Pedro

WOW, will the savings in fuel costs pay for the propellers in 2 or 3 years?

I had no idea you had to change propellers, @Bruce, is it the propeller itself or related to the shaft or diff?

TKC70, very nice and smooth for the road and rain, and can handle some light offroad if it’s not mud or sand

We also say "a few cards short of a full deck"

Perfecting my eggplant lasagna: No cooking, just a healthy lunch with some cheese for taste: Sofia's rib, spinach and dahl: Again, Sofia's amazing oven roasted aubergine and pepper dip, some cured ham, cherry tomatoes, and goat's cheese for lunch. An entree of cured black pig, some bread and local wine, simple flavours in my untamable garden My spicy onions and canned sardines dish with leftover dahl, a nice mix: Spaghetti and portobello mushrooms: Costa, watching me have some olives and white wine. Not looking too pleased but he had just finished his own dinner.

"... depois não te queixes que o arroz tem formigas" word by word translated to "then don't complain there are ants in your rice". You use it a situation where someone is talking like they are acting or going to act careless, and you reply that "ok, you can do that but then don't come back complaining about current circumstances"

Pick a Michelin map, and most roads with green highlights or viewpoint signs will be good in most countries. Morocco is no exception. The comfort of Morocco is that until you are in the shit, you still have amenities. Booking.com and google work as well as in Europe, I've booked places in villages you would think had no internet, just stop your bike mid afternoon or a couple of hours before you feel like stopping, and turn your mobile on and you're set. Well...I see no ride report of that, did you not have a camera? Are you one of those? Even with no camera you can still write it up... I would go either in April / May, or September / October. Mid winter or after October you will have snow storms in the mountains, and rain in places you do not want to find rain when riding. Mid summer will be too hot (REALLY hot, way over 40º), even in September you will be too hot for a british person in the desert, but it's the Sahara, if you show up there and it's not hot you'll complain. Next trip might last a week longer than previous ones did, there is no work commitments but mine this time. I will do a couple of offroad roads I didn't want to do before with a passenger, and maybe go further south having a taste of the desert and the smell. Africa smells are addictive, you'll see when you step out of the ferry for the first time! Get to it, reports are posted, Pete is paying a fortune in webspace ...

Looks very nice, orange groves are always so green. That dog didn't enjoy the drone one bit!

Of course, take a look at the other reports, there is mechanical failure in 2015 and a new bike in 2016 and 2017

I will answer in parts as sadly I have a very unique perspective of Morocco as a tourism destination. Ouarzazate is very well known as a location for the film industry, and lots of hollywood celebrities used to do holidays in Morocco, it's more of a secret that movies are shot there in the US and Europe than in Morocco Pastilla, a mix of sweet from sugar and cinnamon on the outside with sour like salty from the spices like turmeric and cumin, with a little bit of a kick sometimes. It's not my thing as I only like sweet in fruit or dessert. We did have a paper map, which we used on all four trips, I think it's the basic Michelin 742. It's now framed in my kitchen. A smartphone or proper gps is great for the dirt roads, though. Google maps is great and you'll have perfect data coverage in places where you would assume you didn't by looking at the pictures. Regarding your husband, being new or not to motorcycles has got nothing to do with it in my perspective. You will struggle the same on a dirt road in England or Spain as you do in one in Morocco, from a technical motorcycle riding perspective, it's the thrill of being somewhere so different that gets me, and that you can get if you catch a plane to Marrakesh and a local bus to the desert or go for a snack in the medina. It's the thrill of knowing you are somewhere where there is less of a safety net if something goes wrong that makes it special when riding a motorcycle. Don't be naive in thinking Morocco is like Europe, it's not. You will have no problems getting in or out, you will find the roads and trails wonderful and see amazing sights, but if anything goes wrong (proper wrong, not just a breakdown) you will be slapped in the face by the reality that you are not in Europe (or the UK ). We have had only a few moments in our trips when we were really not at ease with people, being a woman if you dress the wrong way in some places you will easily feel that. On my last trip, not on a bike, I sadly lost Maria for a sudden stroke in Tangier, and the town that I felt so much like already arriving somewhere familiar suddenly turned into Africa for the worst days of my life in a place that suddenly went from being a 1 hour ferry crossing away to being a whole continent away: I was arrested and questioned, the police treated me like they would any other man that had a non related dead woman in his hotel room dying from unclear causes, and there was a severe difficulty in communications. I was treated kindly and shown a lot of sympathy maybe in a way that wouldn't happen in europe, but there is a chasm of difference between the support you would get in western europe in a true emergency. Right now there are 2 or 3 thousand europeans trying to get back and finding a closed border, they didn't expect Covid to shut down traffic so quickly after it opened and have risked it. A bad case of Covid in rural Morocco? Now that's an experience. Don't let the friendliness of most people fool you into thinking it's not an adventure even if nothing goes wrong with your health. A few people have died over the years just enjoying their bikes on the desert, getting lost and dehydrated and they didn't last the day. It is the Sahara and the Atlas, there are flash floods, insane temperatures, and places where you are not welcomed and where the people will sometimes only speak berber or some form of arabic. Having said all that, I can't wait to go back, sadly on my own from now on.

Something about one of Yen´s stories from today's posts reminded me of this friend I have from college called Lobato, he is like a real life Seinfeld mixed with The Three Stooges and Indiana Jones. Amongst several stories, he was on the subway heading to visit the World Trade Center while it was being flown into and collapsing, very much to his surprise as he and another friend emerged from the subway to a big frenzy and a very dusty NYC, before being questioned by the FBI for a few hours. Now, the story I recall is usually told by another friend who was also involved and goes something like: When The Rolling Stones visited Portugal in 2006 they arrived in Lisbon's airport and had a gig in Porto, to take place in FCPorto's stadium. One of my college friends got the job of taking care of the band, involving picking them up in Lisbon and bringing them up north in vans, including all their personal stuff and gear, get food or "other stuff" they needed and basically keep them happy. Now Lobato was in charge of driving one of the vans and fetching random stuff, which he did for a few days using his contacts in Porto. Prior to the first concert, he was just sitting down having a sandwich mid afternoon and this random older dude sits by him also having a snack and they strike a conversation that eventually goes like: "so, do you enjoy the Stones?" to which Lobato answers "not really, they are very impressive in their old age, you know, for old people ... to still be performing, but their music doesn't do anything for me, I'm more into reggae and that kind of stuff"... after a little the older dude walked off, to not be seen again, until a couple of hours later as they were watching the band walk on stage Lobato asks another the guy in charge of the gig: "hey, what's that guy doing on stage?", he promptly shut up when the old dude picked up his sticks and sat down behind the drums: Lobato's words after: "he was wearing fucking CORDUROY PANTS!!! ... and had such a small dressing room I thought he was the band's tailor" There you go @yen_powell, post your content where it won´t get lost amongst inane drivel.

THIS SHIT IS WORTHY OF A BOOK! Or it’s own thread!

You should make a thread for your past conversations’ stories!

Well, I don't do any of that hard off-roading, more like pleasant touring without fear of a little dust.

Not just Alfa, both Opel and BMW had WAY faster engines in South Africa than anywhere else. I suppose it had something to do with racing regulations? The fact is that a south african BMW 325is was way faster than any other 3 series sold anywhere else in the world, in a straight line, and Opel's GSI as well.

There you go

Glad you liked it, it was a really cool ride. Plan is to do one in a couple of weeks, but I am pretty unsure of how it is going to be with Covid. Me and Sofia. Then again another in proper summer, by myself, and ideally a Morocco one in september or october, but I'm keeping my hopes in realistic levels. You might want to check out the Morocco ride reports, my favourite being the 2017 one, if you like big vistas.

I enjoy having a usual ride, there is something good about riding a well known road that you still enjoy, you don't think too much about it and it's sort of calming. Mine's not muddy, though

It's not true, they'll be happy for you to go pick up food and take it home. You can even take your own nice recipient instead of having to use crappy take away plastic. It'll be a mystery as to why you would prefer to eat soggy food instead of fresh from the kitchen, but to each their own.

Moving to the Iberian peninsula might be a good way to mess with all that

A nice tip, octopus gets more tender if it's frozen, that's one of the reasons it's typical in places away from the sea. Also, hammering (not too hard) the legs before cooking helps. I don't cook octopus or most seafood, too much work or cooking smells.

You´re going to hell, the GS is the hardest bike to properly clean if you are really demanding about it. Great landscape!

Thank you for your words, that's kind. Portugal isn't for everyone, I would advise you to do a trip and visit places before a final decision. Spain has plenty of regions with lots of green and luxurious landscape, and very diverse culture, food, weather, and people living in each one, by all means don't assume it all looks like the south. Also don't choose a region based on it's proximity to Morocco unless you are planning on visiting really frequently. Octopus is more expensive if you only buy the tentacles, because they're the most looked after parts but I suspect most people don't want to deal with the body part. Buying that exact same thing here would cost pretty much the same, but buying whole fresh and raw is about a quarter of the price. It's a difficult thing to cook nicely, you have to tenderize it properly and not overcook or else it'll get too chewy, too little and it'll be too chewy too...