• Mark Holbrook
  • Mark Holbrook

Morocco!

A 16-day adventure by Mark Read more
  • Trip start
    April 7, 2025

    The Off!

    April 7 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 18 °C

    This is the Istanbul trip which didn't happen because of waiting for the fire risk to pass which became the Picos trip because there was not enough time when the rains came which has now become the Morocco trip because the road bike is pissing out coolant and if you have an adventure bike then you have to go and have an Adventure!Read more

  • Too Heavy!

    April 7 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 20 °C

    So when I left we had to push the bike out of the garage I rent in town....Now this is not quite as whimpish as it sounds....the garage faces on to a steep crosswise slope and it has been raining biblical like and there is lots of very horrid slippery green stuff and the local builder has established a sand store just where I would normally turn to go up the hill ...so pushing it it was and unladen it was still damn heavy. Then I loaded it....spare inner tubes.....slime....spare fuel....water....oil....toolset... everything I could think of down to an adapter to talk to the ECU. Then off I go to Algeciras with the front end feeling very light with it's new Motoz knoblies on for my adventure in Morocco. So I get to Los Barrios which is close to the port in Algeciras and turn into the hotel and park sort of crosswise on a slope....high side to my side stand. I kick down the stand and it comes out but doesn't lock...I lean and the bloody thing folds back....I just....but oh how just.... stop it falling and God it is Heavy!!!!! Doesn't bode well, My Hearties, for the great dessert adventure. Oh...and the USB charger on the bike died....well at least I have that spare somewhere.......Read more

  • Gibraltar astern!

    April 8 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C

    Visibility not too good and the policeman not turned up to man the passport booth on the boat. When I looked up how to do this it said 'Do NOT get off the boat without your papers stamped' Oh Dear ..

  • It's breakfast Jim but not as we know it

    April 8 in Morocco ⋅ 🌬 20 °C

    So no brekkers for me again, up at 6.30 to get to the ferry two hours before departure and turn the wrong way out of the hotel so a 20 minute detour making a 30 minute journey into 50 but no interest in us when we get to the port just queue which as it turned out was something of a theme.... queued for 20 minutes on the boat for passport stamping but the police weren't on the boat. Then queued again for TWO HOURS when we arrived.....still on the boat for passports. Then every official had to ask if I had a drone then I nearly got arrested because I took a photo of dozens of pickups loading in goods at customs which looked like they were just bundles of old clothes right next to customs. So I turned away from the motorway and took a back road towards Chefchaouen and almost immediately found a chemist who with no drama sorted out the fact that I had left half my pills behind then the tea shop next door gave me this which he described as an omelette.....still it was food.Read more

  • Really hard off road

    April 8 in Morocco ⋅ ☁️ 22 °C

    Next time I book a hotel I will ask about the road to it......silly me to expect a hotel in Morocco to have an actual road. So back road to Chefchaouen and all good.....but a bit weird when I first saw the blue houses because Google said I was still 20 minutes from the hotel...the route turned into nice smart road up from the valley to the town....then down a not so good road then up a washed out horribly steep concrete track with exposed rebar where it had cracked and got washed out then that degenerated. I stopped to scout on foot and a Landy passed me and told me it got just a bit worse but the hotel was signposted. Then I met the earth mover........long delay while he removes the road in front of me and then puts it back....sort of.....then I pass a mosque and turn up a horrible loose section and get waved down by the Iman who tells me in French that I have to turn round....well I got here but only when I found that the earth mover had not just removed the road but also obliterated the sign.Read more

  • Chefchaouen

    April 9 in Morocco ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    I tried to set my cameras up this morning to find a strange fault on all the DJI stuff....two different phones running the software and two different DJI cameras but same fault on both....I am forced to conclude that they have been disabled because I am in Morocco where drones....and DJI make a lot of drones...are illegal. Anyway phone still works but limited on fancy shots. This place is obviously going through a blue phase. For those interested the path came out at the spring in the Andalus area where the refugees...both Muslim and Jewish.... came after the fall of Granada. The city was built in 1200 odd as a bulwark against the Portuguese.Read more

  • All Change

    April 10 in Morocco ⋅ ☁️ 25 °C

    So after the beauty of Chefchaouen I left early to struggle up the off road lane ....early so nobody would see me fall off and to reduce my chances of meeting something head on on the steepest and narrowest part and then across the Riff.....very dull day with more donkeys than I have ever seen in my life. Also, I am sorry to say, lots and lots of rubbish. Many, many men just standing doing nothing.....strange none of the women seemed to have nothing to do. Stopped for tea (without mint....I don't think I can cope with any more mint) opposite this agricultural fix it place.....should have brought my tractor.....I do wonder though what the poor donkey is having done.....Read more

  • White and Purple

    April 10 in Morocco ⋅ ☁️ 27 °C

    As I crossed the Riff the geology turned to chalk and limestone. Whole villages made from the rock they stood on blended and vanished into their surroundings.....and then the flowers came....

  • Get your Red Hats here!

    April 10 in Morocco ⋅ ☁️ 28 °C

    So I arrived.....no idea where I am going to park but I am sure if I leave it here there will be nothing left by morning!

  • The Medina

    April 11 in Morocco ⋅ ☁️ 21 °C

    10,000 alleyways, some only a foot wide, so no wonder I got lost...madrassas, camel butchers and silk from agave cacti what a place!

  • The Tannery

    April 11 in Morocco ⋅ ☁️ 22 °C

    It takes two months to cure a skin here and two thousand people work in this space which has been here for six centuries. The smell is unbelievable and they give you mint as you go up to the galleries. This was where I wanted my camera-on-a-stick.Read more

  • All Change

    April 12 in Morocco ⋅ ☁️ 15 °C

    So crossing the Atlas everything changed....the people are different...not yet Berber but not the same as the folk in Fes...the geology changes all the time with limestone giving way to sandstone and the weather changes to storms!!!! I found a hotel made of old containers to escape from the deluge.Read more

  • I need to stop going south

    April 13 in Morocco ⋅ ⛅ 9 °C

    So the forecast for today was dreadful and it did threaten rain for a lot of the day but only broke as I arrived at Erfoud. Fabulous journey, snow on the mountains, but also a lot of water pooling everywhere which may scupper any plans I had for riding in the desert ...the mud is dreadful.Read more

  • Does this place rock?

    April 13 in Morocco ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    So I am in a Kasbah....bit put off by the metal detector on the way in (which I failed.....have you any idea how much stuff I need to keep the Italian motorcycle happy?) but inside....in the darkest depths....there is a bar. I asked the lady serving me if I had to go to prison for two years if I drank it but she didn't find that very funny.Read more

  • Doing an Amanda

    April 14 in Morocco ⋅ ☀️ 13 °C

    There are things about sand......it is meant to be dry here.....this is the Sahara after all....Algeria and Morocco fought a war here...it is called 'The Sand War' not 'The Mud War' I know this looked doubtful when I started but as Magnus Magnuson would have it, I started so I would finish. Anyway....it was very soft so I and the bike didn't break anything. Hurt my back getting it back up though.Read more

  • Dades

    April 15 in Morocco ⋅ ☀️ 15 °C

    Well.....I promised Kari only this morning I would not attempt the road linking the two gorges.....I needn't have bothered it has been washed completely away at the Dades end.

  • Anti-Atlas

    April 16 in Morocco ⋅ ☁️ 11 °C

    Well after my embarrassment at falling off in the muddy sand I thought I should go and have another look at the Sahara so I am on my way south again and crossing the Anti-Atlas....the views are amazing but hard to capture the peaks continuing into the distance.Read more

  • Turnabout

    April 17 in Morocco ⋅ ☀️ 18 °C

    Very dusty here today....in fact I haven't seen the stars since I crossed! One more look at the desert and I turn to the North West.

  • Oarzazate

    April 17 in Morocco ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

    The air is still full of dust and very hazy. The first Kasbah in the photos was destroyed in the recent earthquake here

  • Ait Ben Haddou

    April 18 in Morocco ⋅ ☀️ 16 °C

    More films shot here than you can shake a stick at...all the way from Lawrence of Arabia to Jewel of the Nile and Game of Thrones. Now in danger due to damage from September 2023 earthquake