Today should have been a fairly straightforward day, some 60 miles on a decent road more or less level and with some gentle downhill.  Very little uphill compared to what has been the pattern so far.  Well, it should have been straightforward.  

About half way along the route, I decided to pull off the road and have a little snack I had brought with me and rehydrate. I saw a bit of shade under a tree and cycled over to it, no more than 50 yards or so.  And then, while munching away on my snack I noticed that both tyres had gone flat, and on inspection noticed they were covered in little three prong barbed things which had put multiple punctures in each tyre.  I'm not riding my normal tyres, Schwalbe Marathon Plus (Unplattbar, as the Germans say !) but another type of Schwalbe which doesn't  evidently have  such good puncture protection.  And, I only had about four puncture patches, and my spare tyre already had a puncture.  Kids gathered around enthusiastically, and I thought I was going to be mobbed and fleeced of everything I had as I set about seeing if I could remedy the situation.  The kids were fine really, and when it was obvious I could not fix things and was contemplating having to walk, get a taxi, get a bus to Zagora, one of the kids told me in pigeon French that there was a motorcycle repair shop in the little town a kilometer away.  

So, I trudged there, and as I arrived the mechanic guy, Muhammed, arrived on his motorbike and set to seeing if he could repair the inner tubes, but even he gave up. There were just too many leaks in both inner tubes. Then his sidekick (another Muhammed) hopped on to his motorbike and went away for about 10 minutes and returned with two exact tubes with the right valve, which he had sourced from God knows where.  And saved the day.  

So, I am now very careful not to pull off the road in to the bush for fear of these barbs, which appear to be everywhere.  I was able to resume my ride to Zagora, which is a biggish oasis town, where I passed the night in a rather sumptuous, over the top, camp hotel which looked as though it should be a film setting for Arabian Nights.  Richard and I ate in the very pleasant and cool courtyard, served by a rather stern and precise young waiter who stood to attention by the table.  Food was predictable, Moroccan salad, tagine etc, although Richard tried a spaghetti Bolognese, which was a poor choice, I fear.  

I was concerned to find a patch kit and some spare inner tubes the next morning before we set off the our next stop, Tazzarine, but where ?  Anyhow,  schoolboy French, Google maps and a bit of riding around found me at another motorbike place the next morning, where, again, they had precisely what I needed, and so I was able to set off confidently. I really do not want to be stranded again on the fringes of the Sahara Desert with flat tyres. 

What I have taken away from this episode / experience, other than to avoid the dreaded barbs, is how willing and generous pretty much any Moroccan I had dealings with was.  Always a smile, always wanting to help, and no sense of it it being seen as an opporutnity to rip of the foreigner tourist.  They were great.  And saved my bacon.  Oh, by the way, Richard would willingly have helped, but his tyres and inner tubes are of a different size to mine !   

And so to sleep in my canopy swathed bed !  

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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