Last Ride in North Africa… Tipaza to Oran…

The Big Fella was locked and loaded, ready for our last ride in Africa for a long, long time...

Perhaps they got the spelling wrong on the top sign... Didn't matter to me, all I wanted was to get to Oran...

Today was going to be our last long ride on the African Continent for some time… According to the “Plan”, it would be towards the end of 2012 before we set foot and tyre back on African soil again, after we boarded the ferry from Oran to Almeria in Spain…

"Who's your Chadouli...?"

I wanted to get to Oran as early as possible, to secure my seat on the ferry and a berth for the Big Fella, so decided to skip the breakfast I had paid for, and leave Tipaza at dawn’s crack… By 6.30 am, I was winding my way through the farmlands surrounding Hadjoud and El Afroun, looking for the entry onto the Auto Route… We cruised through the peaceful countryside, very little traffic to bother us, enjoying the crisp clean air before spotting a small sign showing us the way to the highway…

The Barley fields next to the highway were being harvested and re-ploughed... Scenes like this made me want to pull over and just sit watching...

Early morning on the Auto Route, heading west to Chlef and Relizane...

I adjusted my body in the saddle, settling down for a long fast run to Oran, which I discovered was over 420 kms away…!! I had been told it was much closer than that, and had hoped to arrive there by 10.00am, in plenty of time to find a hotel and get to the offices of the shipping line…

“We will just have to ride a little faster…!” I shouted to the Big Fella, patting his tank and giving the throttle a quick twist…

Stopping for a break along the road to Oran... Anette's energy bars came in handy...!!

He responded to this is his usual fashion, weight coming off the front shocks as he transferred more power to his rear wheel… We tore down the Auto Route, heading south west, and chewing up the miles as we went…

Past Ain Defla and Chlef, through the mountain ranges of the Plateau de Sersou, the highway crossing deep valleys and hugging the contours of the steeper hills it wound around.

Just before Relizane, we pulled over under a bridge to take a break… We had covered 270 km in two hours, whipping past slower moving trucks and inter-city buses as we went, but still having to pull into the centre lane from time to time when cars traveling at over 160 km/h overtook us… I spent 15 minutes doing a few stretches, drinking water and chewing on the last of the energy bars that Anette had given me in Cairo… Riding at high speeds for a prolonged period requires constant focus, and the last two hours had sapped quite a bit of my energy… Not having had a decent breakfast had not helped either…!

I did a few mental calculations and realised that I was not going to make it all the way to Oran without refueling somewhere, and choosing that spot was fraught with the possibility of running out of fuel on this highway… I had 2 litres of spare fuel in one of my containers, and this would allow me to cover about 40 km if I rode at 80 km/h… I had about 100 km left in the tank if I slowed down to 125 km/h, but who on earth would want to do a thing like that on a beautiful road like this…?? I decided to take a chance on there being another exit after Relizane and got back on the road, pouring on the power and crossing my fingers as I did so…

Motorcycles are not given the treatment they deserve here...!! The Big Fella was horrified when I told him that this was how he would be loaded on the ferry...!!

Just before Mascara, the highway split, going northwest to Oran and southwest to Tlemcen, and a short distance down the road to Oran, my fuel light blinked on, telling me that there was only 40 km left in the tank…!! About 30 km later, I spotted a turnoff to Mohamedia, and hoped that the town was not too far off the highway… I came to a traffic circle manned by the usual three traffic officers and their green BMW bikes. When I asked about fuel the one cop raised an eyebrow and said…

“Four kilometres down zis road…!” He held up four fingers in case I had not understood…

“Perfect, that’s about as far as I am going to get on this tank!” I said indicating the reading on the dash…

The town was like something from the middle ages… Old buildings, tractors in the main street, farm laborers pushing barrows and bicycles, loaded with vegetables and woven baskets full of chickens… Perhaps it was market day… The service station was on a tight bend, the diesel tank in one street and the petrol pumps around the corner on another… The Big Fella sucked down almost 22 litres before pronouncing himself satisfied, and in a short while we were back on the highway, and rode the last 80 kms into Oran…

The Oran Sheraton confirms that this is an important city in Algeria...

The city was much bigger than I expected, and later discovered that at one stage had served as the nation’s capital… A massive Sheraton Hotel dominated the skyline, the morning sun glinting off its tinted blue surfaces…

“They’re probably full…!” I told the Big Fella, “We’ll have to look for another place closer to the harbour…” (He’s always wanted to stay at a Sheraton, but never seems to have any money of his own…!!) It was almost noon, and I rode through the traffic looking for a hotel, until I saw in the distance a large white “castle-like” edifice that I assumed was a hotel… It was nestled between a railway line and a busy road, and the area beyond it looked a bit run down… This seemed like a good place to try my luck…

The Houna Hotel was a lot more expensive than I had hoped, but once I saw the room with its flat screen TV and its chic décor, I decided to spoil myself on my last few nights in Africa and accepted the “non-negotiable” price offered to me by the friendly manager… I made sure that they had a wireless internet connection so that I could write from my room and then parked the Big Fella in their basement garage…

After a quick shower, I had the staff summon a taxi for me, and we shouldered our way through the traffic looking for the offices of the Acciona Shipping Line… I did not want to spend hours asking for directions, getting lost and most of all, spoiling the good mood I was in today… After trying two different travel agents without success, we finally found the place we were looking for… My heart sank when I saw that they were closed, and would only re-open the next day at 9.00am… I raised my eyes to the sky and silently asked,

“Please don’t let this be another “Alexandria”…!”

The Hotel Houna, where I am "treating" myself for my last two night in Africa...

I arranged for the same taxi driver to collect me at 8.30am the next morning, which he agreed to do… Back at the hotel, I discovered that the nearest supermarket was a long, hot walk down a busy main road, and decided to make do with what I had left in my bags for supper… I watched German beat Uruguay for 3^rd spot at the World Cup, and then settled down to update the website…

This had by now become a routine that I accepted as part of the journey, despite it sometimes preventing me from getting the sleep that I on occasion so badly needed… I wanted to record as much of my ride as soon as I was able to, and had found that if I left it too long, then I struggled to remember some of the details… There are so many new things to see and experience every day that it becomes a bit of a “mental overload”… Trying to write a post about a ride that took place a few days ago, invariably takes far more time than if I do it the day after the ride…

Completing a post brings a certain kind of satisfaction to me…like dotting the “i” and crossing the “t” of a ride… And knowing that there are people out there interested in what I write about, and the experiences I am having, makes the very late nights (and early mornings !) all the more worthwhile…

©GBWT 2010