David: Survival and Adventure

Darrin actually came by the bank yesterday to see me. He thinks that his wife is no longer suspicious of what he's doing when he's out his office, so we can start to meet up again. When I told him that my husband had left me, his response was only that we could save on hotel bills by using my apartment. I need a man in me again soon or I'm going to go nuts. I was hoping that it was going to be David but without him around Darrin might have to do. Fuck.

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David

I can't believe the beauty of Morocco. I also can't believe the beauty of Emma. The more I get to know about her, the more that I like her. Not only is she physically beautiful, she is a very smart, resourceful, a very good motorcycle rider and she has a ton of common sense, and she's not afraid to use it. She's been teaching me a lot about real adventure riding. She shared that she used to have a long-term boyfriend, that would be called common-law at home, and does not have any children. Her boyfriend decided that he wanted to live with another woman and announced in a very matter-of-fact way that their relationship was over. She pitched his shit over the apartment balcony railing and she got on with her life.

I got a bunch of new equipment in Casablanca that I need to survive in this environment. I now have extra gas and oil for the bike. Lots of water for me. Tools to do repairs, like fixing a flat tire and a broken chain. My bike has metal skid plates attached to the underside of the engine and I got extra LED driving lights added. Also, I have a battery pack and booster cables since neither of our bikes have kick-starters. I have a new GPS system that even identifies off-road routes and will connect via satellites as opposed to cell-phone signals. I have some better riding gear and a sleeping bag and an inflatable pad to sleep on for the nights that we stay in rough camping locations away from the towns and villages. I also have a small gas stove to heat water and food. I can even make coffee; now that's an essential.

Our plan is to stay in small bed and breakfast type lodgings as much as possible and eat the local food. That proved fun when we got to Morocco. My North American intestines weren't quite ready for the change in diet and it was necessary for me to stay close to a washroom for the first few days. Emma found it really funny, since she is used to eating from all sorts of places. I bought some pills to help with managing my guts. My med school training kicked in and I remembered that dehydration is not your friend. I powered down extra water, and all was good.

I got an email from my lawyer just to update me that nothing was happening with Diane. She was silent and hadn't tried to send me anything. I suppose she had gotten the message that we were done, or was trying to figure out what her options were and what she was going to do. I didn't really give-a-shit what she did. I only knew that what I was doing right now was what I wanted. I didn't need a wife who wanted to spend her time with some other man. Hell, if she wanted some other guy, why not just tell me and we could have gone our separate ways. But no, she couldn't be honest with me. She had to fuck around with the landscaping guy. She had to pretend that she still cared for me. What a bunch of crap that was.

After leaving Casablanca we rode south towards Marrakesh. It's about 250 Km on the main highway, the A3, but we decided to take a more indirect route via the port city of El Jadida. It was a warm day but the ride was great and we enjoyed the less direct roads to get there. The city of El Jadida was really pretty. We spent one-night there and then on to el-Baddouza, a town on the coast. Because it is so close to the water, the temperatures were a bit cooler than inland so I got to acclimatize to being in this terrain. Emma had never been here so it was truly a time for both of us to discover this region.

Emma knows several languages. German, English, French, Spanish and some Arabic. She got a chance to use all of them in the short time that we had been in North Africa. Jesus, I love her German accent; its sexy as hell.

The trip from Casablanca to Marrakesh took us five days and well over 1300 km. It was, hands-down, the best ride of my life. Safi and Essaouira were on our route and then we went east inland to the big city. Marrakesh is a city of about a million people. It's an amazing place, again a combination of old and new. Since neither of us had been there, I convinced Emma that we should stay for three days and play tourist. So, we did.

I managed to find us a cheap hotel in the city that had secure parking for our motorcycles. I didn't want them to be stripped of everything or stolen outright. We checked on the bikes every day and all was good. Emma was riding a BMW F800 GS and she had it decked-out with everything that BMW could think of to make long-distance riding easier. I might think of one of those later but right now the Africa Twin was doing the job nicely here in Africa.

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Diane

It's been over two months now and no word from David or anyone that he knows. I've tried to talk to his family several times again, but got the door slammed in my face every time. I called his lawyer, but she only asked me if I was starting the divorce process, or did I have letter that I wanted him to get at some point. I hadn't written a letter; what the hell was I supposed to say. I wasn't doing the divorce thing yet. I still wanted to actually talk to David and see if he was at all open to the idea of staying married to me. He is, after all, a great husband and I know that he would make a wonderful father when we have kids. If we have kids. Right now, that's not looking like it's going to happen.

I've had a couple of different guys here at my apartment, for one-nighters. Does that make me a bad person? I suppose it does; but maybe not. I mean, my husband has abandoned me and gone off to God knows where. Not so much as a call or text or email to say what he's doing and when-and-if he's coming back. It would be nice to hear from him.

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David

Africa is so different from everything that I grew up with. The culture, the language, the terrain, the food, the weather; everything. But at the same time, it's surprisingly similar to home. People are pretty much the same here. People want to look after their families and homes. They want to make sure that they can put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. Just basic survival. Parents want a better life for their children. They want peace and security. Not every country, on this continent, has a stable government that has the welfare of the people as its mission. Morrocco is better off that many others.

Traveling with Emma has been eye-opening. She's a real woman with an extreme sense of adventure. She is clearly unhappy unless she's being challenged by something. I'm being challenged to give up my own fears of different things, places and environments. I grew up in pretty safe NY state, in a very stable family with my mother and father and brother. I went to a good school and came home to a nice house that was comfortable and secure. Not every family around the world enjoys that luxury. The one thing that I have learned since leaving on my sabbatical is that people everywhere depend on their families and friends and are proud of where they live; no matter how humble it might be.

Africa is a learning experience. Travel is a learning experience. My eyes are being opened in a way that I never imagined could happen. And, I'm getting to experience this with a remarkable woman. Emma is wonderful travel-mate and lover. She is passionate and caring and wild and likes to live life on the edge. That's not to say that she's foolish, just the opposite. She has lots of common sense and isn't afraid to use it.

I'm in lust. Lust for Emma and travel and lust for this new way of life. I don't think that I can go back to the way I lived in Albany.

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Emma Fischer

I'm really enjoying being with Dr. David on this trip around Africa. He is such a pleasure to be around. The man is constantly amazed by the difference of things and life in Africa, compared to his upbringing in the U.S. He has worked so hard to do the right thing all his life. University, medical school, his family and his wife. And all of that has resulted in him being disappointed by the one person that he thought would be with him forever. He thought that his wife would be there to support him in his profession and the choices that they made together. But she got off track somewhere. I don't know her and my mission is not to take her husband away from her, but she has, by all accounts, done a good job of throwing him away, all by herself.

We've only been together for a few weeks, now, and I can tell you that if things keep going the way that they are, it will be difficult to part ways when he has to go back to work at the hospital. I have a plan for me that I made before I started my adventure and I need to see it through. I've made commitments to a publisher back home to write a travel guide for women who want to see the world by motorcycle. I doubt if I will make a lot of money at this, but I'm having fun doing this. I enjoy doing this. And, I think I'm good at it.

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David

We're on the way from Marrakech to Laayoune. It's about 900 km and we're taking mostly the coastal route. There are long stretches of almost nothing but dust and wide-open spaces. The beauty is both breath-taking and fear inspiring at the same time. A green-horn like me needs to respect the environment that I'm in and pay attention to what is going on around me. My U.S. passport is not a free pass to much here. A passport issued by an EU member country is well recognized here. The border guards are often puzzled by why is an American here in a place like this, and riding around on a motorcycle; getting dirty. One customs guy asked me why I left America to come here. I smiled and pointed at Emma. He laughed as he nodded his head. He knows why men do things.

We camped out for two nights on the ride down to Laayoune. We made sure that we were well off the road and not an easy target for thieves in the night. I have to tell you that I didn't sleep much the first night. Every noise kept me awake and on high alert. The second night, exhaustion had set in and I did sleep more. In the morning, after some ablutions were taken care of and coffee was cooking on the burner, I felt much better.

Gas for the motorcycles and water and food for us, was a high priority, so we never passed a place to gas-up and buy some food. We always paid with cash, and never flashed more than what the price of the gas and supplies was going to be. It's best not to make a target of yourself. Not to say that west Africa is a dangerous place, no more-so than parts of the U.S., but it never hurts to be aware of your surroundings and understand that two people on expensive motorcycles must have some money on them, so are immediately a bit of a target for a thief that wants to score an easy find. My riding gear protects me from falls; it's no match for a gun or a knife. I know, full well, what damage a tiny gun can do; I've seen it too many times in the ER at home. Great fun.

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The trip south through Western Sahara and Mauritania was different than anything I had ever seen or experienced in my life. The landscape was...like the moon must be. It was dry, dusty, brutal, and beautiful, all at the same time. As we rode, we were able to talk to each other over our Bluetooth helmet communications devices. Emma was constantly telling me things about the region, as if she had lived here for years. She was a travel magazine editor and had done her research extremely well before she left home. To me it was all amazing. I was loving it but at the same time, scared shitless. Scared because it was so foreign to my white-bread U.S. upbringing.

Did I say Emma talked non-stop? Her voice was mesmerizing. I could listen to that woman read the Berlin phone book. I swear that I had a hard-on while I was on the bike, all because of just her voice.

Our destination after we left Laayoune was to get to Dakar in Senegal. It was over 1800 kilometers. That meant four days of pretty intense riding. I had been able to step up my distance but the challenge now was to make good distance in the hot conditions and the dust. The dust is everywhere. Emma reminds me about ten times a day to drink water. I have a Camelback that holds 4 liters of water and I'm draining that every day plus more when we finish. I've had to stop a few times to empty my bladder by the side of the road, but it makes me laugh when Emma has to do the same thing. I tried to take a picture of her squatting to have pee. That didn't work; she chased me down and wrestled the phone from my hand. I was laughing so hard that I had a hard time breathing.

I could tell you about the ride through Western Sahara and Mauritania but it would be a repetition of the same thing, times four. Lots of wide-open spaces filled with absolutely nothing. Did I say that we never passed a place to buy gas. We're both carrying an extra ten liters of fuel on our bikes and a couple of times we've had to use it. My bike is slightly bigger in engine size and so, it uses a bit more gas than Emma's BMW. I'm going to get an extra gas tank to strap to the bike. We had a flat and had to make a repair by the side of the road. That cost us about three hours, but that is the price you pay.

We spent three nights in the tent and it's amazing just how you can be intimate with a woman when you have not had a chance to have a shower beforehand. The smell of the human body when it has been hot and sweaty all day is something that I got used to. Making love to Emma in a tiny tent in the desert after a couple of those long days, not having the water to bathe beforehand, well, it was different. But all the same, it was fantastic. Neither of us put our mouths near certain body parts of the other, but our hands went there. I know it sounds gross, but it's life. And sex. And lust. And maybe the start of love.

We did wash up a bit. Some water and soap on a wash cloth to hit all the essential bits and we used a cup of water each to brush our teeth. Cleanliness is next to...well, you get it.

We crossed the border into Senegal at Diama. The crossing at Rosso is much more difficult and involves paying money to just about everyone, that has some measure of control over the crossing, in order to get to the other side of the river. We heard from some other bikers that there was a bridge at Diama and the crossing was less...costly. Not that far from the bridge is the city of St. Louis. It's not the St. Louis that you're likely familiar with. This one is very different. I knew from some research that we had done beforehand that the city was divided into different parts, some on islands. When we got to the city, it was like something I had only seen in a movie. The poverty was astounding. Driving over a bridge, though, revealed a different part of the city that clearly contained the money. We found a nice and inexpensive hotel, Hotel de la Post, secured the motorcycles and cleaned up.

The hotel was next to a major government building, so there was always a police presence nearby. That meant much less crime in that area. Good for us.

I told Emma that I needed some rest after crossing the desert. She laughed at me with her infectious smile and agreed that we could both use some sleep in a decent bed. The next two days were spent in that bed. Very little of it at times was spent sleeping. We made a few trips out for food and to take a swim in the hotel pool. The hotel even offered laundry service, so we got our clothing cleaned up.

I know what you're thinking. Rich kid from the U.S. can buy whatever he wants in Africa. Well, most of the large homes in that part of St. Louis were owned by the Senegalese; not Westerners. So, park your outrage. Also, things in this part of the world are a bit cheaper than they are in the U.S. Fifty dollars a night for a nice hotel room, that would cost two hundred in the States, is not unusual.

I usually checked my email when I had a good WIFI connection. I wanted to see if my family had sent me anything and if my lawyer had anything that she wanted to pass along to me. Mostly it was Mum and Dad inquiring where I was and if I was okay and having a good time. This time it was my lawyer giving me an update. Seems that Diane had written asking for my whereabouts and when I would be returning back to Albany. I had asked my parents not to reveal my location and my lawyer was under strict orders to do the same. She told me that Diane hadn't started any divorce actions, yet. I figured that she would file for divorce soon. After-all, she was the one that needed to have sex outside our marriage, and had been fucking her boyfriend for two years. Two years! What I was doing now, was none of her fucking business. As far as I was concerned, we were done. Finished. I planned that if Diane didn't file for divorce before I got home from my trip, then I would. I wanted to get on with my life.

Right now, I was having the time of my life. Emma is a wonderful woman. I don't know what the future holds for us. She has plans and they don't necessarily include me. But that's okay. Our meeting in Canada was quite by accident. But a wonderful accident, nonetheless.

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Emma Fischer

After a great two days in the hotel at St. Louis, we had to get back on the road. Our objective was Dakar, only 300 kilometers away. On the way out of the city our plans changed really fast. Just ahead I could see that there was a big problem. A bus turned over in the road just ahead of us. Seems that a scooter with a family of five on it, along with a propane tank hanging off the side, hit a huge pothole and veered in front of the bus. The bus swerved sharply, but when it did, the driver hit a truck and whole thing flipped on its side.

After the momentary 'oh shit' we pulled our bikes to the side of the road and took our helmets off. David ran to the front of the bus and started looking for the family on the scooter. What he found was, to most of us, terrifying. The family had been thrown from the scooter and the father was pinned under a part of the wreckage of the bus. The children were all bleeding and the mother was lying unconscious on the ground. The god-damn propane tank was tucked up under her as it appeared that she and the tank had rolled several times.

David was quickly in action working on the mother, since it appeared that she might have the most injuries. David began shouting at me to help with the children and then there were a couple of others that he shouted at to go see if the father was alive or dead.

I pulled our first-aid kits off our bike and handed them to David. He was very calm and focussed as he worked on the mother and her children. The father wasn't moving much and we could see that he was going to need a lot more than we could give him to get him out from under the fender of the bus.

The police finally showed up but did little other than direct traffic. David was shouting at them to get ambulances but they looked at him like he had two heads. Ambulances? Here? The bus, thankfully, only had a few people on it and they were slowly climbing out, with cuts and bumps. The bus driver was bleeding from a gash on his head; he would need some stitches.

The police finally got moving and used an iron bar to try to lift the bus a bit so that the father could be pulled out. When they did get him out he was in bad shape. David was busy with him and kept asking if some ambulances were on the way. Two ambulances finally showed up and the mother and father, along with their three children were loaded up and driven to the hospital.