Sunday 26th October 2008

My day started with a few minutes quiet contemplation about my friend, Heather, competing in her first ever full distance Ironman triathlon today in Florida. Swim 2.4 miles, cycle 112 miles, run 26.2 miles – that’s a hard day.
For me? A simple trip to the airport, avoid the neat uniform, heavy makeup brigade and chat to the police and the freight handlers to get some real information. Nothing they could do for me within my timescale at Agadir but I got some useful pointers about Casablanca airport. My bike, and my solo trip, had intrigued them and my French, though still grammatically disastrous, was now good enough to make conversations like this enjoyable and not at all stressful. One of the policemen was so pleased that I had stayed at his home town of Erfoud that he took my photos for me. I think that was my first armed photographer.
60 kilometres west to Taroudannt and, surprise, surprise my chosen hotel didn’t exist – or at least so the touts told me. It’s still a good game though so I let one of them lead me on his moped at great speed through many busy narrow streets to his recommended hotel. It wasn’t very nice and cost 25% more than he had promised, plus he was waiting for a tip from me. I told him Taroudannt was too dear for me and I would ride on elsewhere. He immediately abandoned me and roared off leaving me lost. Actually I knew I was back nearly where we had started and I had seen a sign for the other hotel on the way. I do let the good ones win, honest.
Taroudannt within the walls was everything a Moroccan town should be: fortified Berber commercial town; apparently insane traffic actually not getting anywhere in the tiny streets; reasonably priced real food; friendly people and everything you could possibly want to buy, all sold in impossibly small shops.
I tested this theory by going into an impossibly small stationery shop. I had made so many route changes that my Morocco map was covered in pencil lines and was nearly unusable and of course I hadn’t brought a rubber. The French word for rubber eluded me but I had a go anyway. No success. Then a sudden and worrying thought. To any English speaker under the age of 40 the word rubber has been hijacked – it now means condom. Had the same thing happened in French? Had I just asked this puzzled looking Muslim teenager if she would supply me with a condom? Would I have to share a cell with Gary Glitter? I got my eraser. I didn’t go to jail. The French word for eraser is gomme. The French word for condom is préservatif. I will never attempt to purchase jam in any French speaking territory.

Saturday 25th October 2008

Felt better, no fever, but still a bit newborn lambish about the legs. A bit of fresh air and exercise seemed to be in order so out I went to play with the touts in downtown Agadir. A great game, once you understand the rules, and you even get the occasional free glass of tea. The best was joining in an elaborate charade of pretending to buy some tat to help two young Moroccan wide boys rip off a party of particularly snotty tourists. I know I shouldn’t have, but I needed a bit of light relief and they did make excellent tea.
Shortly after, I took a wrong turn on my way to the port, left Africa, and entered Holidaybrochureland. Mature date palms were being planted by JCB outside a shiny new McDonalds, armed tourist police were on the alert on every corner to guard against any non-brochure experience, and I’m sure that, somewhere behind the scenery, someone was painting the pebbles white. Fighting off my Victor Meldrew cynicism attack, I chatted to some typically friendly Dubliners and had a really nice lunch in a really nice French restaurant, ‘Restaurant au Parasol Bleu’. It cost 10 euros, twice as much as any meal I’d had in Morocco, very good value for Holidaybrochureland.
Finally found the port but wasn’t allowed in, though one of the customs officers tried to buy my bike even though it was on temporary import documentation. He just pointed at his Douane badge and laughed at my naivety. I was tempted, just for the hell of it, but the thought of finishing my blog on lavatory paper in a Moroccan prison dissuaded me, as did the further thought that there would be no lavatory paper in a Morrocan prison.
In the evening, a text from Hans convinced me I had been correct to stay put. I should firstly explain that the Berber kids above the Todra Gorge had all named me ‘Ali Baba’. I still don’t know why they did but the name stuck.
The text from Hans:
‘Hello Ali Baba. The road down it’s god bad the sidewind hard to fight against. How you feeling today? Hans’ If it was ‘god bad’ for Hans, I probably couldn’t have ridden in the conditions even if I’d been fighting fit.

Friday 24th October 2008

Not really any sleep last night, no food and still feverish, I reluctantly had to accept that Dakar just wasn’t going to happen for me. I booked in for another night, gave Hans my map of Senegal as he set off to try to find another traveller to share the risks of the three days through Mauritania, and started to plan an alternative way home on less demanding roads.
In the afternoon I took a huge risk and went about 300 metres from the security of a readily available toilet to an internet café. For the first time, I got interrogated about virus protection on my Eee PC before being allowed to connect. Quite funny really, considering the health risk from me.
Internet access has been relatively easy to find in towns but the real surprise for me has been the mobile phone coverage. I only switch my phone on a couple of times a day but I have never been without a signal in Morocco. As I have only seen a few large masts instead of the forest of small ones we have for our ropey coverage in Ireland, I can only assume that the power has been turned up to eleven like in Spinal Tap. Presumably in about another month I would hear a ‘ping’ to let me know that my kidneys were done. Another few hours in bed and then downstairs to move my bike to its nighttime parking guardian (Hans had moved it last night). Lahcen, the hotel owner, knew I didn’t like the guardian so he had a new plan. If I removed the panniers I could ride the bike up the step into the lobby and through the doorway onto the breakfast terrace. Hotel el Bahia rocks!Suitably inspired after this success, I tried the universal stomach litmus test – a packet of crisps. Not a complete all clear but I needed food so I chanced half a chicken tagine in the closest restaurant.

Wednesday & Thursday 22nd & 23rd October 2008

Wednesday 22nd October 2008

An easy day from Marrakesh to Essaouira was the plan today. I had breakfast with Roland Andy and Hans and we discussed the various options open to us. Hans is on the opening stage of his world tour and will go south from Essaouira to Cape Town via Dakar. Roland and Andy intend to go north from Essaouira, following the coast to Tangiers and then ride home through Spain and France to Switzerland. I have to decide whether to go south to Dakar and ship the bike home while I fly home or to ride north to the ferry at Tangiers then ride to Santander in the north of Spain and get a ferry to Portsmouth. Either way, no rush today. I rang James Cargo, the shipping company, to check that they could ship my bike home and asked them to email a quote for Roland and Andy, who weren’t looking forward to riding through Europe in the winter.I took my time riding towards the coast and stopped for a Moroccan length lunch break. The advice given to all travellers, especially solo ones, is to get your travelling done early in the day, in case something goes wrong. It’s very good advice. I rode the rest of the way at quite an angle to the vertical in a strong, gusting crosswind. The temperature plummeted and I got soaked. It was no distance to the coast but, eventually, my hands turned into useless claws on the handlebars. I pulled in to a village cooperative shop which also advertised a ‘salon du the’. I used a coffee mostly to warm my hands. When the two women running the salon realised how far gone I was they insisted I join them for a warming mint tea and some bread (no charge). I know my photograph of the first sight of the coast is rubbish but it meant a lot to me. We met up as arranged, found a nice hotel at off-season rates and then I very stupidly went out for a meal instead of going to bed to recover properly.

Thursday 23rd October 2008

I announced my decision to go to Dakar as we had our hearty breakfast and Roland and Andy regretfully decided to head north. Hans and I decided to ride separately each day but meet up to share accommodation and evening meals.
Sorted.
Then I lost my hearty breakfast down the loo (presumably a chill from the previous day) and I discovered that my bike had not escaped unscathed from my fall on Sunday. The brace joining the two pannier racks behind the wheel had broken right through beside a weld. So, that’s two fifty year old guys, one with an inoperable though benign tumour (Hans) and one with a dodgy ticker and galloping diahorrea (me) setting off to ride 2,500 kilometres to Dakar in Senegal on two bikes, one bike with a major component broken. What could possibly go wrong?
The ride south to Agadir started well as I found a roadside gate maker within about fifteen minutes. All I had to do was to remove the pannier and show him the offending rack. The gate making was abandoned immediately and, after about ten minutes with an angle grinder and an arc welder, I was on my way with a perfectly repaired rack. The cost? 20 dirham (2 euros). This road was not as spectacular as the mountain road to Marrakesh but it was an absolute pleasure to travel along it on a bike. Firstly through the last of the Argann production area with its strange little trees, then into an area of smallish hills (as in small like the Mournes) and finally innumerable wide sweeping bends along an escarpment parallel to the Atlantic. My riding may not have been textbook (its tough to hit every apex exactly when you’re getting shivering fits and stomach cramps) but it was a wonderful road.
Then things started to deteriorate. I stopped on the outskirts of Agadir to get petrol and my stomach appeared to take a direct hit from a small thermonuclear device (a mild exaggeration but you get the picture). Luckily Hans was waiting for me down the road and I was just about able to follow him through the traffic to the hotel while simultaneously shivering and sweating. The evening wasn’t good and I eventually came round in a toilet cubicle with no idea how long I’d been passed out for.

Tuesday 21st October 2008

Breakfast by the pool in the Corail was just what was required. It was actually quite a cool place and, at 48 euros petit dejeuner compris, rather better value than Jury’s Inn in Dublin. The balcony of my room had overlooked my bike with its all night parking guardian and, by the time I left, the staff had decided that I wasn’t a hells angel and were very friendly and chatty. Hans had kindly sent me details of a good campsite on the outskirts of the city and my walk round last night had been enough for me so I moved on. In a better state for riding, the Marrakesh traffic, in daylight, was nearly fun but I still can’t think of how to describe it. I can only assume that the local driving test was based purely on your ability to use the horn.

Monday 20th October 2008

Monday, that’s the day you go back to work isn’t it? Oh no, that’s the day you ride (on tarmac) up the stunning road to the viewpoint at the top of the Dades Gorge, then ride down again and take the scenic route all the way to Marrakesh via the Tizi-n-Tichka pass at 2260 metres in the High Atlas range. This was all tarmac but very demanding mountain riding that just went on for ever. The road surface was all good but quite a few stretches of guardrail had been washed away.

In reality, Sunday had taken more out of me than I had realised and my riding reactions and endurance would have been ok in a car but were not really up to the mark on a bike on this road. I got a bit of a wakeup call when I got a left hand hairpin all wrong, stiffened, locked my arms, and the bike naturally lifted and drifted wide onto the gravel edge on the outside. No guardrail, don’t want to think of the drop. Lesson learned, it was regular short tea stops from then on. In the right mental and physical state this has to be one of the best motorcycling roads in the world on day like this with hardly any traffic. I had started the day going up the Dades with the other guys but normally I much prefer riding alone at my own leisurely pace, so I split from them after about 30 kilometres and just had a tea stop with them at Skoura. Riding alone is quite different; when I was tired in the mountains, I saw three roadside crystal sellers who didn’t look too aggressive and stopped with them. They accepted that I didn’t want to buy anything and the four of us just sat, chatting in (basic) French while we shared my emergency bag of chocolate chip cookies. That’s hard to do in a group.
I arrived at the outskirts of Marrakesh late in the afternoon and was amazed by the string of mini villages along the road. Each one seemed to specialise in one trade, one was all bicycle repairs, one was lorry bodywork, and so on. All carried out at the roadside and all by Sub Saharan Africans.
Biggest mistake of the trip – I arrived in Marrakesh after 6 oclock and after dark. Nothing could have prepared me for the noise, the insane driving, the traffic fumes – it was total sensory overload for me. I followed a sign for the railway station in the hope there would be hotels near it. Forget the adventure travel, the first luxury hotel sign and I was straight up the kerb to the front door on the bike. The uniformed doorman and the well dressed guests of the Hotel Corail didn’t know quite what to make of the scruffy biker and his scruffy bike, both leaving trails of dried mud.

Sunday 19th October 2008

Out early and on to the bikes for our respective tours of the Todra and Dades gorges. Hans was going to do the long circuit up the Todra to Agoudal and then down the Dades, with a very large part of this on high altitude piste. Andy and Roland were going to ride up the Todra on tarmac to Tamtattouchte then take the much shorter but apparently more difficult piste over the 2700 metre pass to Msemrir to finish with a descent of the Dades. My plan was to ride with Andy and Roland to Tamtattouchte and then back down again because the tarmac section has a reputation of being fairly difficult, especially after the sort of damage that is caused here by heavy rain. If I had been alone, I would have got nowhere because after a few kilometres, we reached a point where there should have been a bridge a few metres above the river. The entire bridge had been washed away and there was a temporary gravel ramp down to the river bed and up the far side. With some advice from Andy, and very little style from me, I rode across. The previously tarmac road to Tamtattouchte was a mess, with some sections missing completely and others with very temporary repairs in progress. I managed to ride all of it and gained a certain amount of confidence along the way – always a dangerous thing. A glass of mint tea at 1700 metres, and I rode to the start of the piste, just for a look. The surface, while loose, was very good and completely dry and, full of unfounded confidence, I set off for Msemrir. The local Berbers all warned us not to go on because the piste was ‘broken’ but we continued, knowing we could always turn back. The piste was mostly still very good although some small sections had been washed away but I was still able to struggle through them. Then came a very testing steep climb with the whole surface washed away followed by a traverse across a mountainside with the remains of the path covered in rocks. I really struggled here but I did get through it and caught up with a worried looking Andy. He had seen something I hadn’t – the weather was just about to turn nasty. As we spoke the temperature dropped noticeably, the rain started and Andy made the decision to turn back as we were still 600 metres below the pass and the next section looked even rockier. Andy explained that we needed to get back fairly sharpish as the surface would deteriorate almost immediately with even light rain. He was so right, I couldn’t believe how different the surface became within a few minutes. Our tyres completely clogged with glutinous red mud and lost most of their grip and riding became much more difficult. I took one fairly heavy but non damaging fall and had to get help with one steep 50 metre descent but otherwise rode down ok. When we got lower down and slightly ahead of the rain it took a certain amount of willpower on my part to accelerate hard to clean the tyres. I will grudgingly admit that perhaps I should have learned to do this when I was a little younger.
As we came off the piste onto the tarmac (no, I didn’t kiss it) we met our Land Rover driving friends from Erg Chebi. They had intended to drive in convoy over the same piste but had been turned earlier by the weather. The cold was starting to get to us by now so we went fairly speedily down to the river crossing and into the café near it. Having survived everything so far, I had a stupid tourist, concentrating only on his mobile, walk straight in front of me as I powered up the steep gravel climb out of the river. In best Northern Ireland fashion, I was totally committed to my, by now, traditional route and could only shout as I accelerated towards him. From his expression as he jumped, I suspect he had quite a good command of English.
The hot meal helped but, once the adrenalin subsided, we knew we needed to get to somewhere to stop for the night. With no knowledge of Hans we could only assume he would make it to the Dades so we rode back through Tinerhir to Boumalne-du-Dades and up the start of the gorge. I was right at the end of my endurance by now and I just followed in Andy’s wheel tracks as he found us rooms at Auberge la Fibule.
I didn’t sleep but I went straight to bed to rest and get warm (but obviously in a very macho manner). Just as I was starting to feel quite human again, I was delighted to hear the distinctive sound of Hans’ highly modified BMW arriving. Hans is a highly experienced rider on a purpose built bike and is on the first stage of a seven year round the world trip but he freely admitted that, when the weather closed in, it all became a bit borderline for him and his bike.
The four of us had now filled the little auberge and the young guys who ran it really looked after us well. We had an excellent meal followed by a session of Berber music with some of their friends. On reading over that last sentence it sounds like tourist hell but I’m just too tired to describe it properly – it was great.

Saturday 18th October 2008

This morning, as I left, I discovered how normal guests got to the campsite and, while it was a lot easier than the way I had arrived, it was still pretty testing for me. Essentially someone had thrown a lot of gravel down in a two kilometre straight line across the desert from the tarmac road to the hotel and campsite. Back north into Erfoud and, creature of habit that I am, it was back to Café Dedani (where I’d had dinner with Hugo and Sabine) for mint tea. Off west then, on a decidedly second class road, to Tinejdad, where I could join the main N10 to Tenirhir at the entrance to the Todra Gorge. The road surface was pretty standard West of Ireland tarmac but laid in straight lines. I was beginning to realise that, away from the mountains, there is no reason for a road to have any corners. The first part was through some pretty but poor oasis villages but I then started to see real poverty as the landscape became much more barren. It was a bit odd at first to ride into a village where everybody just sat and stared at me but I found that if I lifted the flip front of my helmet and smiled it changed the whole atmosphere and most people smiled and waved back. I stopped to take a photo of a sign which warned of the danger of encroaching sand, always good to add a bit of excitement without any risk. Wrong again. Within 5 minutes I was enveloped in my first ever sandstorm (they’re not very common in County Antrim). The wind was blowing fiercely from my left and gradually covering the road, my helmet had way too much swirling sand in it, and every now and again a large truck or bus would thunder out of the sand cloud at me. I had never got round to reading the best practice guide on how to ride in a sandstorm so I just kept going blindly on and eventually it all stopped. It must only have lasted for two or three kilometres (not like in the real Sahara) but it left me fairly drained.
I must have been slightly disorientated because I stopped for tea in Melaab, thinking I had reached Tinejdad. This was the first time I had come to somewhere where nobody spoke either English or French. Shouldn’t have been a problem, I only wanted tea. Unfortunately the Arab café owner decided that he couldn’t possibly communicate with me and delegated the task to one of his customers who spoke Spanish. No, I don’t speak any Spanish. It took an hour and a half to get a glass of mint tea and a plate of dates, surely a record even by Morocccan standards. Suitably reoriented, I made good time to Tenirhir and couldn’t quite believe that Andy Hans and Roland were sitting at the first café. They had gone for an exciting day off road on a very long piste only to discover that most of it had been tarred. They said that the only exciting thing they had seen all day had been a sandstorm covering a road to their north. Yes, I know.
We were all intending to ride the Todra Gorge the next day so, after getting our boots beautifully polished; we rode into the gorge to stay at the superb Maison D’Hotes Anissa (abdelouahid10@hotmail.com). Two years old, excellent rooms, hot showers and 150 dirham inc dinner and breakfast – I’m going to be such a grumpy guest in Irish accommodation.
Tomorrow the Todra Gorge – can it really compare with the ring of Kerry?

Friday 17th October 2008

This is such a cool campsite. The Swiss bikers Hans, Roland and Andy, are here, making a total of eight overland bikes. There are three fully equipped Land Rovers with roof tents (and a Toyota to pull them out of the sand). There is a huge, home converted, Swiss army lorry and, fairly incongruously, a Hymer motorhome with scooter. The Dutch couple with the Hymer took great delight in getting to crazy places with either their motorhome or their little scooter.
I’m starting to think Lois Price (www.loisontheloose.com) was right when she told me to buy a 225 Yamaha Serow and some soft luggage for this trip. There are definitely advantages with a lightweight bike once you leave Europe.
Today was the day I finally had no clean clothes available so hand washing in a tiny basin for some considerable time. To answer the big question for everyone in Ireland, yes, it is ‘great drying weather’ in Morocco.
The day finished in fairly surreal fashion with a genuine Swiss cheese fondue cooked in the desert by a genuine Swiss Roland.

Thursday 16th October 2008

This time I wore my full body armour to collect my bike and rode south towards Rissani. There was some floodwater on the road but no worse than Ballyronan that famous Saturday in August. At a petrol station I met two brit bikers who had ridden from Northern Spain to do a tour of Morocco on a 125 Varadero and a 17 year old Honda xl185. That’s keen. I got some money and had a tagine for lunch in Rissani and rode through some rather worse flooding on the edge of town out towards the desert. The sensation of seeing the huge dunes of Erg Chebi in the distance and riding towards them on this lonely road was truly memorable. I know that huge coaches do it every day in the tourist season, but this just felt special. In merzouga I found a Dutch biker on an xt600 like mine who had lost his group and had no money and no mobile. I let him use my mobile but with no success so he tagged along as I got a guide to take me to what he promised was the best biker camping around and only two minutes away. They must have been Kerry minutes as I nearly doubled my off-road experience before we got there. However, it was interesting to ride a perfect off-road bike on perfect tyres and only just be able to keep pace with an elderly Arab wearing a bright blue jelaba and thrashing the life out of a moped. And no – he didn’t stand on the pegs. I gave the Dutch biker some dirhams for fuel and he disappeared off after the guide to – who knows?

Wednesday 15th October 2008

With a vague arrangement to meet up at tea stops, we set off to go Erfoud via Er Rachidia. I prefered to ride alone because I was still in such awe of the scenery that I didn’t want to think about keeping up to a set pace. I was also still feeling quite nauseous each morning. As it was unlikely to still be seasickness and I was fairly certain I wasn’t pregnant, that only left a reaction to the anti malaria medication as a likely culprit. Tough, no alternative, so get over it.
A good road with many hairpins over the Tizi-n Talrhemt pass was my introduction to the High Atlas and, as on many previous occasions, I wished that my photographic skills could do it justice. At least with digital photography I can delete the shots of my thumb. The early stretches of the Ziz Gorges were impressive but I found the Tunnel du Legionnaire a bit disappointing (blasé or what?). I had read that the French had built the tunnel to create this route south in the 1930s and I suppose I was expecting something amazing. At least the government had the decency to still have soldiers guarding it so that gave it a bit of spectacle.
The rest of the Ziz Gorges put the tunnel out of my mind – this was truly spectacular, and all seen from a good main road. A tea stop had to be in order here at a suitable viewpoint and, yes, we did actually meet up again. I took a leisurely ramble to Erfoud and lost touch with the other bikers. The municipal campsite was open but had been thoroughly trashed by the floods so, time for a hotel. It had been a long day so I just chose the most competent looking fixer around (Mustapha) and got him to find me a suitable hotel. He got me exactly what I wanted, at 150 dirham, in the middle of the town and with a guarantee of secure parking for the night.
I joined a young Dutch couple, Hugo and Sabine, for dinner at a pavement café. We all went for the safe option, the special of the day. I have no idea what Kalia is but it was delicious. Hugo and Sabine had been backpacking but had joined up temporarily with another couple in a hire car and it was interesting to compare our travel arrangements. They delicately enquired my age, decided that it was the same as their parents and said they couldn’t imagine them on a bike never mind a solo bike trip to Morocco. I have been surprised at how few solo travellers I’ve met – it’s definitely harder but it’s very enjoyable.
Back at the hotel, my secure parking was now available and, no, I wouldn’t need my bike gear because it was just round the corner. And that’s how I came to follow the hotel owner in his car though the mayhem of Erfoud main street at dark wearing light trousers, t-shirt, sandals and no helmet. Off the main street, over 100 metres of rubble from the flood, and my bike joined his car in the garage of his luxury apartment. Terrazza floor in a garage?

Tuesday 14th October 2008

The hotel had organised an overnight parking guardian for my bike and two cars parked at the front door – all for a suggested tip of 15 dirham. He was a nice guy with a lively sense of humour and made the slow business of loading up the bike much easier for me. For probably the first time, I actually made an early start and was quite cold on the bike for a couple of hours. Somebody quite famous (sorry, can’t remember) described Morocco as a cold country with a hot sun and I started to understand what he meant as I waited for the sun to break through. I took the N15 south following the valley of the Ouad Moulouya with the Rekkam Plateau to my left and gradually seeing the Middle Atlas appear on my right. I find it hard to describe the scale of the landscape I was riding through. It made home seem like a layout from my 00 train set.
I topped up the tank at the snappily named town of Outat-Oulad-El-Haj and allowed myself the luxury of a mint tea at the fuel station café because I had covered so much distance so early. I knew the rest of the day’s ride would be easy.
Which it was, right up until the policeman at Missour told me that the bridge was impassable on the main road to Midelt because of flood damage. That meant a 70 kilometre detour over a 2000 metre pass in the Middle Atlas Mountains to get to another road to Midelt. The road was pretty good and the scenery impressive as I climbed into the mountains but, once the gradient flattened out, there was a strong sidewind which is always tiring on a bike. About halfway along the road the sky quite suddenly turned black and I was in a torrential rainstorm, complete with appropriate thunder and lightning special effects. Two locals stopped their van so that I could get in the back to put my wet gear on. They checked that I really was travelling alone, muttered ‘courage’ and shook my hand. This was becoming a regular reaction from the locals and, while it immediately makes you start to act like Dirty Harry, it tends to counterproductive longer term. Once through the storm, I came out of the mountains and onto a poor quality road that had suffered a fair bit of flood damage. Just as well I’d started early.I was tired and very hungry by this time so the sight of three overland bikes outside a café in Midelt seemed like a good sign. I joined the bikes’ owners for a meal and went hunting for accommodation with them. There were no rooms or decent campsites available but there always seems to be another option in Morocco. We were allowed to ride our bikes into a canvas roofed function room at a hotel and to sleep on the floor beside them for 20 dirhams each – luxury!

Monday 13th October 2008

My good intentions to make an early departure fell apart (again) when I got taken to the souk for a lesson in advanced haggling. As a Ballymena man, I didn’t think I had anything to learn but these guys are good. I finally left Nador around lunchtime but only after getting a strict lecture about not stopping for anything on the road, especially that day. My route to Guercif was taking me through the foothills of the Rif Mountains. The main crop of the Rif is top quality cannabis; conditions are so well suited that it actually grows wild in some areas. As a result the Rif has always been a fairly lawless place and there is a bit of a tradition of lone travellers getting stopped and pressured into buying. The transactions have not always gone well with quite a few European travellers either being robbed or ending up in a Moroccan prison on drugs charges. I felt that my route was far enough away from the drugs centre to be safe but I did feel a bit spooked at times in the lonelier parts through the hills. There were quite a few men at the roadside selling contraband fuel, smuggled over the nearby Algerian border, but there were also quite a few just standing looking at the road. I’m sure they were all perfectly friendly people but once you get an idea into your head…..
I bought my fuel legally at full price in Sata and rode on to Guercif where I booked in to the luxury of the Hotel Milano and didn’t complain at the tourist price of 200 dirham – 20 euro. Noaam would have been horrified.

Sunday 12th October 2008

Fatigue had obviously set in yesterday as I had made a complete hash of setting the time on my phone. As a result I was at the door of the internet café two hours before it opened so I moved across to a little tea shop to sit and wait. My arrival yesterday must have been noticed by the locals as Abdullah stopped setting up his fruit stall to check that all was well with me. He then bought me some rather special mint tea and showed me how to pour it properly before returning to his stall. I spent most of the afternoon exploring Nador alone on foot before rejoining my Moroccan social circle which had now expanded to four. All communication was still in French but I actually found it easier to follow now that Asma had joined us as she had such a clear accent as she had lived in Paris until she was fifteen. We finished off the evening by educating me in how to use pieces of bread to eat chicken from a communal plate without the aid of cutlery and without covering myself and everyone near me with the sauce. It mostly worked.

Saturday 11th October 2008

Felt ok after another stormy night but decided not to chance breakfast and just had my heart meds in case the malaria capsule was affecting my stomach (I know you shouldn’t do that but I had it later). I lay on my bunk to make sure my stomach wasn’t going to feel too awful for riding the bike and thus missed a noisy passengers’ deputation to the captain. Apparently it was quite entertaining. Around mid morning the ship picked up speed and made its way into port in a totally orderly manner. The drivers were called to the vehicle deck and we prepared to depart. I was astonished to find that not only was my bike undamaged but that it had been buffered and tied against the pipe absolutely perfectly, far better than any strap over the seat. So, that was the trip over? No, this was now Morocco and a crowd of passengers held a protest on the unloading ramp, demanding refunds on their tickets. As they were blocking in the last vehicle to be loaded, a huge barge, they probably thought they were in a position of strength. Words turned to shouts, shouts turned to shoves and then there were three people on the ground. And so it went on. I got speaking again to the ship’s engineer who told me the passengers hadn’t a hope. Apparently this ship was only doing this one run and was then going to Greece for a month of repairs, so they weren’t in a hurry anywhere. He also mentioned that he was from Georgia but that one of his favourite destinations was Ireland because of the Guinness and the friendly welcome. He obviously thought I was mad to leave Ireland to come to all this shouting. I got chatting to two of the non-shouting passengers who told me that they have been using this route for years with no problems with the normal ferry, the Marrakesh, and that they think this ship was just too big for the port in bad weather. Possibly it was put on to bring the barge over?
Suddenly a military style ambulance arrived with its siren wailing and there was a lot of police activity. Just like old times, I expected to see an RUC DMSU arrive at any minute. With no obvious settlement, the deadlock ended and we all returned to our vehicles while the barge was unloaded.
That would be the barge that had been reversed in with great force and jammed tight against the supports of the next deck.
In due course we did eventually get off the ship only to move to the chaos that is Nador customs. Tim Cullin of Horizons Unlimited has warned against using Nador because the customs resemble a scene from Mad Max. Tim, you’re wrong, this IS Mad Max. I swear I saw Tina Turner lead her mechanised legion straight down the centre lane. The customs officers (all of them) looked at my internet downloaded import form (that’s downloaded from their website), had obviously never seen one before and just stamped everything in sight and I was through.
In my now hot and thoroughly exhausted state I was very grateful that Najim had waited with his car to lead me to a cheap hotel near his parents’ apartment and to help me secure my bike in their garage. Noaam insisted we had to go out so off we went for dinner and some advanced tuition in woman watching from pavement cafes for the rest of the evening. On balance, I think this was all a bit tougher than getting into Wales but, once again, at least I hadn’t broken my glasses.

Friday 10th October 2008

I woke up feeling pretty good although the sea had been very rough all night. I decided not to have breakfast or my meds until after we reached dry land, after all we were going to dock at 8:00, weren’t we?
WRONG!
As there was still no sight of the port by 8:30 I took my meds and was talking to God on the big white phone by 9:15. This was bad, fairly violent seasickness and I was really concerned about being able to ride the bike. I shouldn’t have been concerned. The first bad sign was when we were called for an extra free meal at lunchtime. We were now stationary, hiding in sheltered waters. I felt well enough to try the free lunch and joined three Arabs in traditional clothing. They spoke surprisingly little French but were good company and when they discovered I was Irish they decided that I had brought the bad weather with me and announced this loudly in Arabic to everyone in earshot. Perhaps time to keep a lower profile? The main course was vegetables and meat. My fellow diners were not eating the meat, presumably for religious reasons. I was eating very little of it though for digestive reasons rather than religious. A whisper went round the non meat eaters that there was fish left over in the restaurant and suddenly we had four portions of fish. They had decided that I obviously didn’t like meat so therefore they would look after the benighted, hungry foreigner and get him some fish. I know when I’m beaten – I ate the fish and spent the next two hours lying down very carefully on my bunk.
There wasn’t much information being given out by the crew but we did hear that Nador harbour was still closed because of the storm – perhaps we would just stay out here until we ran out of fuel? Everybody was now feeling bored and trapped, nobody was in the mood for conversation and I had no book to read. In a particularly bored moment and with my stomach threatening to take centre stage again, I couldn’t escape the thought that, if we’d been in a plane we would have, in the words of Billy Connolly, ‘gone into the ground like a f***ing dart’ by now and it would all be over. Tragically, my French was not good enough to enable me to share these words of wit and wisdom with my companions.
Now we got a really bad sign – there was not enough food left to make dinner. We got a paper bag each with a can of fanta and two sandwiches made from stale bread rolls and something unidentifiable. This created a bit of grumbling but some humour as well but I knew that if the mint tea ran out there would be really ugly scenes. Interestingly the mood on board had changed and people now seemed to want to talk again. As they had run out of things to say to their friends they started to form new groups. I had people I had never seen before come to me to offer advice about my bike trip. It might have been better if any of the advice had been about anything other than the likely catastrophes that would surely befall me. Well, if it made them feel better. One thing I was sure about – I did not want to ride the bike off the ship with nowhere to go to in the dark.
I managed to find an English speaking ship’s engineer who told me that it would be too dangerous to try to dock the ship at dark in these circumstances (good) so they had decided to just let the ship drift during the night (not so good?) and they would dock sometime tomorrow if the weather improved (probably good?). Trying to explain all this to the crowd of French speakers that then formed around me completely wore me out so I just gave up on considering my likely chances of survival and went to bed.

Thursday 9th October 2008

Contrary to all expectations and despite the interesting motion of the ship, I had had a great night’s sleep and woke up feeling refreshed and raring to – oh yes – to not go anywhere. I swallowed my usual bucket load of heart medications and had, as instructed, my first anti malarial capsule. I collected my breakfast at the cafeteria, had two bites, and just made it back to the cabin. With much effort, I wasn’t actually sick as I didn’t want to lose my meds but I had a very uncomfortable few hours. I felt better by about lunchtime but didn’t risk eating anything. That gave me the advantage of being first in the lounge in the afternoon so that I could sit in a corner and people watch. At this stage I was still intrigued by the dress code – everything from jeans to jelabas. I noticed that two of the bikers and their support van driver (wimps) always sat together and didn’t ever talk to anyone else. I’m sure they were technically better bikers than me, most people are, but I couldn’t help thinking they were missing out somewhere. Still, ‘chacun à son truc’ as one of my shiny new French phrases has it. Noaam came to join me for mint tea and, by limiting his vocabulary considerably, managed to tell me quite a lot about himself. I was discovering that, while it’s relatively easy to have a one to one conversation in another language, it’s a whole different matter trying to keep pace with three or four people. After some help from Najim with filling in my Marocco entry card for the morning I went off for an early night.

Wednesday 8th October 2008

Another soulless breakfast, this time in an Etap Hotel, but no apologies – the hostel was the wrong side of town with nowhere for the bike and where was I going to camp in a commercial port? In any case the staff were very helpful, helped me to use their free wifi, and let me leave my bike in their secure parking all day until ferry check in time.
I had left it a bit late (small understatement) to print out my Moroccan customs form for the bike and I couldn’t print in the Etap Hotel so I found the internet café ‘cyberphone’ and followed the Globebusters’ instructions which worked perfectly. Until, that is, it came to the last instruction – print in colour. Correct, no colour printer in any internet café in Sete. Too late to worry, time for lunch. Attempt no 2 at the Blanquette de Veau just to give it a fair chance. Enough’s enough; it’s had its chance.

Up to the booking hall to go to the desk beside the one I was at yesterday to get my booking confirmation which was duly processed by a sullen jobsworth. Overall, the booking process, even in a foreign language, hasn’t been as difficult as I had expected although it is still possible that I’ve actually signed up for a ten year tour of duty with some obscure relic of the foreign legion. The vehicles waiting for the ferry totally lived up to my expectations – mostly ancient and mostly horrifically overloaded. One elderly Renault saloon appeared to have completely collapsed rear suspension but still had two lorry wheels and a trolley on its roofrack and some unimaginable weight inside it. I got waved on to the ferry, along with the three other bikers, via two more paperwork checks. My sullen jobsworth from the booking confirmation desk suddenly became animated by the sight of my bike and, when I let him blip the throttle a couple of times, became my friend for life and wished me something good that I couldn’t understand. Who knows? Reality check now – I had expected the usual strap over the seat tie down arrangement for the bike but no – turn the clock back thirty years and park on the sidestand beside a large vertical pipe. ‘Don’t worry, we will look after it’. I took a few obvious photos to prepare for the compensation claim and left them to it.
My cabin had mysteriously been upgraded to comfort class from economy and, when I glanced into a three person economy cupboard, I was very grateful. My cabin companions were two young Moroccan guys, Noaam & Najim, who spoke no English but were very friendly and kept muttering ‘courageous’ when we discussed my solo trip. We had dinner together and then went for coffee with another guy who sat at our table. Noaam and Najim are teetotal and I certainly wasn’t drinking on my longest ever sea voyage but the other guy made up for all of us. He had an interesting variation on the drinking water bladders that hillwalkers and mountain bikers have in their backpacks – he had a litre of whisky in his, which he completely demolished in the middle of a lounge full of people drinking coffee and mint tea. Thought for the day: if travelling in company on a ferry like this, eat good food in relaxed surroundings in the restaurant; if travelling alone, join the queue at the cafeteria, take whatever unidentifiable foreign meal is dished out, squeeze in at a communal table, become an object of interest to your fellow diners and have a lot of fun - you’ll even learn some new words

Tuesday 7th October 2008

Having happily eaten my soulless F1 breakfast, I then actually concentrated on getting somewhere on time. I only allowed myself a quick stop beside the Canal du Midi to eat a sandwich and check my phone which had a very puzzling and ever so slightly stroppy text message – ‘can’t find restaurant and can’t get through on your phone’.
Last week a friend had sent me an email suggesting we have lunch on the Lisburn Road in Belfast and that I could choose the restaurant. I replied ‘how about Morocco’ and sent her a link to this travel blog. Unfortunately I must have been a little too obscure and the poor soul had charged up and down Belfast’s most restaurant-laden thoroughfare accosting passing strangers and insisting that they must have heard of this wonderful new eatery, ‘Morocco’.
My turn now for a difficult experience as I somehow managed to book a ticket for bike and self on a ferry to Morocco – all conducted in French. Two top tips: Carte Gris is French for V5; and don’t wear your waterproof trousers while dealing with French bureaucracy. It will take longer than you expect, you will have to run up and down hundreds of stairs for each new request for yet another document, your face will turn purple and eventually, steam will start to issue from the waistband of the aforementioned waterproof trousers. Not a good look.
Tomorrow, Africa (or at least, after a 36 hour ferry trip).

Monday 6th October 2008

After a civilized breakfast of croissants at my table it was then on to Foix, which looked really different from last time I had been there when everywhere was decorated in readiness for the arrival of the Tour de France. It was still nice to stop there, just not as glamorous. I had to work for the afternoon so got my ‘eee pc’ connected up in ‘Cyberland’ near the chateau for some tiny amount of money. Note to fellow bike travellers, motorbikes park free in the car park in the town centre.
Breaking my unbreakable rule yet again, I rode on deliberately through dusk because I wanted to see ‘la cite’ in Carcasonne lit up at night. I know that the energy usage is environmentally indefensible and my desire to see it is a bit sad but the most spectacular of the Cathar cities does look its best at night. I would never accuse the French of ‘restoration by breeze block’ but up close, in daylight, it’s still lovely but some things look just a little too perfect. With hindsight, the view over the plain from the sweeping bends down from Fanjeux was probably even better as the sky started to turn pink but, hey, I saw both.
Realisation then dawned on me (can you say that at dark?) that it was very late and I had not a clue where I was going to stay so I bolted happily to a soulless F1 chain hotel.

Sunday 5th October 2008

Ready for a high mileage day, I left my non-hardcore accommodation with my clothes washed and batteries charged. Thanks to T7 Honda for organising the gratis accommodation, particularly generous as for this trip I’ve changed to a Yamaha!
After the first three miles of my high mileage day I stopped to leave the key from my accommodation with ex-pat Lorraine. So, tell me Lorraine, why would you not want to be living in Northern Ireland in October? Let’s have coffee in the sunshine and admire the view of the first winter snow on the Pyrenees? Ok, you might have a point there. Well, what about a high mileage late afternoon? No, that wasn’t going to happen either – I was now in coffee and Pyrenees mode. Shades on, sit at pavement table on the Boulevard des Pyrenees in Pau and sip a cup of coffee at nearly Lisburn Road prices.
Eventually I rode on east towards St Gaudens with great views of the snow capped Pyrenees to my right. Three fruitless chases after ‘camping ouvert’ signs later I was really pleased to find ‘village vacances’ really was still open, though only until the end of October. Madame complemented me on speaking very good French for someone from Belfast and supplied a table and chair beside my tent for me to have a civilized breakfast. Obviously fancied me – well, ok, I’ll accept pity.
I then made the mistake of having a late evening meal of ‘blanquette de veau’ because that was the only thing still on the menu in the village restaurant. I must try it somewhere else before giving up on it.

Saturday 4th October 2008

Raring to go but not wanting to spend much time on the bike, I headed into Mourenx to find an internet café. Silly of me: that would be much too interesting for Mourenx, so I went over to the dark side and used the free wifi in McDonalds.
As an antidote to the Mourenx McDonalds, I rode to Navarenx for the afternoon. Navarenx is an impressive fortified town with its walls and arsenal still pretty much intact and is worth a walk round out of the tourist season. Yes, that’s right, I walked. Horrified intake of breath from the dedicated bikers who have to be carried from the bike to the bar in case they scuff their Rossi Replica boots in a non knee-down manner. I can report that my new Altberg dual purpose boots with their recommended smartwool socks are the best bits of kit I’ve brought with me and, no, I don’t mind looking like a relic from the great war if my feet are comfortable.
There were mysterious references to the alchemist in Navarenx but the exhibition was closed – anybody know anything about it? Just don’t tell me if it was some sort of tourist nonsense.

Friday 3rd October 2008

Didn’t feel great this morning – the effects of yesterday’s riding through the cold and wet or the effects of yesterday’s drinking slightly too much wine? Probably a bit of both. Whatever, I took the hint, let myself recover, fiddled with the bike and recharged the batteries – both electric and personal.

Thursday 2nd October 2008

I actually managed an early start this morning and got the tent packed up just before a fairly heavy shower of rain, the first since Belfast. On with the grotty wet gear – as this is a one-way trip heading to the warm and rainless south I’m wearing vented armoured jacket and trousers with cheap nasty waterproofs to pull over them. The theory is that I eventually just dump the waterproofs. The downside is that cheap waterproofs don’t breathe and it all gets a bit humid and unpleasant inside them. Too much information? Sorry.
So, I rode on into the warm and rainless south and got frozen and soaked all day in my unsuitable attire. Perhaps the fact that my route included crossing the Dordogne at Bergerac, the Garronne at Marmande, and the Adour at Aire sur l’Adour should have suggested the possibility of rain?
My day was livened up by being pulled over by two gendarmes at Miramont-de-Guyenne. I couldn’t blame then – the bike has had all its Yamaha identification removed, it must be illegal with all the weight on the back and by this stage I looked, and probably smelled, like Worzel Gummidge on an off day. No matter – follow the motorcyclist’s code for dealing with policemen the world over: pull in off the road, engine off, helmet off, smile broadly and say hello in their language. It worked with the younger gendarme; he just wanted to know if it was a Yamaha Tenere. The older one glared at his companion for committing this youthful indiscretion and demanded to see my driving licence. I continued to grin inanely and apologised for holding him back as I opened two padlocks, two zips and a waterproof bag to get to my licence. At least I think I apologised: with my French and the stress, I might just as easily have been insulting his grandmother. Suddenly he spotted the South America stickers on the panniers and assumed I had been there. Actually the bike had been, but with its previous owner. I suddenly acquired adventurer status; he switched to English, regaled me with tales of his tour of duty in Guatemala City and warned me to watch out for thieves and corrupt policemen on my travels. I thankfully stuffed the rest of my slightly iffy documentation away and departed.
Very cold, hungry and bedraggled I arrived at my rendezvous with the Randalstown ex-pat community south of Pau. The contrast from the day’s travel was quite something as I got presented with a meal of award winning foie gras followed by perfectly-pink duck breast and far too much fine wine. Tough work this hardcore adventure travel!

Wednesday 1st October 2008

About fifteen minutes down the road from Le Moulin Vert in the morning I came to a roundabout littered with soulless chain hotels – a close call. Ambling on towards Limoges, I just had to stop in Lussac les Châteaux to take a photo of ‘Chèz Papy’ – surely it must be twinned with the famous Pappy’s chippie in Dunloy? A question probably best left unanswered. Through Limoges and an almost deserted road to Perigueux. A few kilometres short of Perigueux I stopped to get those single cylinder vibes out of my legs. Only one other vehicle in the lay-by – the O’Learys from Kerry on tour in their motorhome. An occasion like that in a foreign land can’t go uncelebrated so out came the teapot and the ham sandwiches. Feeling suitably cheerful, I found somewhere to stop for the night almost immediately – Camping Le Bois du Caderc with brand new bar, pool and shower block, lovely scenery and free wifi, all for 6 euro.

Tuesday 30th September 2008

The Brittany ferries crew helpfully got us down the ramp early and off I set on my first attempt at riding a motorbike on the right for 28 years. In reality its much easier than driving a right hand drive car in France because at least you’re not sitting on the wrong side of the vehicle. I successfully negotiated St Malo and headed south around Rennes and on to Angers. After a look at the chateau (had seen it before but it is too impressive to go past) I called in at the compulsory stop for any true petrol-head, O Bolides. This excellent restaurant is in a converted car showroom and has a display of motoring memorabilia from the 50s and 60s. What raises this above the average themed restaurant is that the owners also have a car restoration business round the back and they display their restored cars in among the tables. The last time I visited for lunch I was able to reach round from my seat and touch an xk120 Jaguar. Today’s special? A rally prepared Ford Anglia.

Just time for a quick look at the Loire at Les Ponts de Cé and then on towards Poitiers.
Today’s intended accommodation was to be one of the many good, cheap municipal campsites along the route – absolutely no need to book ahead at this time, just turn up for the usual warm welcome. After three fruitless diversions down long lanes with ‘camping ouvert’ signs at one end and padlocked gates at the other I was starting to take the hint. Summer had officially ended last weekend.
Just north of Poitiers and in danger of running out of day, I passed one of those strange little French establishments that look like scruffy newsagents but have signs proclaiming ‘café hotel restaurant tabac presse bar’. At least it had a car park with a space about the right size for the bike. Madame did not speak any English but smiled at my French and was even amused when I asked her to speak more slowly. I got the last of the eight rooms and agreed that I would like breakfast and evening meal included for a total of 42 euros. It transpired that ‘Le Moulin Vert’ catered mostly for workmen working away from home and that, as a foreign tourist, I was a bit of a rarity. The excellent four-course evening meal was served to the eight guests in a little private dining area off the bar and included a large carafe of red wine and a substantial cheese board. I don’t want to think of how much an equivalent meal would cost in Belfast.

Monday 29th September 2008

So, the last early morning fast ferry of the summer schedule left yesterday morning then? Not to worry, bound to be another one in a couple of hours? Not until 23:00? Right, then.
This time Ted Simon was proved right. A friendly security guard (yes there is ONE) made me a cup of coffee to warm me up and we had a great conversation about living full-time on a wooden boat. When the office opened the staff got me booked onto a late evening ferry from Portsmouth to St Malo so I could have an early start the next day from farther into France. Most importantly, this time I didn’t break my glasses.
I got round to Portsmouth intending to have a wander round the historic dockyard. I’ve competed in the Great South Run a few times but I was always a bit busy when I was running past HMS Victory. I parked the bike up near the entrance to the dockyard but I was told my bag would probably not be there when I got back and that there were no facilities for storage. I was about to give up when a guy parked his bike near mine in that confident way that is the mark of the local. I had a chat and explained my problem to him. It turned out that he was from the Ark Royal and he reckoned that the proper thing for a fellow biker to do was to look after my bike for me – so he sat out on the footpath with a pint while I had a look at the Victory. How brilliant are bikers?
The ferry did just what it said on the tin but I did meet two interesting bikers. One very feisty lady with fairly advanced MS was determinedly still riding pillion on a big BMW tourer which looked pretty cool with two crutches across the top box – go girl! The other biker had brought a Harley from his house in France to sell it and reduce his bike collection.
Question: what is the perfect number of bikes?
Answer: N+1, where N is the number you currently own.
He was obviously familiar with this theorem as on his way to Heathrow to fly home after selling the Harley he ‘accidentally’ bought a 750 Kawasaki and sidecar. Long suffering wife syndrome perhaps?
Tomorrow France – only four days behind schedule. At least the language problem shouldn’t be as bad as Wales.

Sunday 28th September 2008

Had chill-out day, got pampered, had lengthy coffee break, drank beer, decided rack wasn’t as bad as I feared. Put a metal strap round offending part of rack to stop it twisting. I also sorted out camera charging problem – no further excuses about photos except for lack of skill.Despite my rigid rule about not riding in the dark on this trip I decided to set off pre-dawn thus giving myself plenty of time and set my target as the first fast ferry out of Poole to Cherbourg on Monday morning to give me a chance to cover some safe, daylight miles in France. Is it just me or does this sound familiar?

Friday 26th / Saturday 27th September 2008

Worked in the morning and early afternoon (bit of a double-edged sword the internet) then set off to Touratech’s premises. Touratech are a company who supply just about every gadget you could possibly need to go round the world on a motorbike – especially if it’s a BMW and you’re a film star. I’m on a scruffy Yamaha so I just went to try to scrounge some coffee (result! thanks Kyle), buy steel wires to hold my pannier lids on when I forget to lock them, and try to identify the bike travellers among the poseurs and celebrities. Actually I had a great time, got some really useful advice and met lots of real travellers. I also met two undercover celebrities. They were calling themselves Mark and Al but they didn’t fool me for long – I know Fat Freddie and his mate from the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers when I see them. Anyone else remember the FFF Bros? Most of the crowd from the Horizons Unlimited Bristol meeting seemed to be there which seemed appropriate as they had given me the final impetus to get this trip under way. Cliff from HU decided that my bike was exactly what he need for his trip and started negotiations to buy it when I get back. Cliff, I know you were only trying to get the price down but did you have to saw through the rack mount at this stage? A bit of sabotage after the trip I could have coped with.
I eventually decided the rack would survive until I could get to my mate’s place in Basingstoke where we could drink wine and talk crap about it. I suspect that the rack had broken since shortly after I left home but obviously it only affected the bike’s performance, roadholding, braking, lighting and susceptibility to crosswinds once I knew about it. That’ll be a slow and exhausting trip along the M4 then with the load being repacked at every service area.

Thursday 25th September 2008

Definitely slept well in my tent last night – that trail riding business has a sneaky way of wearing you out. Riding up the lane from the campsite on the well laden thumper was brilliant – two days ago it frightened me, now it was hardly worthy of comment. Ralph rounded off my visit to his farm by producing an old photo of him and his mate on Honda 400’s in Morocco and assuring me that I would love it. Today was a gentle sightseeing day in Wales but I was pretty tired when I ground to a halt in a service area on the M4. I decided to cheat and rang my office to get directions from the service area but they couldn’t find it on any map – the name was the usual welsh conglomeration of consonants but I did spell it very carefully. It was two days later that I discovered that that unpronounceable word actually was Welsh for ‘services’. Africa’s bound to be easier than Wales – isn’t it?