Thoughts

Most of the ride yesterday was motorways. Before I left, however, I got lost in the medina for half an hour. For context these are tight alleyways and markets, sometimes barely bigger than the bike rammed with people and local mopeds. By the time I found the hotel to load up, my clutch hand was aching. Not much to report from the motorway ride apart from another electrical failure on the bike. I think I'm aiming for a full bingo card of warning lights by the time I get home. I saw a dam and a large reservoir which was quite cool, but the most interesting thing on the motorway was when it cut through the mountains (in a man made pass) and began to descend relatively quickly, the flat plane of the valley floor appeared to be at 90 degrees to me. It was like that visual in the movie Inception*. After a few moments of staring at in, my brain software began to rectify the optical illusion and the receded back into place. After the mountains, I turned west towards the sea. My first fleeting glimpse of the atlantic was exciting. Then the road came closer and followed the coast north. The buildings were really modern and it felt like being in California or an affluent part part of southern spain with fancy, large modern houses nestled in the hills. A strange contrast to the mud houses of the villages of the south. I rode through the place I thought I was staying, into the hills above. And my "beachfront" property turned out to be 2km from the sea. It is a large, very modern building with very stark furnishing. It feels a little like a Scandinavian prison. The man welcomed me in a very kind way. But I was tired, missing Rachel, the hotel was like a morgue and the room amplified the sense of loneliness. I asked where the restaurants were and he indicated that they were a ride away. I went out and two places declined to serve me (for unspecified reasons). I felt dejected and too tired to continue to invest in the evening. I returned to the hotel, stopping at the little shop in the suburb and bought some pringles and chocolate and went to bed with an episode of TV. I woke twelve and a half hours later (with my laptop on top of me) and am now having breakfast in the sun. The sea is indeed visible (as a small triangle in the distance between two buildings). That's marketing I suppose. Last night I had resolved to move, but this morning I think I will stay as I have not done enough work hours while Rachel is here and this place has really fast internet and is free of distractions. *I'll put a picture of the thing I mean from the movie in case you haven't seen it. I could pull a pic off the GoPro, but I think it was an optical illusion created by the software in my brain rather than the hardware of my eyes.

I just said goodbye to Rachel, my traveling companion for the last week. I had a wonderful time adventuring with her for the last week. Our last 48 hours in Marrakech have been brilliant. Yesterday was a day of contrasts. We spent the morning getting oily and dirty servicing Gertie. On the way out of the garage, I saw a wheel hanging on the wall. I asked the owner what bike it was for. Unfortunately not mine. We talked about my wheel issues.And I showed him the new spokes. They were super loose now, which was a little shocking. He offered a cast wheel for 150eur. I said no as I want a spoked one. Then as I was riding away, I thought "this wheel could disintegrate at any time". 150 EUR on the 3000 km trip home is 5c per mile for safety. My kids deserve me not to take that risk. So I went back and asked them to fit the new wheel. Next we went for a Hammam. This was a private one and so quite different to the public Hammam that I went to last time. We both left glowing. And in the evening we went to a rooftop bar with cocktails, great food and brilliant music. We danced like idiots. Now I'm back to riding solo. Next stop, the coast (I hope).

Taken in Taroudant a few days ago.

The ride down on the north side of the Tizi n Test mountain road has been very emotional. Entire villages utterly smashed. Tent shantytown town after tent shantytown. Some buildings were barely recognisable as such, just piles of human detritus. I had a little cry at one point. Rachel seems similarly effected. Today, in my Kasbah hotel, I met this lovely human, Cecradi (@a.cecradi). He asked about my trip then said he'd been cycling in Africa — 44,000km. I am tired after a month on a high-end motorcycle around the easy part of Africa. He's a total badass, humble and friendly.

Today was a day of contrasts. R and I wandered around Taroudant. It's a walled city and a little berber city for locals, almost free of tourists it seems. We were pretty much the only white faces we saw. Consequently it has the authentic joy of seeing Moroccan people just going about their business. We planned a short ride up into the mountains on a pass called Tizi N' Test. The approach to the mountains was a long, straight road. I enjoyed having juvenile fun overtaking cars. Every time, I approach mountains and see a wall of mountains, I always feel a frisson of excitement. There's something about the way it looks like a vertical wall. We rode up onto the mountain and soon I saw a small town that was utterly flattened save one or two buildings. It hit me in the chest. It's not hard to empathize. Imagining people going about their day and the apocalypse comes and destroys everything. Family, friends killed. Homeless. It is hard to describe the difference between seeing it on TV and seeing it with my own eyes. Very moving. We rode on and saw more. Clusters of tents. People facing a frigid winter in these mountains. Occasionally, I would see an astonishing vista and feel happy and free. Then remember what I just saw and feel sad and conflicted. It was a confusing juxtaposition. We stopped for a tea at a little cafe. It was a kind of shack. There was a child playing on a small, local Moto. Pretending to ride it. I beckoned him over to Gertie and invited him to sit. He was too shy. But one of the adults encouraged him. He sat and they took a photo of him. Then a slightly older girl asked. This was excellent as the girls are often more reserved. I helped her on. And she posed with and without me. Then her friend. And lastly an old woman dressed in traditional dress. I don't believe this was for our benefit as it was all taken on their phones. It was a fun interaction. The owner of the cafe showed us a photo of the old cafe, before the earthquake. Then he walked us over behind the cafe and showed the carcass of the building from the photo. Behind, the whole village was a tent city. Again, a very powerful experience. They told us our hotel was destroyed. We rode on thinking "worst case, we go to Marrakech". We rode on. The surface of the road was quite damaged from rock slides. And one little highlight was drifting through a little waterfall. The hotel was more or less unscathed and we got a warm welcome from the owner. He told us that there were 50 dead in his village. His family was sharing a tent with ten others. Again, moving stuff. We quickly met a couple that had been on some interesting Overland adventures and traded stories. And over dinner, Rachel invited a solo traveler to join us. He was walking south and had come from Casablanca. I was tired after riding a high spec motorcycle through Morocco; The prospect of walking it seems daunting. Tomorrow, we go to Marrakech. Love to you all Sophie x

Taroudant is a walled city, which makes this car park come of the coolest I've been in. It's nestled just inside the ancient fortifications and the juxtaposition is really pleasant.

Gertie has had six weeks of adventure on the road. She's been in filthy cities, deep sand, bounced around on stony riverbeds and parked nose first in a thorn bush. I thought it was time to treat her to a spa day. 💅🚿🧼🪥🫧🧹✨🤩 I asked how much and he said 30dirhams, which is about £2.30 or €2.60. He's been cleaning her now for about 30 minutes!

Another classic Sophie (Mis)adventure, guest starring Rachel* Apologies for the radio silence over the last few days. We had an intense desert adventure which we made it through, but we needed to take a day to recover from. If you'd like to read about it have a look at the attached. Love Sophie (& Rachel) *In case you missed it, Rachel is my friend that flew in to ride with me for a week.

This hotel is in a massive valley surrounded by wonderful, mountain scenery and the light this morning is 😙👌

A question that someone asked that I just realised is non obvious and should probably be shared

I know I say this every day, but holy shit: What an incredible, epic day. Today was nominally "ride south for an hour or two on roads, find a piste, ride it for 30km and then get to the hotel" The first bit was incredible. The road kept being broken and diverted into stony gravel craters. We did 20 or 30 of these. It was super fun, but made me feel a little anxious about this so called easy piste we'd read in the Morocco Overland guide book. Next was a wonderful road up through the mountains hunting for the piste. The only clue in the book was "before the copper mine". I wasn't sure I would know a copper mine, but when we saw it, there was a wonderful wide open piste. It was as non technical as a piste could be before being a road and we both charged along it at speed. Super fun. The next chapter was a ride through a gorge which was full of lush green jungley oasis palm trees. What made it epic was the orange towering walls of the gorge above the palm trees. I'm not doing it justice, but it was one of the coolest places I've seen. I cannot wait to show you the videos. Then we crossed out of that valley, over and into stunning scenery. Vast, vast landscape with huge hazy mountains lit by golden hour sun. And then once I thought it was over, it all changed again with enormous Flintstone style boulders piled everywhere. Imagine what the Flintstones house was made out of. And now imagine a whole valley just like that. We just got to the hotel after 8 hours of epic riding. I was in the pool 3 minutes after getting our room key. Looking forward to an indecently large supper. Love to you all

I met up with my friend Rachel south of Marrakech. We decided to head south to Ouarzazatte and see if we had energy for more. When we got there, we decided to go to a place south west, that I'd not been to Tazenacht, a couple of hours away. Garmin, the ever mischievous little imp, sent us on a little piste fun. We swapped bikes back and forth. Her 250 and my 1200 are very different beasts with pros and cons for each. When we got to Tazenacht, we found there two hotels. The pictures for one had what looked like government issue tents. And the other one looked very spartan for the price. We decided to do another hour to a slightly better hotel for the same money. We got in an hour ago and wolfed down a big meal and are now planning tomorrow's adventures. Love to you all S x

Catching up on the map as it's been a few days.

Ibex on the left. It's horns where enormous which you can see faintly if you zoom.

This morning was hard with an 8am start following the 3:45am finish. I was so exhausted that all my french was gone to the point that I couldn't even respond to "ca va?". I just mumbled something incoherent in English and drank coffee. One of the joys of this segment of the trip has been the French. The two other guests (Ellen and Bob) were primarily french speakers and the locals are primarily french (or Arabic), so the conversation fell into French much of the trip. It was really enjoyable focusing on the flow of the conversation and realising that actually I was getting a lot of it for the whole evening. My ability to speak it is shite, but. comprehension is actually north of terrible. Either way, this morning, that part of my brain was not functioning. It was only an hour or so into our ride back through the desert that I was again assimilating the conversation. On the way back we saw an Ibex. (Left of one of the pics) Back at the base, it was time to collect my laundry, pack and hit the road.

Last night ended up being very late, with me and the owner of the bivouac talking and listening to music in the dunes.

Orion