We’d made it. The Dades Gorge. And all without running out of fuel largely thanks to being able to freewheel through all the downhill switchbacks. This was our temporary link back to civilisation. The tourist minibuses signalled that food, water and fuel was close at hand.
Of course we could have got here on some nice tarmac roads and we could have left on some nice tarmac roads, so in hindsight, following a route that all the locals said was impossible was a bit daft. We have a habit of doing this in the belief that it all adds to the sense of adventure, which to be fair it normally does.
Getting cut off by a rock fall at 3,000 metres wasn’t part of the plan when we all said “yeah bollocks lets go that way”.
The main cause of this predicament could be traced back to the night before. After exploring the Dades Gorge we found a market town and decided to reward ourselves with some proper Moroccan cuisine.
In the market square the local butcher proudly advertised his stall with a row of freshly severed goat’s heads. The attention with which he’d made sure each goat head was looking in the same direction gave the impression of a man with pride in his work.
It was only the massing swarm of flies feeding on eyeballs and windpipes that cost him a Michelin star. We ordered a large bag of goat mince while trying to look the other way then headed off to the hotel while Kaspars headed off to find someone who could weld up the gaping hole that had appeared in his frame where the luggage rack had torn itself off.
Spoilt for choice
One human, medium rare please
We’d bagged ourselves a hotel with a rooftop terrace and headed up there to set about preparing an alfresco goat meatball-based feast. Now, at the mere mention of rooftop terrace you’ve already started thinking we were in some plush hotel with a pool overlooking the mountains. In reality we’d climbed out on to the roof because the “hotel” had no windows and no air conditioning and someone had taken a shit in the communal shower. In other words it was basically a kiln with beds in that smelt like a potty. We could see the mountains though so it wasn’t all bad.
Our goat meatball-based feast turned out to be just goat meatballs. In our dehydrated absent-mindedness we’d forgotten to buy anything else.
As the sun disappeared and the first stars began to appear we ate our dinner in torchlight and mused that the only thing missing was a cold beer. A warm one would still have been good. A warm one with a beetle floating on a layer of its own excrement would still have been preferable to our staple of stale water, mint tea, and the occasional local bottle that said “Fanta” on it, but was just as likely to be Toilet Duck.
Charlie popped down into the street and bought a few more supplies. We were remarking about how we wished watermelon was alcoholic when Kaspars finally turned up.
We delivered the bad news that we’d eaten all the meatballs however he seemed bothere not as he had good news and better news. Firstly he’d managed to fix the large hole in his bike frame courtesy of a bloke with a welder. Unfortunately it was a carbide powered welder so the five minute job took three hours. On the plus side this allowed Kaspars enough time to explore, and like all good Latvians (who are trained from birth) he tracked down the local home brew.
So we now had two innocent looking bottles of “Best Good Cooking Oil” containing Mahia, the local moonshine. Reportedly it was made from figs but judging by the taste – somebody’s flip-flop.
It did however become more figgy and less flip-floppy the closer we got the bottom of the bottle. By bottle number two it was up there with an XO Cognac.
The next morning was not good. The combination of having to sleep in Hotel Furnace overnight with a skinful of the local sauce meant we were all stumbling around half dazed and wondering why we had tongues like a stale baguette.
Packing up took ages, packing the bikes took ages, paying the hotel owner took ages, everything took ages, and we still had a desert to conquer. It was because of this that when it came to looking at the map and deciding on whether to go the established (but longer) route, or the impossible (but shorter) route we uttered the fateful words “yeah bollocks lets go that way”.
In the early morning sunlight we wound our way up through the mighty peaks and took in the views whilst congratulating ourselves on finding an epic shortcut.
It’s just a shame the shortcut was about 50 kms short of being a full cut.
Whether it was the result of a landslide or a badly built house, we just didn’t know. All we knew was that the route ended abruptly in an impassable wall of rubble.
Having spent three hours fighting our way up through this increasingly narrowing and precipitous mountain route, the thought of backtracking was too much to bear so we pondered on a strategy of heading down to the valley floor to follow the river bed. The most direct route was straight off the side of what was left of the path, down a ridiculously steep slope but with absolutely no way to get back up if it turned out to be the wrong choice.
The other option was to reverse course for a few miles and drop down in the other side of the valley. We would have all gone with the latter option if Oz hadn’t already lobbed himself off the side of the mountain and was now sliding sideways with both wheels locked up in a haze of dust while creating a mini avalanche of loose rocks.
This created a problem since it was obvious that neither Charlie nor Greg could follow. Charlie’s front brake was held on with gaffer tape and his back brake was somewhere in Fez so he simply couldn’t risk it. As for Greg, it wasn’t so much a matter of whether he would lose control and die horribly, just how quickly and how horribly.
So Kaspars was sent down after Oz and the plan was to “wave at each other from opposite sides of the valley and meet somewhere in the middle“. This was quite possibly the worst idea ever conceived.
After half an hour or so of mopedaneering, Oz & Kaspars reached a small village. People had only ever arrived in this village from valley below so the locals were bemused to find two people descending from above…on pink and orange mopeds.
They invited us for tea and bread and then took great delight in telling us we were the only motorised vehicles to ever set wheel in their village. This was plainly awesome but also meant there wasn’t a road out.
We paid our way, shook hands and set off. We picked our way through the tiny gaps between the houses and while trying not to fall in to the open sewers we made our way to the donkey trail that would take us down.
That’s a one way ticket
Flat white or cappucino Sir?
Against the odds, not only had we made it down into the valley but the track was now much wider and smoother and by luck more than judgement we’d timed it just right to see Charlie and Greg on the other side of the valley, albeit high above us. As per the plan we stopped our bikes in a clearly visible spot and commenced the pre-agreed signal of frantic waving and jumping up and down. When that didn’t appear to work we upgraded to shouting:
“Oi”, “Down Here!”, “Oi”, “Wankers”, “Oi”, “Are you fucking blind or WHAT!!…Oh my f**cking god”
We abandoned the plan, got on our bikes and took off to catch them up and try again. We got about one kilometre before Oz’s back tyre deflated in spectacular fashion, almost coming off the rim. We rolled to a stop and watched forlornly as Greg and Charlie slowly disappeared from view.
No bother, we’ll call them. Except we won’t as we haven’t had a mobile signal since we left town. In the circumstances the best course of action was to fix the puncture and work on the basis that they would eventually stop having not located us.
It was a bit worse than we thought. This wasn’t going to be the usual wheel off, check the tube for holes job. There was a bent, rusty 3 inch nail mangled between the back tyre and the rim. This might need more than a patch.
We shifted seamlessly into emergency action mode and set about gathering everything we needed. Tools. Check. Puncture repair kit. Check. Pump. Fuck.
Part of our contingency planning was to have two pumps. Greg had one and guess who had the other. Well it wasn’t Oz or Kaspars.
We had now gone from bad to worse and from worse to shit.
Kaspars headed back to the village in search of a pump. He quickly realised that miming the action for a hand pump was easily misconstrued. Miming the action for a foot pump didn’t fare much better, with most people assuming he wanted to find a place hosting country dancing. He came back empty-handed having never been country dancing or had a happy ending.
Somehow we had to get further down the valley or hope that Charlie and Greg would return to find us. It had now been three hours since the puncture and we were running out of options.
Oz remembered reading about a biker on a round-the-world tour who’d got a puncture in the desert and had stuffed his tyre with a blanket. It was enough to stop him wrecking the tyre and reaching a place where he could get a permanent fix. We didn’t have a blanket but we had some clothes.
It was a risky bodge since we had no spare wheels and if this didn’t work it was gameover. We gathered an unsightly collection of pants, socks, t-shirts and a pair of swimming trunks and stuffed them into the tyre as best we could. We weren’t particularly hopefully and set off freewheeling down the mountain at a snail’s pace but if felt good to be moving after nearly four hours stuck in the blazing sun. All we could do now was hope we found help soon. What we did find was totally unexpected.
Having travelled at most for about twenty minutes, down the track ahead of us, propped up against the side of the cliff face – on our side of the valley – was Charlie’s bike, seemingly abandoned. A little girl was sitting on a rock opposite. We motioned to her “where is the rider?”. She pointed down into the bottom of the valley.
There was not a sight or a sound of anything or anyone. We kept scanning the valley totally confused about how we were missing one bike and both riders.
We sat on a rock next to the little girl not really sure what to do next. We made funny faces. she made funny faces back. We yawned. She did a pretend yawn. Then we all just stared into the valley waiting for something to happen.
Somewhere below us we could make out sounds that sounded man-made. The sound of scraping and loose rocks falling, Voices. Our senses were on hyper-alert. Could it be the boys?
Any doubt was instantly expunged when an unmistakable Cheshire accent let rip with a very loud “oh for fuck’s sake!“
We rose from our rock perch and the swearing got louder and fruitier. We took some steps towards the valley edge and about twenty feet below was the very red and very angry face of someone dragging Greg’s moped up a steep slope by its handlebars.
“Alright Charles?” we cheerfully chimed, knowing full well he was anything but.
Thankfully he was too out of puff to muster a response. We descended the slope and with a three-person effort dragged the bike up the almost vertical last section of the cliff face.
“What happened?
And where is Greg?”
Greg decides it might be time to go for help
It's scorching. Let's do coffee.
It's definitely left. Or right.