Friday, December 13. 2013
Km today: 640
Maximum altitude today: 1380m (freezing cold but beautiful)
N38°20’30.5” W000°29’15” – N36°07’40” W005°26’42”
Today I will meet a friend in Malaga in the afternoon so I have to hurry up. Julia comes from Vienna and will spend the first week in Marocco with me. I wake up half an hour late so the morning start a little unperfect already. When I go down to pack the bike I recognize they put it a little different by lifting it up… The tail is a little on the street now and a car is parked to close to lift it from the side stand. Osman and his mother are not here so without any need I get totally upset and don’t calm down before I hear a strange noise 5 minutes after leaving the hotel.
I stop and for a second start thinking about what to do in case of an engine problem. I recognize oil and water being very low and stop at the next petrol station to get water and some petrol. There is a lot of customers at the petrol station so I decide to put the water when I stop for coffee – as soon as possible… 20km later I am 5km of my way and still no coffee in sight. In this worst case scenario I stop at a burger king. First I put water in the cooler and next I find out burger king is closed until noon…I go back to the road to Malaga passing a bike work shop and seeing a coffee just 1km later. I stop at the bar (=coffee) and the first thing I see is the open cooler! I forgot to close it again and lost the cap! So back to burger king to search for the cap without any success.
I remember the bike workshop and decide to go there and ask for oil too. On the way there a green Aprilia street fighter passes and the driver shows me his raised thumb. Two minutes later I shake the hand of the isle of man champion Javier Manresa and the Spanish mechanic of the year 2013. Oil is refilled and I get the cooler cap from a super duke out of a workshop full of crazy racing bikes! Whenever any of you has a problem with a bike near Alicante go to Motos RS Evolution in Elche or call 965 46 66 92. I spend too much time chatting with the guys so I have to hurry up to get to Malaga if I really want to arrive in Algeciras, the place where to take the ferry, tonight.
Still without coffee I decide to take all the way to Malaga, nearly 500km, with one break for petrol and coffee only. The break in the middle of the way I take at half past 12 up in the mountains near Sierra Nevada sitting in a freezing wind and the gentle warmth of the sun. Nearly back in time! Even though I make much more stops for taking pictures of the amazing landscape now I arrive in time at half past three in Malaga. Julia is already waiting there at a restaurant I picked at the internet so we can go on pretty quickly.
From now on for the first time of the day we ride along the cost following the setting sun heading west to Gibraltar. The view is absolutely amazing even though all is full of tourist ghettos and a little after sunset we see the rock of Gibraltar for the first time rising at the horizon. It looks absolutely fantastic!
Algeciras we reach a little later and searching for a hotel we stop at the harbor. There are two hotels visible from the street and a view food shops so I park the bike next to a table of a “Pakistani Kebab Restaurant” Again Urdu proves to be better than Spanish. I make friends with the waiter immediately and order coffee while Julia checks out the hotels around. A little later we check in a nice hostel with a reasonable price and a garage for the bike.
Algeciras reminds me a little of Peshawar or Quetta, it’s a crazy border town that never sleeps – I really appreciate not to need to worry about the bike tonight! After check in we go back to the Pakistani restaurant to eat there. It’s a fast food restaurant and half joking I ask for real Pakistani food. My friend looks at me doubting if I am serious for a second and then replies that for us this will be no problem – only will take a little time because he will cook himself and quickly has to go to buy the ingredients before. We use the time going to the supermarket and sometime later don’t regret our decision. We get chicken, roti and rice just like I got in Peshawar! I really love this place and its late already when we take pictures with our new friends and walk back to the hotel. I am extremely tired now but still want to do the blog as so many amazing things happened today… By the way we got a room with four beds inside and next to every single bed a f%&king ashtray! Are we still in Europe?
Tomorrow we will cross over to Africa and then it will be only around 120km to Chefchaouen where I will find a perfect base for motorcycle tours to the mountains of Morocco. I can’t wait to get a place to stay for some time now.