David Romeu, Nuria Goma and their buddy Oscar drive motorbikes from Barcelona to Essaouira in Morocco, over mountains and through the deserts this has to be the most epic kiting road trip ever!

Morocco is a land of contrasts, a melting pot where Arabia and Europe come together; it's the place where the Atlantic meets the Mediterranean, and where the mountains meet the desert. It's also a place where some of the greatest right-handers in the northern hemisphere roll into the coastline and a favourite for surfers and kitesurfers alike.

Getting there though can be tricky; Dakhla one of the countries most popular spots is usually a bit of a mission. Essaouira was always a couple of connections, although now there are more and more direct flights opening up. Even so, if you head to these spots you are likely to miss out on some of the greatest spots that are a little off the beaten track.

Heading out from the ferry port in Tangier you have nearly 800km of coastline to explore before you reach Essaouira, some of the best waves lurk on that stretch, so taking the time out to explore them at some point in your life could be well worth doing! The issue is that some of the best spots lie behind miles of sand dunes and inhospitable desert; they aren't easy to get to in the slightest!

A four-wheel drive vehicle with a tent is an option, or a four-wheel drive camper is even better. It's the ultimate way to explore and get the most out of this country of contrasts. You can easily fit all your gear on the roof too, and have plenty of storage! Imagine doing it on a motorbike, though, hauling all your belongings, sleeping gear and kites all the way from Barcelona to Tangier on a ferry and then cruising the 800 or so kilometres along the coast looking for nuggets of gold along the way! That's what David Romeu did with Nuria Goma and their friend Oscar; I'll leave it to Nuria to fill you in on how it went, but first lets introduce the adventurers!

David: The multitasking guy. A fire fighter by day, and the cameraman and editor of the video during the trip, experienced drone pilot and an exceptional sportsperson in general.

Oscar: A fire fighter, the mechanic during the journey and the one with the most experience on bikes.

Nuria: The girl (in all stories there is always a girl, right?). From ex-banker to professional kiteboarder and a total beginner on motorbikes. She learned how to ride a bike ten days before the trip started.

Nuria Tells The Story...

For a long time David had this trip in his mind, he wanted to go to Morocco and drive along the coast looking for the best waves, and I’m usually down for anything that involves travelling and waves. The original plan was to make the trip in a campervan, to load our paddleboards and kitesurf gear and go to explore Morocco. Then, last year Oscar and David and a few other fire fighters went on a motorbike trip together and here is when the original plan changed. In fact, when they suggested going by motorbike I soon got excited by the idea of doing something different, something that nobody had done before. Although now I understand why! You have to be pretty crazy to do something like this, haha!

We looked for some dates that could work for the three of us and we started planning the trip and thinking of everything we would need for it. The first obvious thing we needed was a motorcycle. Ideally, the three of us should ride the same bike to simplify all the possible breakdowns during the trip. Unfortunately, as I have no license I got a smaller one, a 125cc while David and Oscar got a 600cc. They had bigger tanks so each time I would run out of petrol I could at least steal some from them.

The second thing we needed was to get all the riding gear and accessories, important stuff like motorbike suits with proper protection, helmets, bags, etc. In the end, we spared no expense and went for the best on the market, Touratech.

After that, the rest should be simple; we just had to load everything on the bikes and start the trip. Well, here is where we got it very wrong. It was a headache to find the best way to get all the gear on our steeds. Think of a hard puzzle, make it three-dimensional, human sized and quite heavy and you get the picture!

When you see everything separate, it doesn’t seem that much, but try to fit it all on a motorbike! You look at your inflatable Red Paddle in its small bag all packed, and you think “Oh, it’s so light and small, let’s take it on the bike!” Then the same thing happens with your kite gear “Oh, should I take one kite or two? Well, let’s pack two in one bag and take two each!” Oh yeah, and don’t forget all the cameras, lenses, Go Pros, stabilisers, tripod, camping gear, tents, etc. It was a mission that we had totally underestimated, but in the end, we managed to get all the gear packed and on the bikes!

I had only ten days to practice with my motorbike, starting from scratch. The first days in a quiet place with no cars just learning the gears, and then we got out with the regular traffic. The biggest mistake, we never got time to practice wearing the motorbike jackets, boots and with the bikes loaded. We just didn’t have the time. Although now, thinking about it, it was a good thing because if I had the chance to try it, I think I would have never left for the trip!

We took a ferry from Barcelona to Tangier and 24h later we were in Morocco!

I would like to say that just the first days were the hardest ones because we were getting used to the loaded bikes, but the reality was that the whole trip was a tough one. In the beginning, it took us three hours every morning to pack everything back into the motorbikes. After a few days, we got better at that, but the cold temperatures of the Atlas Mountains were insane for that time of the year. At one point we decided to descend a few thousand meters to civilisation, instead of camping for free in the mountains where we had planned because it was just too cold. Right after that, boom! We swapped the snow of the Atlas Mountains for the melting heat of the desert. And the real fun began!

Up until that day I was counting every time I crashed with my bike. However, once we were riding on the sand roads and over dunes, I lost track of how many times I fell off. The only comfort I had was to see that David and Oscar were crashing as well! I was not worried about my paddle board (that's the best thing about inflatables, they never get damaged), but none of us believed that the surfboards would ever make it to the ocean without a crack. When you put around 250kg on a surfboard, the usual thing to happen is that it breaks, every time we fell on the side holding the surfboard, that's what we were doing with all the weight of the bike and our gear!

Two weeks after our departure we arrived at the coast. The forecast for that week wasn’t ideal for paddle boarding as there had been more than 40 knots of wind for the last two days and it wasn’t stopping. We talked to a few locals, and we decided to go to Cap Sim first, a well-known surf spot, and the only place where we could find some waves and less wind.

The spot was fantastic, and the little town was full of good vibes, but it was still very windy and the tide that week was too high. We had some good fun there and are looking forward to visiting again with better conditions. Then, as the wind wasn't decreasing, we went to Sidi Kauki, Moulay and Essaouira for some kiteboarding.

Moulay is where one of the best windsurfers of the country lives. A great spot for surfing and paddle boarding when there’s no wind and perfect for kitesurf and windsurf when it is windy. It is not a location for beginners as the waves can get heavy but if you have the skills it is great fun!

The last leg of our trip was returning home by the coast, stopping one day in Marrakech and another in Casablanca before arriving at Tangier. The chaos of the city it is not our thing at all. The first thing I learned on our arrival was the three biggest dangers you can find when driving a motorbike in Morocco:

  1. The People: They drive like crazy; they don’t respect signs, lines or priorities. People cross the motorway walking and when driving they will cut you off.
  2. The Animals: You never know when a chicken, a goat or a cow will cross in front of you coming out of nowhere.
  3. The Wind: Strong gusts of wind can be as dangerous as the two above together.

In the end, we made it back to Tangier with memories that will last a lifetime. The video we made summarises more than 400gb of images captured, 5,000km ridden and lots of moments and emotions that we tried to put together in less than 4 minutes.

Never the sentence “It is not the destination but the journey” had so much meaning for us. It might sound cliché, but it’s just the way it is.

Enjoy the ride as they say, but for us it was the Great Journey!

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The Great Journey
By Rou Chater
Rou has been kiting since the sports inception and has been working as an editor and tester for magazines since 2004. He started IKSURFMAG with his brother in 2006 and has tested hundreds of different kites and travelled all over the world to kitesurf. He's a walking encyclopedia of all things kite and is just as passionate about the sport today as he was when he first started!

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