09/08 Nador to Fes, Morocco
It had been the hottest day I’d ever had on a bike, and quite possibly anywhere, ever in my whole life. I’d worked a few years on the beaches of the South of France and spent 9 months on a Greek island, but this was a whole new level. It had never really occurred to us during the planning that Morocco in August would be hot, really really hot. Aware of course that a summertime trip around the Med would be on the warm side, I’d bought some very lightweight mesh bike gear for the trip but even with the increased airflow that afforded me there was more liquid pouring out of every pore than it was possible to replace.
I had a flip front helmet but, it turned out, it was far far cooler to have the front down and firmly closed as having it open exposed me to a fiery airblast so hot it felt like when you open the oven door or someone pointing a hairdryer straight in my face a point-blank range! Similarly, I had to keep my gloves on too as literally minutes after removing them I could feel my hands burning in the searing sun. Then, literally as we rode in to our destination town of Fes, my bike coughed, spluttered and finally died.
We’d ridden 207 miles through the desert, on winding mountain roads skirting the Atlas Mountains and through crumbling dusty towns and villages that looked like they belonged in Black Hawk Down (in fact we later found out that that film had actually been filmed in Morocco). We’d been feeling the heat that day. No amount of water seemed to rehydrate us, we were stopping hourly and taking on a litre and a half each which, by the next stop, would be contained in my socks, trousers and t-shirt, leaving large tide marks of salt up my back. As we rode in to Fes it was 6pm and the electronic signs on the outside of shops told us it was 48C! God only knows how hot it had been “in the heat of the day”!
Riding past the ancient walls of the Medina we began scouring the signs for somewhere to stay. Sat outside the gate to the Old Town in the shade were, we would later learn, a load of hawkers. 2 large-cc foreign bikes clearly drew some interest. Just as my Africa Twin was breathing its last breaths, a little bike appeared next to me and the unhelmetted, shaven headed rider shouted over “You want nice hotel, 3 stars, with air conditioning and a swimming pool? It’s good price, not expensive?! Come, follow me!” With which, and clearly expecting us to follow without question, he rode off as I coasted to a stop on what now seemed quite a busy dual carriageway.
I thought I’d simply run out of fuel, so switched the tap to reserve, but still the bike wouldn’t go. It would’ve been unusual to run out as normally I’d have another 40 miles or so in the tank before reserve and invariably Steve runs out before me anyway, so I thought maybe the ridiculous temperatures had caused some fuel to evaporate or something. No such luck. After a few tries it was clear it wasn’t going to go as the battery began to protest at my constant attempts to start her up. Our friend on the little bike reappeared and we sent him away again, saying we’d try and fix the bike ourselves.
I backed it down the road a bit and then up onto the kerb and under a shade tree. Having a look around I saw that there was a pipe off the engine. Looked like just a breather pipe which shouldn’t cause such trouble, but I didn’t know enough to rule that out. I couldn’t see where it should reattach, so off came the luggage, out came the spanners and screwdrivers and off came the tank. The pipe was duly reattached, and the tank went back on but still the engine wouldn’t fire. That was it, my very limited technical knowledge had run out and when the bald-biker appeared again and offered to fetch us a recovery truck which would take us to a hotel where in the morning the Honda mechanic would fix the bike it seemed like just the very job.
The Dépannage truck duly appeared and, with some extremely strenuous pushing and pulling, my bike was precariously winched (by hand) aboard and even more precariously strapped down. I rode in the cab with the driver with Steve following on behind, the drivers assistant watching over the bike (though quite what he’d do if it moved was beyond me) and our newly self-appointed guide on his little Suzuki leading the way. The bike was dismounted outside the Hotel Errabie, even more precariously than it was loaded and secured in an alley next to the hotel.
We checked in and, right on the limits of serious dehydration and heat exhaustion, I genuinely struggled to carry myself and 2 small panniers up to our room. The room itself was cheap at 200 Dirham (20 Euro) per night, and had a little bathroom with shower. Luxury it seemed. Certainly in comparison to our last few nights anyway!
There was however no swimming pool and more importantly, no air con as promised and the night was uncomfortably hot with the temperature not falling below 35C. Still unable to rehydrate properly our beds were literally soaked with sweat by the morning, to the point where the maid complained we had thrown water on our beds!
We ventured out into the new town that evening and found something(s) to eat at a small restaurant which proved disappointingly small, so we then rather inadvisedly purchased a delicious smelling kebab of unidentified meat from a street seller which actually proved far tastier and somehow didn’t give us the monumental shits!
