Slightly edited, web version...

Salam Maroc Tour 2^nd to 11^th November 2007

Note; the narrative begins in the words of Bill, with occasional input from other group members.  However, after a few days, as Bill succumbs to fatigue, exhaustion and a trail-battered brain, the near epic account is penned by John Robinson.  See if you can spot the change, as we move into the zany world found inside JR’s head.  Strangely, he continues to write the blog from Bill’s viewpoint, which could turn out weird.

We’d looked at 4 different options for our Morocco trip.  It was to be Dave’s 40^th birthday celebration, and it’s become the custom that when one of us reaches this sad little milestone in life, we go off and do something a bit adventurous, to prove to ourselves that we’re not quite over the hill yet.

As we all ride motorbikes, both on & off road in most cases, the trip almost invariably involves bikes.  This is how one of the early trips to Thailand came about actually.

This time we looked at Baja California, a remote peninsular in Poland, Kazakhstan, Iceland, Bhutan, India, and Mongolia.  After various meetings in The Victoria, Beeston, we decided upon Morocco.  Initially, in a very business-like and orderly manner, we debated the suitability of the handful of companies offering seemingly similar dirt bike tours through the mountain or deserts of this spectacular North African country.

We spoke directly with each company, usually directly with the guys we’d actually be riding with.  After many further beer-fuelled debates, we chose Easy-Raider, ‘cos we quite liked William’s comparatively laid back approach.  He seemed to be “like us”.  Most have us had read the Morocco Rough Guide and Lonely Planet Guides, and we’d pored over detailed maps of the country to decide which places we’d like to see.  William was flexible and adaptable, and tweaked his standard tour a touch, to meet the time we had available.

We wanted a start & finish point of Marrakech; partly due to the abundance of reasonably priced flights from the UK, but also because we all wanted to ride right over the Atlas Mountains as part of the itinerary.  We settled on a slightly extended version of the “Salam Maroc” tour.  This gave us a start in Marrakesh, a crossing of the Atlas, and Anti-Atlas Mountains, time in the Sahara Desert, then a run out to the coast for some beach riding before heading back to Marrakech.  It seemed to offer everything we wanted, with just “a few extra kilometres” involved, to include coast, mountain, sand-dunes and desert.

If you want to see our intended route, click here   But then come back and read the rest of my story :)

To go straight to the next part of my story, click here