through the Cirque de Jaffar alone, so I'll prepare Plan B just in case. We then headed back into the medina for a meal in a very authentic restaurant. I enjoyed the tagine I had, and over our bilingual conversation I learned more about their holiday and lives. These guys worked as systems integration engineers on the Arianne 4 and 5 space rockets, and both were happy to be heading home to see their families again. They had enjoyed Morocco, but the time away from their wives was enough for them. They thought I was mentally strong to be travelling alone during my first trip to Africa and the desert. Of course "brave" and "stupid" are labels usually applied after the event, and dependant on the outcome.