Saturday, July 19, 2008

A Moroccan Adventure

While Iberia begins to appear small for the tiny Honda Today :-) a plan started to build up in my mind. My initial idea was to take advantage of the ultra recent ferry connection between the southern coastal city of Portimão (Portugal), the Portuguese Madeira and Porto Santo islands, and the Spanish Canary Islands. This ferry connection is ran by the company Naviera Armas, and just started operating one month ago. The same company also held the ferry connection between Puerto del Rosario (in the Canary Island of Fuerteventura) and Tarfaya in the Moroccan coast. This would be perfect for a tour like the one in the map on the left.

While working on this plan, two difficulties arose. Firstly, the connection between Portugal and Madeira/Canary Islands operates only once a week. This would be too less for my time window, if I wanted to take my time bumping around in both Madeira and the Canary Islands (as I always like... I hate to rush...). Secondly, the most severe restriction. I found out that the Assalama, the ferry boat that allowed the connection between Fuerteventura and Tarfaya, had sunk last April 30th! (see Youtube video here). Even though there are rumors that Naviera Armas intends to replace this connection with a ferry connection between the Canary Island of Lanzarote and Agadir, in Morocco, there are still no official news (the ones that matter) from the company.

Well, this forced a change of plans. I'll leave the relaxed island tour for later. I decided to head to Morocco "only". What?? Morocco, with this tiny hair dryer (as some of my friends call it... :-) )? You must be kidding... Oh no... I'll do this again with my faithful Honda Today. And not "just Morocco". I've been in the country before, and this time I'll try to stay away from the tourist beaten tracks. The High Atlas mountains (the highest elevations in northern Africa), the berbers, lost villages, altitudes well above 2000 meters, August heat in Africa... will be some of the things I'll experience... if all goes well. As always, I go with no rigid plans, but with some background in my readings about the places I want to spend some time in. The story, the pictures, the video... well... you'll find them here, later. :-)

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Não és doido... és inspirador! Boa sorte para a tua viagem.
Bjnhs, Krizz.

Freddy_Krueger said...

Eu sabia que ia por Marrocos ao barulho!!

Quem dera ter uma Today para te acompanhar...

Talvez daqui a um ou dois anos!!

Um Abraço

Freddy

Artur said...

Estive a ver o teu video da viagem às Asturias, e só queria dar-te os parabens. Acabei de fazer essa viagem de Varadero, pelo que tenho uma grande noção da maluqueira em que te meteste, e que de poesia se tiver alguma só pode ser um misto de Woody Alen com Hitchcock. Faz muitas curvas! Continua muito doido! Os teus netos vão ser os putos mais orgulhosos do planeta!

Anonymous said...

Grande amigo Zé Paulo,
Já sei que a Today se está a portar à altura. Tamanho não é argumento!
Continua a viver essa fantástica viagem para nos transportares também a nós, quando regressares maior e bastante mais rico.
Um forte abraço e até prá semana.
Joao Calado

Dom Fuas. said...

A isto chama-se viver partilho do espirito e quero ver posts e cronicas da viagem um grande bem haja....

ZEZe

Anonymous said...

Ora aí está uma excelente ideia !
O que é preciso é imaginação , esse percurso é deveras muito interessante e misto/variado quanto baste .

Boa viagem amigo !

Paulo Lança

www.trailaventura.com

DevonDave said...

Nice to have met you on the return ferry from your latest 'hair dryer trek'. Will be following this blog with great interest. Thanks for sending me your excellent DVD!

All the best Dave & Carole on the Triumph Tiger