I meet up for the day with my friend Mikou and we want to take a ride with his new bike to Ketama, outlaw outpost supreme. I feel safer in the knowledge that I am with a local. However, we do not get far. Towards Taounate we stop for a lovely Kebab. From then on my bike is stuck in 3rd gear. At least third gear, because you can still get going and perhaps even drive 80.

So no Ketama, we limp back to Fez. That evening I spend with him and his wife, having dinner and staying over at his home. I also learn that the best thing for a runny tummy if all modern medicine has failed, is simply oregano – take it as a tea and also two spoons of dry finely chopped oregano, and within half an hour the most upset stomach will return to normal.

The following day we engage a mechanic to try to solve the gearbox issue, but no luck. I have to move on since I have booked a ferry back to Genua. So I decide to drive the boring highway route to Tangier.

Halfway there with 170km to go, as I want to leave the service station after refuelling, the bike will not start anymore. I have no alternative but to engage Mikou who organises through a friend (this is how is works here) who has a transport company a small truck to pick me up and to bring me to Tangier, where Mikou has already organised a hotel for me.

The next morning they pick me up and take me as close as possible to the ferry, which means passport patrol. From there I have to push to and onto the ferry. It is a rainy day and as we are waiting for the ferry I see a KTM 630 leaning against the wall. I look for someone rough enough to be the owner of this bike. Eventually a tall, good-looking middle aged Frenchman approaches and we spend the next 24 hours on the ferry together. A life adventurer full of stories, he had to be saved from the ice on a catamaran close to Iceland, but was also the founder of Catana Catamarans, an avid North Africa traveller etc etc. I learnt a lot from him, also from the fact that he was travelling with half the weight I was.

The other 24 hours of the 48 hour journey through the med was spent arranging with my insurance company to pick up the motorbike and get myself back home with a hire car.

The fact that I had gearbox issues and a broken bit of electronics, as well as a rear suspension that lost its oil on the second part of the trip, makes me come to the conclusion that for a trip like this the GS1200 is too heavy, and while it has amazing capabilities, it is too complex and electronic to withstand this treatment. Either that or you must be a good mechanic and have the GS-911 kit with you.

Next time I do this trip it will be with a KTM690.