2. routedescription
18:00 Friday evening, the bikes are fixed on the trailer,
and off we go, through the mountains near Kassel, having some snow, reaching Frankfurt, from here on no snow and temperatures
above 0°C, going futher on to Karlsruhe, Lyon, Barcelona and then Murcia, driving straight through, good average speed,
2400km/26h, we are tired, and after some tapas in the nearby highway restaurant, which were heavy as stones, we fell asleep in our
tents (N37 57.346 W1 15.767).
Next day, on sunday, we pass Granada and reach Tarifa, shortly behind the harbour town of Algeciras. We found a nice camping area,
direkt to the Atlantic-Coast(N36 03.257 W5 39.111) in a little wood of pines. 3000 km since Hamburg now. Weather is now like in early
summer 18-20 °C. It's early afternoon, and we decide to look for Tarifa harbour, after preparing the bikes and having the tents ready.
With the fast Trimaran we leave for Africa on Monday, Tanger waits for us, no problems at the customs.
From Tanger we go direct to south, following the atlantic coast, crossing Larache, here we bought a plastic bag full of good tasting
strawberries for only 1 Euro, it's march, 20°C warm, we feel fine.....
In the afternoon we reached Azrou, it starts raining a little bit, when we reach the camping ground(N33 26.930 W5 10.209), which I
already knew from my visit in 2003, so we have a save night and for lunch a chicken-tajine, the night is cold, near 0°C, because we
are 1600m above the sea level.
Storks are everywhere in Maroc, the same in Azrou.
Directly after Azrou the "middel" Atlas begins and to give harmut a first impression for Offroading, we turn right near Zeida, for crossing
the Cirque de Jaffar and return to the main route at Midelt, but we learned a lesson.....
from 2000m height on, it became difficult to drive, melting snow fields make the road so slushy, that my first mishap was soon
followed by hartmut's. But always, we hope, that after the next corner, the road condition will become better.
but here the road ends for us, hartmut stops his GS, no helping stand is needed.
short discussion, result: "temporary racebreak", because it's already late, we decide to sleep here in the mountains, gps says 2180m,
so the night became cold again. next day, we decided to return the way, we have been coming.
Later we cross the gorges du zis,
reaching a camping ground (N31 51.422 W4 16.984) at Source de Bleue de Meski, very beautiful in a wood of palms, but this
night, there was a meeting of ca. 40 mobile homes, partying at night,
next day, we reach the narrow valley of the river draa
a little deviation send us to mediaeval times, in optical sense.
in Aoufouss is market day
shortly before Erfoud, an artesian well can be attended.
from Erfoud, we go offroad to Merzouga
through the gate of Merzouga.
the dromedaries of the hotel "Rose de Sables" (N31 04.838 W4 00.525) were waiting already for us, here we checked in for the next
two nights, Price is this year150 DH, that means +50% since 2003. New rooms were available, with toilet and shower for 200DH(=20€).
Next day, we were going to Taouz, an asphalt road was nearly ready,
in Rissani we filled the fuel tank, to be good prepared for the trip to zagora.....
in the evening, we rode to the dunes of ErgChebbi
Sundown at ErgChebbi
road to Zagora, we're coming......
but before that, a good breakfast was nessessary,
A short time later, 60km from Merzouga, I had an accident, no problem for the GS, but for my left knee, we decide to return to
Merzouga for the night.....
Next morning, my knee wasn't better, I couldn't even walk, just driving in a fixed gear.
So, we returned to spain, breaking this journey, hoping to return sometimes..
3. Links about Marokko