Waiting in Spain

When Robin first mentioned he was thinking about a trip to central Africa my ears pricked up from the other side of the table in the Old Bell Inn in Edinburgh's south side. I was certainly interested in hearing how he got on but the next time we met we started talking about how it might be to go by bike and ideas started forming between the two of us.

 The dastardly duo outward bound Portsmouth to Bilbao. Robin was already in the south visiting family and I had just ridden down from Edinburgh that morning.

In no time at all its seems we've found ourselves where we now are, sitting on the south coast of Spain waiting on DHL with some KTM parts and making final preparations before getting the ferry to Ceuta. The plan that took form was to take a leisurely ride down to Dakar with most of our time spent in Senegal and the countryside of Morocco, exploring the back trails and taking in the amazing and contrasting scenery. We booked ourselves in for the Horizons Unlimited Mountain Madness rally in July too so after heading back up to Spain in June the idea was for Robin to join a hippy commune, sorry volunteer at an organic farm for three weeks ;) and myself to fly home for a bit to see my girlfriend and her parents when they visit from Germany. The name for this blog comes from one of the great biking films of our time and our team name for the HUMM!
 

Riding back up from camp at the lakeside

Unfortunately one of our original ideas to ride to Timbuktu seemed to be getting away from us: information from various sources seemed to be saying 'not now', or at least to wait until the Libyan situation was resolved

.

We were agreeing last night that Spain has really taken us by surprise. While we have both been here before the ride down from the port at Bilbao, then east of Madrid and then to Malaga has been fantastic. The roads, scenery and people have all exceeded our expectations and I think we are both now feeling we wished we could spend a little more time here. The kindness and friendliness has been incredible; while trying to find our first camp site last night one bar patron left his beer, peanuts and young lady to borrow a scooter and escort us through the streets, not the first time we´ve had such a privilege either.

 

The fuel starvation problems the KTM seemed to have en route to the ferry at Portsmouth have niggled now and then but luckily not left me doing 20mph at the side of any motorways lately. Back in the UK when it happened 50 miles short of the port where Robin and I were meeting things looked grim. My thanks have to go to a local lady on an XJR1300 who pulled over and rode with me as far as she could, just in case the engine stopped all together, and of course Robin who came to meet me where she left off! Speaking to the dealer here in Marbella he said the filter in the pump should have been replaced every 10,000kms, my bike having just rolled over 20K miles and having a ´patchy´ (to say the best!) service history before I got it, the filter was probably sucking itself inside out by now and going purple in the face. With luck and DHL the kit will be here tomorrow though and we´ll have a fun evening on the pavement outside the showroom unearthing the archeology at the bottom of the tank.

Changing tyres in Alhaurin el Grande

Robin testing his well travelled accordian

Rock slide and film crew north of Malaga

Other than the above though things have pretty much gone to plan, which is nice as there won´t be many more until we get back to Spain in June! Our last engagement was with Hana and David who run MotoAdvenTours near Marbella. Robin had been in touch with them a few weeks ago as he was hoping to store his accordion with them while we were in Africa. Yes the accordion had just completed 1500 miles on the back of his DR650, through the streets of London and trails and rivers of central Spain, it had even had one drop on a sand track but played ´Tetris´ beautifully as ever camped by a waterfall the next evening. Unluckily, or even luckily, there was a rock fall on the road on the way to

meet Hana and David so we arrived late and during siesta; we got to spend a couple of hours with them talking about the countries ahead and they certainly had

The DR ejecting a brake caliper it didn´t like

a lot of great information to share! Later they took us to a local bike shop which helped us change in to the TKCs we had brought all the way from Edinburgh, we were glad to have the shop owner with this tyre machine help as even getting the wheels on and off in the afternoon heat had us sweating like a cat at Crufts, how would we cope with punctures in the desert!? MotoAdvenTours were such great guys I hope we get a chance to hook up later in the month when they are in Morocco, by then we might have some stories of our own to share!

Better than a shower in the morning!

Camping in the bush, sky seemed to be producing more stars each night

A few river crossings, a welcome cool down!

People always say its a small world but things happen that sometimes really make you think that. Riding along the coast road to this internet cafe we pulled in beside a coastal resort; it just happened to be Laya Playa where I spent a summer holiday as a kid =)