The day I crossed the Sahara and the Atlas Mountains

There are three types of fun. Type one is thoroughly enjoyable in the moment. Type two might feel sketchy at the time, but it’s fun in retrospect. And then there’s type three – the kind of fun that’s not fun at all, even years later.

Adventure motorcycling is often a healthy mix of types one and two, with exhaustion and accidents sometimes tipping the balance towards the latter. The ride of my life, though – a 3,500-mile, 12-day round trip to Morocco – was bordering on type three. But now, half a decade later, I look back fondly at what was undoubtedly a formative experience.

Watching a shadowy hand reach for the door of my freezing cold single-walled tent 2,400m up in the Atlas Mountains, for example, was anything but fun. Thankfully, the intruder never materialised, and the wind simply continued to howl throughout the night, piercing through the tent and the sleeping bag to my bones.

As with many adventures, this trip was born from a whimsical “what if…”, when my partner, Leo, then without a bike or a licence, floated the idea over a beer one late October evening in 2017. The plan snowballed and barely two months later we found ourselves aboard a ferry to France; I with a press-loaned Honda Africa Twin, and Leo on his new (to him) BMW F800GS. Immediately ahead of us lay 1,300 miles of monotonous European motorway, before we would cross from Algeciras to Ceuta, a bustling Spanish enclave on the North African shore.

Here, we swapped our satnav for a dogeared paper map and jerry-rigged a case to Leo’s tank using cable ties and bungee cords. The route first took us along the N16 on Morocco’s east coast, a sparkling curve of tarmac clinging to the cliffside, before we headed inland at El Jebha onto a gravelly route through the mountains. The craggy peaks were a physical border, dividing European-influenced Morocco from the rest of Africa, where wide, sweeping, snow-lined roads would eventually give way to dirt tracks across desolate plains.

Despite warnings not to ride at night, that first day we found ourselves pushing through dusk in an attempt to reach the north-eastern city of Fes. The poorly surfaced streets were abuzz with activity, and it soon became a game of dodge the stray dogs, pedestrians and kamikaze cars. When we eventually arrived at our riad, in equal parts exhausted and exhilarated, we toasted our success over a tagine and turned in.

With plans to reach the sandpits of the Sahara for New Year’s Eve the following day, we made an early start, pushing through mountainous terrain on twisting roads that far exceeded our wildest expectations. We had never seen anything like it – the Martian terrain was a far cry from the English off-roading we were used to.

And after a brief camel trip from a nomadic camp under the stars, we had our first taste of sand riding. Deflating the tyres, ditching the kit and disabling the bikes’ ABS and TCS, we flew into the dunes, learning the hard way that sand both sapped us of energy and stripped the chains of any lubrication. For want of a better substance, we covered the links and sprockets in 10w40 engine oil (don’t try this at home).

Having spent ourselves in the Sahara, we wearily pushed on towards the Todgha Gorges, where the next day we would attempt the 28-mile off-piste stretch from Tamtetoucht to M’Semrir. It was billed as achievable in our guidebook, but we didn’t factor in the freezing conditions and short daylight hours.

The pass would begin as a simple dirt road, locals had told us, a gentle introduction to a track which would progressively become higher, rougher and altogether more difficult. But an accidental detour ate into the afternoon, and progress was further hampered by the fully-loaded adventure tourers. We wound up around a rocky outcrop, pausing on a plateau where a pair of nomadic children watched us curiously from afar. A deep gorge unfolded ahead and we descended into the otherworldly landscape.

Before long, the road disintegrated into a dried-up riverbed, the path barely visible in the huge boulder field. Progress slowed further, and as the sun slipped behind the peaks, we hit the ice. At almost 2,400m above sea level in early January, it was inevitable.

Leo was the first to go down. As he led the way through a rocky gully, his rear wheel lost traction, throwing itself to one side. Putting his foot down proved futile and he toppled over, becoming trapped under his heavy F800GS. Minutes later and mere metres further ahead, I lost momentum on a boulder. My feet came up a foot short of the ground, and the Africa Twin pitched to the left, smashing into the rocks.

Tentatively retracing our tyre treads to the snowline, we accepted the inevitable and pitched up to sit out the night. It was hellishly cold, and we were ill-equipped. As the temperature dropped below -10ºC, we shivered under lightweight sleeping bags. Our riding gear doubled as makeshift mats, keeping the cold of the dried-up riverbed at bay, while the tent – which had only been packed as an afterthought – proved a lifesaver in the inhospitable environment.

The following morning, we bashfully turned around and emerged into Tamtetoucht exhausted; we’d managed just 100 miles in two days. We were significantly behind schedule, with just four days to reach Santander for the ferry home. But we were exhilarated; we had come to Morocco in search of adventure, and had found it, albeit on a much larger scale than anticipated.

We stuck to the black stuff for the rest of the trip and endured four long days of mile munching, arriving back in the UK just two weeks after our departure, yet feeling years wiser. I still often catch my mind wandering back to that adventure – the incredible riding, and the unbridled sense of freedom. But maybe I’m just looking back through rose-tinted goggles.

Laura Thomson is a motorcycle journalist, sailing instructor and British Army reservist.

If you’ve had a journey that changed your life or made a lasting impression, email james.scoltock@thinkpublishing.co.uk to feature in our next edition.

This is an edited extract from IMI's new MotorPro magazine, received free as part of IMI membership.