Ouarzazate

In Ouarzazate, I hitched up with Nigel Swaby from the last trip to Morocco. With new heart plumbing and some good drugs he was back in the saddle again. His round the world trip is postponed till later this year as it is now too hot to head south so we decided to ride together for a while. We also net up with a German guy Wolfgang who at the tender age of 57ish bought his first motorbike and decided to give it a go in Morocco.




Sharp eyed filem goers may recognise this view. This is Ait Ben Haddou and was used in the film Gladiator and probably a bunch of others. Ouarzazate has two film studios. David Lean filmed a chunk of 'Laurence of Arabia' here, Ridley Scott shot 'Days of Heaven'




All the tourist buses stop at a tourist centre on the other side of the river from the Kasbah itself. There is no bridge so you have three choces, 1) take your shoes off and wade the shallows 2) look at it from the other side of the river or 3) enter the moroccan donky derby and ride this little fella to the other side. The local guys have a nice little earner going here.



With four guys on a rest day and with no pub to go to, we did the next best thing nd went for a spin in the desert. Wolfgang turned out to be a natural at this off road mularkey. Turned out he has a lot of horse riding experience and I guess a motorcycle is 1) lower 2) more predictable than the 4 legged beast.

Distance


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