KLR does a bit of Morocco by bike

[KLR600]

For Christmas my girlfriend bought me plane tickets to Morocco so that we could have a good holiday before our final push of uni work due in May/June. We didn't have much of a plan although we knew we wanted to see a bit of the coast, the Atlas Mountains and some of the Sahara at some point during the week.

We landed in Marrakesh with nothing other than a hotel reservation for the night as far as plans went so we just chilled and had a bit of a look around the main square, Djeema El Fna. A local guy approached us and asked if we needed any help with anything so we asked him if he knew anywhere we could hire a bike, he showed us a shop that looked pretty good so we decided to head there the next day.

The next day we went to the hire shop and asked about prices. They wanted 1000 dirham (about £75) to hire a Yamaha XT660 Tenere for a day but only 500 dirham for a little Honda XR125 (or a Honda Bros NXR125ES as it's known in Morocco!) so we decided to go for that. We asked for 2 days of hire and were told to come back at 7pm to pick it up with the helmets. We didn't bring any bike gear with us as we were tossing up between hiring a car or a bike (cars can be hired from as little as £20 a day but where's the fun in that?) and as we'd packed for the sun we didn't have many thick or long sleeved clothes... (safety nazis are probably better off just looking at the photos in this thread ). We had a scout around some souks and got a pair of scarves and some cheapo glasses with clear lenses as the helmets we got had no visors.

We went back to the hire shop for 7pm and told the guys there about our plan to ride 185km to Essaouira that evening. They thought we were a bit mad especially as we didn't have any proper gear with us and had no experience of riding or driving in Morocco! Needless to say they didn't ask any questions, took a passport as security and waved us on our merry way.

I'm used to riding a 100bhp 1100cc muscle bike so riding this little 125cc plodder with a pillion and 2 peoples luggage was quite the experience. We were riding into a bit of a headwind most of the way there and we topped out at 50mph! We stopped for a bit of a situation evaluation in a petrol station 35km out of Marrakesh.

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And decided it was just going to have to be an adventure and to carry on despite it getting colder and darker by the minute. After about another 120km I was freezing and needed to stop. I looked up and saw loads of stars as we were in the middle of nowhere there was no light pollution.

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As we had no gloves and our hands were freezing we decided to put socks on our hands in an effort to keep them warm. It kind of worked but it made doing anything with fingers quite difficult

We eventually arrived in Essaouira only to find that I needed my passport to stay at a hotel. Cue a mad dash between a few hotels at midnight seeing if anyone would take us in without a passport (I still had both parts of my driving licence, national student ID card and 2 bank cards on me so it's not like I couldn't prove who I was!). We eventually found somewhere and then headed back up to a cafe we found still to be open for some well needed food and a bit of a warm up. Stray cats were everywhere in Morocco and were desperate for any scraps of food you'd give.

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He only got a chip out of me as I was starving!

After a night in our own apartment (for £25, bargain!) we hit the beach.

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To find there was a strong wind coming and it was too cold to do any sitting around so we went for a look around the port instead.

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Our plan for the next day involved a ride back through Marrakesh and then carrying on another 150km but as Essaouira was a bit cold we decided to head back to Marrakesh that night. My girlfriend had never ridden a bike before so I thought what better opportunity to teach her than on foreign roads when we were trying to make up a load of time Needless to say she eventually got the hang of it and even managed 60mph down a hill with both of us on the bike, I was a bit worried about her lack of experience but then it was all part of the adventure!

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We swapped places again and headed back to Marrakesh in the hope of being able to pick up my passport so we could check into a hotel without any bother.

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But due to faffing around teaching my girlfriend how to ride we missed the hire shop. Luckily the hotel we'd previously stayed at already had my passport number and some rooms so we stayed there again after a dinner on a roof terrace next to the square.

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The next day we woke up early and set off for the Ouzoud Waterfalls just inside the Atlas Mountains. I was really looking forward to the ride and I wasn't disappointed! the roads were really good, like ribbons of tarmac through the mountains! We didn't stop to take any photos of them as I was having too much fun riding them, even on the small bike loaded up to capacity! We got to the falls and a local guide showed us around.

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The falls were breathtaking. We had to get the bike back by 7pm so had to leave just a few hours after arriving but I could have stayed there all day. The wildlife was great (monkeys running around everywhere!) and the whole place was just amazing. Our guide said we'd come at just the right time as the tourists begin to overrun the place from May and they'd just had a bit of rain the previous few days so there was a good amount of water in the falls.

With heavy hearts knowing that this would be our last day on the bike before we set off on an organised tour in a bus we set off back for Marrakesh.

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With a tailwind and an easy navigation back to Marrakesh we got back in good time just at the tail end of rush hour. I wanted to film the last few minutes of our journey as the traffic was a bit mad and there didn't seem to be many rules for the road!

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I'm fully aware my riding is terrible and I seem to be revving the bike a lot but it ticked over really quietly and I was paranoid of stalling it, especially with all of the nutters around on mopeds!

Either way after 700km in 2 days we handed the bike back and said our goodbyes to the bike we'd nicknamed little donkey!

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We set off on our guided tour but we both missed the freedom of the bike. We did see some awesome sights though.

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Dades Gorge that I would very much liked to have ridden. We stayed in a hotel just down the road from where that photo was taken so obviously my girlfriend and I went up for some star gazing.

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We also went camping in the Sahara Desert which was ace.

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Sunrise in the Sahara.

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Due to being on an organised tour we didn't have time to hire any quads or bikes to rip through the dunes but I have vowed to go back and do just that except on my own bike! (Good excuse to buy an enduro bike anyway )

Due to a river bursting it's banks we didn't get back until really late on the final day of our tour and we were supposed to be going quad trekking the next morning. We cancelled the quad trekking and had a lie in after the major drive the day before. Not sure of what else to do on our final day in Marrakesh we decided to head back to the bike hire shop to see if we could hire anything for a bit of a local jaunt. Luckily for us the hire shop people did us a deal on the XR125 we'd hired before and a 125cc scooter for my girlfriend to hire (despite not having a licence, but then that didn't seem to matter!). They recommended a 40km ride to the Ourika Valley and off we went.

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I must say that I'm very proud that my girlfriend managed to cope with riding out of Marrakesh on a scooter as her only experience on powered 2 wheels was the brief lesson I'd given her a few days before! She did great and no one killed us so despite it being highly dangerous we remain unscathed

We headed up into the valley and once again we were treated to great roads. Due to some really heavy rainfall the previous night there was a lot of landslide action going on so we took it carefully through the valleys with their many blind bends and crazy local drivers. We stopped for a bit of mint tea in this cool cafe next to the road.

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And then set off a bit further into the valley.

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I'd really wanted to have a bit of a play on the hire bike when we'd hired it earlier in the week but we didn't have time but today was different as my girlfriend was quite keen for me to have a play as she took regular breaks from riding the scooter! Needless to say I didn't take much persuasion...

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After much tomfoolery and attracting a curious crowd of locals wherever we stopped to mess about we decided to head back a bit early as we needed to catch our flight and didn't want to arrive at the airport late.

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This turned out to be a good plan as my girlfriend then ran out of petrol on the ride home! Luckily she happened to run out of petrol 2 minutes away from a petrol station and after a few minutes of tooing and froing in several different languages with the garage attendant I had some fuel in an old oil bottle to go and rescue her! I haven't let her live it down yet, especially as the scooter had a fuel gauge...

We arrived back at the hire shop half an hour late but they were very laid back and saw the funny side so let it slide. I said my final goodbyes to the little donkey and off we went home.

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I'm definitely going back on a bigger bike at some point as the roads through the Atlas Mountains were simply amazing, even more so the roads we took on the tour. I will be getting an enduro bike as well to ride the Sahara Dunes, we saw a few 4x4's there when we were riding camels and it looked like amazing fun.
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Now: '00 Kawasaki ZRX1100R - Past: '84 Yamaha DT125, '89 Kawasaki KLR600, '97 Yamaha XJ600N
<My Bikepics Page> <My Yootoobes> <My Websites> <My Photos>
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[MattJ]

Good read and some fantastic pictures in there. Looks like you had a brilliant time. Very jealous

[trippz]

[KLR600]

[anthony_r6]

What camera did you use for those pictures? They're incredibly crisp and vibrant and the one from the bike, riding down the road is amazing
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Ted : "Maybe he's agoraphobic."
Dougal : "Jack scared of fighting? I don't think so, Ted."

[KLR600]

Cheers, I use a Canon 5Dmk2 with a Canon 24-70 f2.8L lens. Also used a Samyang 8mm fisheye lens for the video, on bike shots and some of the landscape shots.
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Now: '00 Kawasaki ZRX1100R - Past: '84 Yamaha DT125, '89 Kawasaki KLR600, '97 Yamaha XJ600N
<My Bikepics Page> <My Yootoobes> <My Websites> <My Photos>
<Take Cool Photos!>

[Dilyan]

Quality pictures, Rob. As usual!
I can't believe how beautiful the night sky is in Sahara. I feel like jelly!
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Current: 2007 VFR800; Ex: 2001 YZF600R Thundercat
Škoda Octavia (yes, a taxi driver)

[RePT]

good pictures man! seems like a beautiful place! great read aswell! enjoyed it

[instigator]

Great photos, great story. As usual. I wish the thought of hiring a motorbike had crossed my mind when I was out there.

Tell me something though, was it strangely fun to be riding a 125 again? I think I want to chop in my cb500 in order to relive those training days from 10 years ago.

[Carlosrexx]

That looks like an amazing place to take a ride!

[satelliteone]

really really cool. great shots too. the XR you rode has the same engine as my XLR, all tho, slightly a bigger frame. Great little thumpers arnt they.. The Honda CRF 150/230 has the same engine too. just a bit more oomf...

Anyhow was a thrill to read, many thanks
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Honda XLR125R - Project
TZR125RR Belgarda 4DL - Sold
Chinki Project done n Dusted/sold** DTR125 2003 - Finished/sold

[rac3r]

Good stuff, cool pictures
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Bikes : 2006 CBR125R - 2004 Monster 620ie - 2004 ZX-6R B1H - 2005 Monster S2R 800 - 2011 Street Triple - 2009 Streetfighter 1098 - 2014 ZX-6R 636

[KLR600]

Cheers guys, like I said, I'd recommend Morocco to anyone after the experience I had. Had it not been for my girlfriend I know I would have been the one commenting on how jealous I was of someone else doing something like this. I get very one track minded when I start thinking of things I want to spend my money on (currently an enduro bike, student loan comes through in a few days...) but travel was always something at the back of my mind. I'm massively grateful to my girlfriend for getting me the plane ticket as I know I probably wouldn't have done it otherwise and really for the experiences I had I'd definitely say it was worth it 100%!

I know Joe and Tatters are currently out riding through Spain with the intention of hitting the Sahara. I was a bit sceptical of their almost care free attitude towards it in the touring and exploration forum but now having seen how easy it is and how good it is to get out I just know it won't be long before I'm off somewhere again!

[dannymassive]

Looks like you had a fab time. Made a good read & some wonderful pic's - thanks for sharing your experience
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Previous Ride's - '01 Aprilia SR125 (Sold) '08 HONDA CBF600n (Sold) '96 CB500 (Sold) '01 FZS 1000 (Sold) '06 CB1300SA (Sold) '07 CB600F Hornet (Sold) - '93 Suzuki Savage LS400 (Sold) '98 Honda VTR1000 Firestorm (Sold) '05 CB600F Hornet (Sold) '01 FZS1000 Fazer (Sold) 2016 Harley Davidson Street Bob SE (Sold) '02 Kawasaki ZX9R (Sold) '98 CB600F Hornet (Sold) '04 Suzuki Bandit 1200s (Sold) '13 Yamaha FZ1-N

[Sako]

brilliant photo's, sounds like you had a really good time too!

jealous...

[kentpunkster]

Photo's of awsomeness thanks for sharing

[Aperf]

Looks fantastic
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CRF450R supermoto, Husaberg 650 supermoto, Triumph Street Triple R