UPDATES
Latest: December 2011
Your feedback and updates always welcome ~ Contact me
Latest fuel prices and border info here
Recommended accommodation
You'll find a thread for recommended accommodation in Morocco here, including mine. Your own contributions are welcome.
ABR magazine - Morocco Special
Check out my two-page feature on the best one-week rides in southern Morocco in Issue 12 of ABR.
Route MA2: Aït Herbil - Tafraoute
A big landslide has blocked the road on the very steep concreted section just north of Igmir at around KM34.
Trans-Atlas Route MH2: Tinerhir to El Kebab
All sealed now but still a great way to cross the Atlas
Drive to Marrakech like Keith Richards
A few words of advice for Guardian Online Travel
Overlanding routes with a big truck
Someone asked recently what routes can a Unicat-like 7.5-m long, 3.5-m high, 2.5-m wide, 12-ton truck manage. Kind of like a
Easier to say which routes you cannot be done,. Narrow tracks and tight bends limit big truck mobility, but as we know well in Morocco bad weather making deep mud, water, snow and washed-out sections of track can cause problems anywhere, like for any vehicle.
Morocco Overland routes NOT recommended for 10 ton+ trucks:
ME8, ME3
MH1, MH3, MH4, MH5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and MH10
MS3 west, MS9
MA2, MA3, MA4, MA6 north, MA7 north, MA8 west, MA9 south, MA10
ALL MW routes
MO1
ME6 - Figuig-Bouarfa
James Baxter & Annie Appleyard write:
Your route from Figuig to the Iche road is out of date. They are building a dam (barrage) which ... bars the ... route [through the gorge soon after leaving the road]. Approaching the dam, follow a road to the left along the bottom of the hills, then up and over them on a new road. We then just followed the most used track and popped out onto the Iche road.
Have you ever been to Iche? It ... is a lovely place to visit. The scenery from the piste junction into Iche is fantastic, with different rock formations, including some ragged crests that look like dinosaur backs.
Iche itself is tiny, a small ksar with about 30 families living in it, about
130 people, and then some 20 soldiers manning the guard post. It is the most unspoilt place, with no shop, a school with 14 pupils, and electricity only 6 hours a day from a diesel generator, paid for by the King as the people are too poor to pay for it themselves. A villager told us that only those who are too poor to leave are still there. They have formed an Association to try to improve things and encourage tourism. The president of the Association speaks French, but the village headman only speaks Berber... There is also an advisor who lives in Bouarfa who was born in the village, and is trying to help them - he speaks French. He arranged for the president of the Association to come with us to the most amazing rock art about 25 km back along the road to Bouarfa. We have travelled all over Africa looking at rock art and it was very impressive. Google Rock Art Iche and you will get an idea. The president also invited us to couscous and to breakfast, so we made a biggish donation to the Association.
At the moment there is no accommodation, except with village families. We rough camped next to the military guard post, and there is a small camping place just up the ouad by the small dam. The Association is trying to build a small hotel and also a kiosk to sell the women's weaving and embroidery.
At the moment they take it to the Sunday souk in Bouarfa. There is no shop and no English speakers, so a smidgen of French is essential. The Algerian border is very close, and from the hill above the village you can watch the Algerians building a road on their side.
Do please mention it if you can, either on your website or in the next book, and do visit - it is the most delightful place with truly lovely people. They deserve all the help they can get.
The emails of the various people who can help arrange accommodation or a visit to the rock art are below. Only French speakers though.
Association el Bourge de Developpement et Tourisme
Teleboutique Allal, Iche 0021262631412
Mohamed allal Bousmaha, President: ortou_78 ATAT hotmail.com
Brahim el Hourma, Advisor: b.elhourma ATAT iam.ma, 0666916953
5/11
MS5
Any says - I did MS5 yesterday and sadly there's now only 30km of real piste left in the middle of this one. The rest is all graded now, but having said that, the new graded road is completely washed away in 4 places!
ME7, small typo
ME7; KM119 should be N31°.... not 30. The .gpx file has been corrected.
Updates from Ceuta and Route MH3 (Gorge to Gorge)
Tim G. in a 200LC reports that using the Algeciras-Ceuta crossing outbound very early (7am CET) and returning in the evening 6pm Moroccan time) was very hassle free [tho this may have been due to Ramadan].
The péage now runs from Tanger Med all the way to Agadir. The road from Marrakech to Ouazarzate is in good condition but still all single carriageway, while the road from Marrakech to Essaouira is being expanded to dual carriageway. So it’s now easily possible to reach any of Morocco’s cities in the first day’s drive after an early border crossing.
They are working on MH3 (click for sat image) at the Msemrir end which means the start of the described route is currently closed. The workmen claimed the piste was therefore impassable but Tim's guide was able to ask others and find us a detour about a mile north of the original start, that looped across the valley and around the works back into the gorge.
On the eastern side the piste is much rougher. Floods have undercut the track where it runs through the narrower sections. On a MTB, moto or perhaps in a narrower vehicle you may get through mainly on the track, but in anything bigger (like a 200 Landcruiser) you’ll need to climb in and out of the river bed many times. This is strewn with rocks and braided channels and is not consistently passable as an alternative to the track. As it has 18” banks, if you’re not willing to build ramps to get in and out, and if it’s not definitely the dry season, don’t try the route at all.
From the point where the piste leaves the floor of the eastern gorge for the last time, they are doing further road works. It appears the intention is to lay tarmac from here to Tamtatouche for some reason, perhaps preparatory to sealing the whole route. At present it is just widened and graded from this point, but in consequence you no longer really need a LR box on any of this route if you’ve enough torque in HR to climb out of the river bed up your ramps. So I’d expect experienced drivers and marshals could get a 2WD with decent ground clearance across the route in the dry season if they were willing to move a lot of rocks (and knew it would cope with the heat). If anyone wants to try this, it would be easier west-to-east as the hairpins on the eastern side of the col are tight and eroded by run-off, so much better taken downhill in a 2WD. In the wet, it remains 4WD only or impassable. Even then, it only took Tim 2.5 hours in the big Toyota.
Fuel in Tiglite on MW3
To clarify, 'possibly available' means asking a local for a jerrican, but can meet without success. Best to fill up in Assa to get you to 230-kms to Tan-Tan.
New ferry port for Tangiers
More news here
For motor insurance in Beni Enzar if you need it, get it in the port facilty (or elsewhere in Morocco), not the AXA by the roundabout as suggested in the book - this office does not do it. See link below also.
Motor insurance
Useful information on this thread on the forum
Updates on MH1, MH2 and MH4
On the forum I read "...the piste from Midelt to Imilchil [MH1] is now virtually all tarmac..." but it's unlikely to include the Cirque du Jaffar at the start. The often-troublesome wooded gorge around KM120 however has been bypassed by a new and scenic sealed road.
The poster also adds: "...Imilchil to Tamtattouchte is mostly tarmac with only the top of the Tizi Tinerhouzine [MH2, KM63] still gravel. They've chopped out the top hairpins and the descent is now direct..."
On MH4 it also looks like preparations are being made for tarmac 20km out of Tinerhir and there is a new campsite opposite the Ziz at Nekob.
Leaving a vehicle in Morocco, short term
Not mentioned in the book but not as complicated as it used to be, at least from Marrakech Airport. More here
The eternal question: can a big BMW hack it?
I got this email from a reader with a 1200GS Adv and thought my answer might help clear up a few doubts...
So today when your book arrived I took as an example MA7 which sounds very interesting. Unfortunately I don't find any information about the difficulty. But you write ".. a great route on lighter bikes".
Please excuse me, but I just don't get the point. Does this mean it will just be a handful with a more heavy bike like mine? Or even dangerous? Not recommended at all? Or only for experienced offroaders?
The problem with writing guidebooks is finding new ways of saying the same thing over and over - maybe this time I was a little too cryptic!
I write that you will go as slow as a donkey, you may destroy a 2WD car, terrain is 'gnarly', you are 'inching around hairpins' and to watch out for tyres and rims on a bike - which all adds up to a tough, rocky route.
Lighter bikes means not big bikes like a GS12 unless you go very very slowly so that you can fall over slowly without great damage.
Your GS-A has I think the lower 1st gear which will make it easier to manage on the tight hairpins but it is also heavier than a GS. And if you have luggage it is even more heavy.
MA is a very nice area. After doing MA11 to get a feel for this great area, for a first piste on a big bike I think MA9 would be good, but with the easy start and easy end as described. The washed out bridges should be either repaired or the new route well flattened to be easy. And as with all these routes, if it gets too hard or looks a lot worse than the book because of flood damage, you can turn back.
So actually I would like to get a hint: how can I determine which routes in your book I can drive with my skills and my bike? Is there no rating (of course I know that pistes can change and the weather might change the situation completely).
You have to read the full book and then use a little telepathy! 'Read between the lines' as they say in English.
The big difference, even with a heavy BM, is not having any luggage. This is why I suggest the day loops for motos on p92. Do a few of the great road routes and then the very short pistes like MW4 and MW5, then MA9 and even try MA7 - see how it looks. If you think the suspension can manage and you feel confident, keep going very slowly and carefully. And if you get to KM78.5 send me a picture!
T
he great thing with Morocco is you can do some great riding without having to break anything!
P&O Portsmouth-Bilbao ferry service ends Sept 2010
... but it seems the better Brittany Ferries are increasing sailings to up to 4 a week from Portsmouth and Plymouth. More news here.
Route MO1.gpx download typo
Thanks to Ashley C for pointing out a missed out minus symbol on the longitudes of KM168 and KM194 of the mo1g.gpx download, making them 'E' - miles away in Algeria - not an 'W' as they should be. The two way points are correct in the book as is the corrected download file in the link above and on the MO Routes page.
If you see this obvious error on other longitudes in the downloads, please let me know. To fix it just add a minus before the waypoint - it translates to 'West of the Meridian', no minus symbol equals ' East'.
UK motorcycle insurance
This got hard to acquire lately but click this for some prices and ideas.
Fuel prices
Every month the AA in the UK 
updates European fuel prices for everywhere except Andorra which is about the same as Spain. Spain is itself by far the cheapest in western Europe. For Morocco see p16 or p61 in the book or click this
Moroccan telephone codes
Have changed from early March 2009. An extra digit is to be added to fixed and mobile numbers. Full explanation click this or work this out:
Land lines:
+212 2X XX XX XX XX becomes +212 5 2X XX XX XX XX
+212 3X XX XX XX XX becomes +212 5 3X XX XX XX XX
Mobiles:
+212 1X XX XX XX XX becomes +212 6 1X XX XX XX XX
+212 4X XX XX XX XX becomes +212 6 4X XX XX XX XX
+212 5X XX XX XX XX ..... and so on
