Motomissione

I wanted to leave a mark on this journey, to give it a mission for the benefit of the people I was going to meet. So I decided that the aim of my journey would be to donate the motorcycle used in the adventure to a village doctor in Dakar, in the district of Toubakouta, for a medical centre managed by the NGO Bambini nel Deserto (Children in the Desert, or BND). In just 3 months I managed to fundraise via crowdfunding and help from technical sponsors to buy the motorcycle, with valuable support from the Mayor and council in my city, Montesilvano, which made it possible to donate to the Dakar doctor a marvellous Honda XL650V Transalp from 2006, which I renamed “FESH FESH” On 28 December 2022 I set out at midnight for Genoa, and after 7 hours on the motorway I arrived at the port on the morning of the 29th for check-in. From there, I had two days of sailing ahead of me, during which I was able to ask expert travellers I met for useful information.
I disembarked on 31 December 2022 at 17:00 in Tangier, the first city in the north of Morocco and given the time, I decided to remain there to celebrate the new year, staying at a hotel in its Medina.

On 4 January I left brimming with enthusiasm and renewed energy for Tan-Tan, a slightly shorter leg of 330 km. I was extremely excited to officially enter the Sahara, with my entry marked by the sign for the city of Guelmim, the Gateway to the Desert. On the way I kept in touch with Cian, the man I met in Casablanca who had told me that he was also stopping for a night in Tan-Tan, and the next day we set off together, around lunchtime, and began to cross Western Sahara; kilometre after kilometre, we left the built-up areas behind and the landscape become more and more desert-like. Around 8 p.m. we reached the city of El Aaiún, where we spent the night.On 6 January, another tough leg of 550 km towards Dakhla. I started off again with my new friend but we each had our own pace and it was a solitary journey. Here the geographic area was even more desert-like and petrol stations were further and further apart, but this was where I started to realise I was living out my adventure. I reunited with Cian in Dakhla, where I decided to stay for two days to recoup.
I was in Morocco’s penultimate city and it briefly occurred to me that there was a large social and geographic difference between the north, centre and south. The inhabitants of the Sahara were truly hospitable and respectful and it was nice to hear them repeat how honoured they felt to have a solo motorcyclist adventurer passing through their lands.

From far away, I began to see houses and knew I had arrived, but I was still slightly shocked by the poverty and chaos I encountered. There were only 4 hotels in the town, all of them quite expensive. I spent the night there before the next challenging leg of 560 km of pure desert and just two petrol stations, before reaching the capital, Nouakchott.
Here I saw something extraordinary and thanked God, or Allah; I think I was one of the few people to experience several minutes of rain in the desert, to have received a prayer from a stranger and driven at night in the pitch darkness of the Mauritanian desert.

I reached my personal destination after 300 km, in rigorous silence and losing my gaze in the wind blowing on the Senegal flags. The flags were on typical pirogues moored along the edge of the lake, swaying slightly in the pink water, its colour given by the rich salt content. After my satisfying and self-gratifying stop, I got back in the saddle and headed to the city of Dakar. Once I arrived, I saw a post-modern city of cement with traffic and city chaos, another new discovery.

I stayed with them for 5 days before returning home by plane. During that I experienced and discovered the real Africa that surrounded me, interacted with the locals, ate their traditional food, Yassa (rice and spices) and, like any good Italian, drank their coffee, Touba, all day. For the first time I truly felt like an adventurer and for the first time I felt truly FREE! The few lines of this account somewhat describe me and my journey, but for the full picture, you’ll have to wait and watch the documentary…