I'm not sure why today's ride was so short, but I guess it has something to do with finding places with accommodation and food, and fitting in with the days' itineraries either side.  Anyhow, we had a late start, took in the citadel and kasbh at Ait Benhaddou, and then cycled along the valley to Ouazazarte, something like 25 miles. 

Ouarzarate is the site of a concentrated solar mirror which focuses the sun on a tower and generates electricity by boiling some salt solution that produces steam that drives a turbine.  Or something like that.  Anyhow, you can see the bright light of the mirrors focusing the sun from miles away, as in the picture. Morocco is blessed with the sun, so I guess all the modern green / solar electicity generation schemes will work here. 

Most days our daily mileage is in the region of 40 - 50 miles, but often there is a lot of climbing over mountain ranges involved, even up well over 2000 meters the other day as went went from Touama to Agdal.  Routes often take us over a mountain pass, and then down to a valley for a while, only then to go up to another mountain pass.  So, progress is slow, especially when hauling all my kit and kaboodle.   I am quite good at just putting my head down and grinding away slowly up the incline, and legs, heart and lungs seem to co-operate.  If the climb is on one of the Route Nationalel roads, then the road condition is often very good, with a decent margin, even though the traffic might be heavy.  More rural roads are much quieter, but there is often only one road up to a high pass, and that will be the RN road.  Generally speaking the roads in Morocco are very good.  There has evidently been a lot of investment in the road network infrastructure in the last few years.  

Likewise with internet connectivity, which seems to have very widespread coverage, evidenced by the mobile phone masts at the tops of mountains and passes.  It's been so good so far that I've been able to listen to Radio 4 on BBC Sounds as I ride along in the middle of nowhere.  Now, when I'm going bytrain from Birmingham to London I can't get a decent mobile signal for significant parts of the journey.  But, here in Morocco, good mobile phone and data coverage is available in the mountains and deserts.  I think it is because it is government driven policy here to have widespread coverage.  Whereas in the UK, the government has handed over internet coverage to private firms, like BT and OpenReach, and they are interested in profit rather than public service, and they cherrypick. providing good service to where they can make a good profit.  Even in Birmingham, living only half a mile or so from the city centre  I can only get copper wire internet of something like 8 mbs, even though there is fibre broadband up on the main road 100 yards away, but BT/OpenReach won't bring it down our road because there isn't enough profit in it for them.  But in Quarzazarte on the fringes of the Sahara Desert, I get a full and powerful 5G data signal and decent service, even to watch Netflix and BBC iPlayer (though a VPN !). And electricity generated from the concentrated solar mirror jobey. 

You can follow my route via my Garmin satellite tracker at  https://share.garmin.com/chrismarsden1954    Choose "View All Tracks" in the top right hand corner of the map to see the full route.

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