Motorcycle Explorer November 2016 Issue 14 | Page 52

Travel Story: lawrence bransby - morocco
Mr Bruno: Guide and Fixer
Our French was non-existent; their English poor but we
understood that they were a loosely cohesive group of outfit
riders who liked extreme challenges; they embarked upon
one major trip each year, alternating between Africa and
some of the more extreme parts of Europe (where, for some
strange reason, they revelled in travelling in sub-zero
conditions just for the hell of it). This year it was Africa and
they had hired a guide, with two 4X4 back-up vehicles, who
was leading them into some of the more remote parts of
Morocco. They were, in fact, on the point of heading into the
Jebel Sarhro Mountains, following pistes that are not found
on conventional maps. The plan was to bivouack – their word
- in the mountains that night and did we have food, tents
etc? If so, would we like to join them?
Gareth and I looked at each other and grinned. We did
and we would. Suddenly, I didn't feel tired any more. All
thoughts of R&R were pitched out the window. If tagging
along with them would be anything like the time we spent
with the Russian Black Bears, we were in.
We quickly filled our tanks and spare fuel containers at
a nearby garage and looked for food and water to last us the
next two days in the mountains.
Purchases completed, bikes fully fuelled, we joined the
Frenchmen drinking coffee and were introduced to their
guide and fixer, Bruno, an ascetic-looking
paraplegic, thin and darkly-tanned, his nose
aquiline, shoulder-length grey hair tucked
into a worn baseball cap. Despite his
apparent handicap, he was very involved in
rallying; a member of an international rally
co-ordinating committee, he gave advice
on routes in Morocco including sections of
the Pari-Dakar. He employed a driver for
the lead 4X4, his pared-down wheelchair -
as utilitarian as the outfits he was leading -
stowed in the back of the ageing Range
Rover.
Coffee finished, we set off behind the
leading 4X4, heading south. About twenty
miles out of Tissnt, we turned off onto a
rough dirt road that followed the bed of a
wide river valley into the mountains
towards Taliouine in the north. At midday
the leading 4X4 pulled off across a stretch
of soft sand and stopped next to a small
clump of palms, kept alive by water
seeping through the rock to pool in a
natural depression. In the still air the desert
was oppressively hot. Lunch was provided
for the French outfit riders while we sat in
the sand, apart, not yet integrated into this
group who had so kindly invited us to join
them.
Then it was on again, heading deeper into
the mountains. The valley narrowed as we
climbed, the road degenerating into a track
that followed the oed, repeatedly dropping
down steep-sided banks to cross the dry
river bed, boulder-strewn from numerous
flash floods that characterise the flow of
rivers in this desert terrain.
So much for our period of R&R. The day
before it had been sand, today it was rocks.
With one 4X4 in front and one at the back,
the Frenchman on the KTM300 ranging
about whenever we crossed a wide, rocky,
river bed, looking for the track again on the
other side, we rode up and up through
desolate mountain valleys, usually
following dry river beds along tracks cut
out of the sides of the mountains.
Occasionally we lost the track and would
have to ride over wild, rocky terrain to find
it again. Again my bash plate took a
hamm ering as, heavily laden, I bounced and
slithered over rocks the size of footballs
that littered the river beds.