The Way North

We are now headed to the most northern place on this planet with a paved road, Nordkapp, Norway.

Morocco was an interesting place.  Very friendly, very warm and very pushy.  It was impossible to just look at merchandise in a shop without getting the hard sell; "What will you pay for it?,  I'll give you a very good price, special for you!  You can't get better anywhere else!"  In fact walking down the street one got the same pitches; "Come into my shop.  Just for a moment.  We have very good rugs.  I'll give you a very good price."  Most merchants would start out wanting to know where we were from;  "Are you English, German???"  When we said we were American, they turned effusive and welcomed us to their country.  This didn't seem faked, they really were glad to meet Americans.

There is a very large police presence in Morocco.  We passed through from 4 up to 10 road block checkpoints a day.  We were waved through all but two of them.  At both of these the officer wanted to look at the bike and when he found out we were American, on an American motorcycle, we were again welcomed to Morocco.

But enough was enough and we were glad to get back to Spain.  And now we are headed 6,000 kilometers (on the shortest route) north over the next seven weeks.  We want to be there for the solstice.  We're hoping for good weather above the Arctic Circle so that we can watch the sun go around in a circle without setting below the horizon.

If one were to measure from our southernmost point in Morocco to Nordkapp and move it to North America, it would be like starting in Acapulco, Mexico and going to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska and taking the scenic route on two lane roads.

We started in Spain and Andorra and went on to France  (France is not in the menu above, it is in the Summer 2008-France-Wars section) and then onward.