TRAVERSE 117
TRAVEL - MOROCCO
MARK BOKOWIEC
MINT TEA AND MOUNTAIN TRAILS
A week long trail riding tour in 2001 was my last visit to Morocco . Returning to the United Kingdom I promised my wife , Julie , that one day I would take her and show her some of the amazing places I had visited .
Quite by chance an advertisement in a magazine prompted memories . It was 2022 and Desert Rat Tours were offering a more family orientated experience , using a fleet of Apollo Docker bikes . Apprehensive at first as the Apollo Dockers are Chinese made and only fifty-five cubic centimetres yet , I needn ’ t have worried , the little Dockers were more than capable of tackling some really ‘ nadgery ’ terrain .
Morocco allows any bike up to 55cc without needing a license , so this was ideal for Julie who didn ’ t own a full driver ’ s license and had little riding experience , only riding my old Honda SL125 around a local field .
The Mountains and Valley ’ s Tour offered by Desert Rats began in Ouarzazate and covered some of the terrain I ’ d visiting in 2001 . It was 70 % off-road and promised to be spectacular . The tour was booked .
We arrived a few days earlier to chill before the start of the tour , flying in from Manchester to Marrakesh , after three and a half hours we were met by Omar who then took us to Ouarzazate .
The following day we rode fortyfive kilometres to Ait Benhaddou , an old , fortified Kasbah . The little Docker proved to be surprisingly nimble two-up although underpowered for the hills .
Shockingly Ait Benhaddou was much more touristy than I remembered from twenty years prior , the reason being that many Hollywood blockbusters had been filmed on the location .
We parked and walked down to the
TRAVERSE 117