- Date: Nov 13, 2024
- Starting Location: Marakesh, Morocco
- Ending Location: Rabat, Morocco
- Mileage: 408 Km
- Total Mileage So Far: 2317 Km (1439.7 Miles)
Breakfast
This hotel’s breakfast was outstanding.
The weather
The Moroccan heat
We expected today to be a hot one, and now that we’re down on the flat-lands, near the coast, we’re seeing consistently higher temperatures. Today, we exceeded 85F, but it was generally a dry heat, and very tolerable.
Lunch
Today’s lunch was at a gas station, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Somehow, our guides managed to call ahead, and coordinate a feast for us at this gas station. Wow, what a treat.
Some of our team have become ill, and won’t be able to ride today, and perhaps tomorrow. So, we’ll load the bike into the van, and off we’ll go to Rabat. Here’s what the process of loading the bike looked like.
The ride
The Fog
Today’s ride started out in light fog, which increased to heavy fog, and back and forth. At times, the visibility was less than 100 meters. The video shows just how frequently the fog changes shape and intensity.
The Terrain
The ride covered a number of different types of terrain and roads. We had long sweepers, tight twisties, long open road, uneven pavement, lots of trucks, no trucks at all. The important thing about the ride today is that it took us until 5:30 to get here, with a duration of ride time of about 7 hours or less.
The traffic
The last 8 miles into the city were an example of a busy city, taking out it’s frustrations on motorcycles. The Moroccan drivers in Rabat drive like they might in Moscow, or Bangkok. That is to say that they believe that they are entitled to a certain piece of road, they are going to take it from you unless you fight back.
Once again, you could see that some of the team was comfortable with this type of riding, while most of the team was not. I can’t blame them; Riding in a big city takes practice, commitment, and huge testicles. A few of the riders reported arriving somewhat depleted, and that’s certainly understandable. Each of us has a comfort zone, and for some, it’s high speed sweeping turns, for others, it is tight technical off-road, and for others, riding in the city is comfortable. We’re all here to learn and have fun, so it’s a learning experience.
A report from the road
The hotel
The hotel, and the rooms are beautiful. The view from our balcony is simply breathtaking. This hotel is for the rich and famous, and for the life of me, I can’t believe that they let me stay here.
Dinner
Tonight’s dinner was simple but elegant. We stayed at the hotel restaurant, so that we didn’t have to deal with a late night, or getting on the bikes.
Tonight was Elizabeth’s birthday celebration, and we’ve got some great video of her, being treated like a queen.
What will tomorrow bring
Tomorrow, we’ve got to ride about 200 miles to Cueta, our departure point. We’ll hit the northern-most point of Morocco, and then cross through the Moroccan and Spanish immigration and customs stations. You can never know exactly how long it will take to cross through these checkpoints, so we hope for an hour’s processing, but we brace for as long as 3 hours to cross.
When we enter into Spain, we will once again be staying in Cueta Spain, which is on the Continent of Africa, but is a sovereign land controlled by Spain. We’ll spend the night there, getting ready for an early morning departure on the ferry back to the EU, and Spain.
