31 March 2025 - Alnif - Tingir - 50 Miles

Eid Mubarak ! In the morning, it was bright and sunny, and everybody was out and about in their finest, some of the young men in the most outlandish dishdash and slippers. Lots of lemon colour ! I'm not sure they have any sense of how camp they look walking around swathed head to toe in sherbert lemon. And, an all pervasive whiff of Middle Eastern cologne, a bit too strong and cloying, and lingering forever. The kids were all in their new clothes for the feast day, the lads in football track suits of their favourite teams, definitely knock offs. But, who is going to check ? The little girls in Cinderella dress, or however the latest cartoon film heroine dresses. All very happy and they were meeting and greeting, and kissing each other at least three, if not four times, on the cheeks. I don't know what else the day would bring for them, but it was definitely a day of celebration after their weeks of fasting during Ramadan. And, the Muezzin was having a field day.

The route to Tinghir was pleasant and reasonably flat. I kept to the main road, but Richard headed off on some track so that he could experience the real countryside ! He does that. For most of the route there were spectacular mountains on both sides, but thankfully we were following a valley of some kind and largely kept to the level. Eventually I joined RN10 which has been resurfaced and widened, so it was a pleasant ride in to Tinghir.

Tinghir is quite a big town, perhaps a provincial centre. Our auberge was on the edge of town and very pleasant, although even in the nicest of places the plumbing is always deficient in some way - hot and cold taps reversed, even though they say hot and cold -, intermittent hot / warm water, toilet bowls that move underneath you, the smell of sewer lingering in the background, electrics patched together and wires hanging about. I think attention to detail is not the Moroccan forte. I know, you're going to tell me it's all part of the charm !

We met a couple of French Canadians, a him and a her, who were doing our sort of thing, and they were fulsome in their distain of Trump and how he has dissed the Canadians. I wonder does Donald J even know that King Charles is also King of Canada, and before he takes it over as the 51st State, he will have to ask The King, and then Charles might think again about inviting Trump to tea at Windsor ? I suspect not. Just like most of the other things he's up to, all with little understanding of the consequences and implications, just a childish bullying desire to wreck and create a scene.

We are in Tinghir for two nights, so that we can do a day trip up the Dades to see the gorges, which were really quite something, the little river having cut through the mountains over the millenia. It was very busy and touristy, but we went up further and there it was quiet and magnificent. Nature's cathedral.

There was some beer to be had at Tingher in one of the upmarket hotels, small bottles, and to be honest not a wonderful experience. Maybe I am losing my taste for alcohol ? I don't miss it when it's not there. There was also some Moroccan red wine, no doubt from the vineyards from French colonial times, but my experience of Moroccan wine last year was that it is ropey stuff. The food experience on both days was nothing to write home about, either. Moroccan food, largely tagine and couscous, and a few variations of omelette and salads, is pretty ordinaire and predictable. So, I guess, don't come to Morocco for the food and drink.

1 April 2025 - Tinghir - Gorges de Dades - 30 Miles

Today was a day to stay in Tinghir, and ride the 10 miles or so up to the gorges, up in to the mountains, following the river, mostly with green pastures and palm groves down in the valley. The Gorges de Dades are definitely a tourist Mecca, and there were lots of buses, cars and people up there, and one or two cyclists like us. Without our bag and baggage, riding was nice up the canyon. At the narrowest point of the gorge there was a traffic jam, and I was amazed at the size of buses that were trying to make their way to the most scenic parts. Up on the rocks of the gorge / ravine, there were climbers with their ropes and tackle, all very precipitous. Further up the gorge, away from the madding crowd, it was quiet and peaceful, and beautiful. Other than that, we did very little, except eat the formulaic tagine / couscous, although we did manage to snaffle a couple of small beers from the posh hotel, but two little 25 cl bottle each were enough. I am certainly out of practice. Coke Zero is my preferred drink here, along with eau gazeuse.

Now that Ramadan has finished things are a bit busier in Morocco, and the tourist season is in the commence de saison phase, although I sense that things don't really pick up until a little later in the month. The weather is nice, but still chilly in the morning and evening, and maybe the European tourists want it a bit more balmy all day and night. I think that happens in later April / May / early June, and then things really hot up and it become uncomfortable, until things settle down in mid September and October. Not that I really know. It's just what I'm guessing. I'm just wondering to myself what all the tourist infrastructure of auberges, hotels, chambres d'hotes etc do outside of those narrow windows. Certainly, the places we have been staying have been quiet, often we are the only guests. However, even the smallest places will offer the full service - dinner in the evening and breakfast in the morning, even if we are the only people. I guess Mrs Mo, the femme de maison, is cleaner and cook, so she is on hand to whip up a tagine and couscous at a moment's notice. Out in the countryside, our accommodation has been rustic, to be kind, and in the towns a little more cosmopolitan, although always with the usual Moroccan lack of attention to detail. Charming, when you get used to it. Or, so I'm told. It is not expensive, very reasonable, and I usually book through Booking.Com, just to make sure something is definite. I keep getting discounts on their website, I guess because I use it so often. I am some level of Genius with them. I'm not so sure it is a good deal for the auberge owner, because I think that Booking.Com takes a hefty levy on every booking, but how would the auberge have such exposure without it ? I certainly couldn't go back to the days when you had to go to L'Office de Tourisme and ask them what is available in the area, have them phone up and talk to the Madame, and then go there. The internet makes travel so easy. I'm all for it. Even if Mr and Mrs Mo have to pay a levy for my booking. Anyhow, if they've any sense, they will factor it in to their pricing. Very Trumpian, aren't I ?!

2/3 April 2025 - Tinghir - Boumalne Dades - Rest Over - 30 Miles

As I write, I'm finding it hard to remember how was the ride along the RN10 from Tinghir to Boumalne Dades ! I often catch up with my post for a particular day some days later when I have the time and the energy, so I have to think hard about where I've been and what I've seen and heard. Richard is much more disciplined and timely on his blog, so I shall have a peek and tell you !

Anyhow, I do remember along the way that I had to stop a couple of times because of bodily urgencies. Sorry to be so frank. But, it was the precursor to Marrakesh Belly, which by the time we reached Boumalne was in full swing, and that night I was not comfortable at all, and slept very litte. I'm not sure what it was, probably something in Tinghir. I suspect it may have been the sausages - beef, apparently - that I had in Tinghir for lunch. I did wonder if they were a bit luckwarm and undercooked as I ate them. Oh, well. Or it may have been the salad. You never know what water they have used to rinse the salad. So, I spent the day in the hotel / room, and close to the loo. Not very pleasant. Richard visited some gorges, but said they were not as impressive as the Tinghir / Dades Gorges.

Our plan has evolved over some days, and until my malaise, the plan was to cycle to Ouarzarte and then take the bus to Taroudante, and then cycle north over the Atlas Mountains to Marrakesh. However, I don't really feel confident about sitting on a Moroccan bus / coach for four and a half hours in my present condition, so I would prefer either to wait things out, or to move forward on a route that will retrace some of our original route getting over the Atlas, but at least where there will be ground and cover for emergency visits to nature. I'm also feeling a bit whacked from the runs, and resting seems like a good option. We will see.

Our hotel in Boumalne Dades is a bit noisy and busy. The rooms look out over the town and the valley from high up, but there is a huge clientele of young men who spend their time nursing a coffee endlessly and watching the football on TV, or concentrating on their phones. My room is below the flat roof, so every time someone moves a chair it reverberates through my ceiling. The patron is very enthusiastic and helpful, and brought me honey when he heard I had a bad stomach. Anyhow, it was fine to hunker down in, and served my needs of the moment.

Not sure I have ever had Delhi Belly, but Marrakesh Belly is not nice.

4 April - Boumalne Dades - Skoura - 50 Miles

I still felt a bit washed out in the morning. Richard was all for an early start, which he had, but I hung around a bit more taking it slowly, and then took to the road, heading for Skoura. Our plans are still evolving, but I am definitely not up for a long bus trip in my present condition. Why the bus trip ? Well, so that we can get to a starting point to take an a different pass over the Atlas Mountains. We will see !

The ride to Skoura was made a bit more challenging by the wind, which was against us. It can really get up in the afternoon. Anyhow when I arrived on the outskirts of Skoura, I met Richard who had stopped at a watering hole and now was about to get a lift in the back of a pick up from some motorbike tour baggage train, the last 5 miles or so to our Riad. He, too, has been stricken by the Marrakesh Belly. I followed on by bike and caught up with him at the Riad, which was lovely, one of the best we have had, and we spent dinner discussing what our plans should be given our respective conditions. He is all for sticking to the bus plan, I definitely am not in favour of sitting on a Moroccan bus for four hours with the urges I have had over the last few days. He thinks he will be fine tomorrow. I think he will be still running for the hills and cover every hour or so. We will see !

The meal at the Riad in Skoura was very good, well as far as more and predictable tagine and cousous can be. But, it was on the finer end of what we have been getting. Unfortunately, in our condition at the moment we are not really able to eat huge amounts, and the servings were massive, so I do hope our hosts were not offended. I did try to explain in my schoolboy French. And graphics. And hand signals. I remember saying "whoosh" quite a lot.

5 April 2025 - Skoura - Ait Ben Haddou - 50 Miles

So, what did the morning bring ? Well, I was still adamant that I was getting on no bus. Richard, thinking better of it, was planning on staying the day in Skoura, which suggested to me that he was somewhat worse than he was letting on, but still insisting that he would bus it to Taroudante so that he could take on an alternative Atlas Mountain pass. I decided that I would carry on and retrace the route back over the Atlas Mountains from whence we had come, via Aid Ben Haddou and Agdal Telouet, and we would regroup somewhere once he had done his route over the mountains.

So, off I went, heading for Ait Ben Haddou, via Ouazarzate. Wind wasn't too bad, but the road and the traffic, the RN 9, was awful. Some of the RN have been widened and modernised, and there is a good shoulder out of the way of the traffic, but the sections of the RN9 which I travelled today were still awaiting modernisation. The traffic is fast and furious, and long straight stretches encourage people to belt along. Overtaking is a sport game, and people will overtake against me and in to me. The shoulder was rough, and often rutted, but I had to ride it pretty often in order to save my skin. My Garmin rear light / radar is invaluable, and gives me a beep when a car is approach from behind, and I can look in my mirror and make an assessment, and take action. After I turned off the RN9 for Aid Ben Haddou, the road was quieter, but the wind was pretty tiring. Anyhow, I made it to Ben Ait Haddou, and stayed in a pleasant Riad and managed to eat and get a beer in one of the local hostelries.

I think Richard's plans are failing to come together, because he can't now get a bus as planned, seemingly all full or just not going, and so I think he's hoping to get a taxi over 200 km to Taroudant. I admire a man who likes to keep to a plan ! But, we shall see.

The Marrakesh Belly is settling down, but there is still residual activity !

6 June 2025 - Ait Ben Haddou - Agdal Telouet - 45 Miles

Today's ride was challenging. The road follows a valley, and then up over a couple of pretty high climbs. It's all beautiful and scenic, with lovely green valleys, and high mountain sides, but there was a lot of up and down, and a couple of difficult climbs. Once I reached Telouet, I had to start going west, and the wind off the mountains was awful, so much so that I walked parts of the last 10 km because it was easier than trying to stay in the saddle. Added to this, I had a puncture, which has been a theme of this journey, which I blame on the Schwalbe One tyres I am using. My fault, I guess, I really should have thought a bit more carefully about it. I'm expert at changing inner tubes in quick time.

The route I took today seems to be a popular tourist route, so there were lots of 4x4s with large white tourists in them being driven up the valley, no doubt on a day out from Marrakesh. They come in convoys, and disturb the peace, and seem to think that they own the road. My other bug bear are the motorcyclists, who come in droves, and disturb my peace and quiet as I cycle along. They really don't want to hear what I am muttering under my breath as a whole pack of them pass me by. Many of them are Italians or Germans. Other than the corpulent white tourists and the beefy hairy motorcyclists, my only other companions along the road were children, who always want to say hello, and always ask for bonbons or l'argent. They like to touch hands as well, but I tend not to because I can well imagine where those little unwashed hands have been, and I do not want another bout of Marrakesh Belly. The kids are pleasant enough, and there are lots of them, but I'm afraid I don't have bonbons or l'argent to give them and so they run off disappointed. At least they don't throw stones at me.

Life in this part of the world looks very simple and rustic. Herding sheep and goats. Foraging for food for them, and hauling it up from the valley either on donkeys or on the backs of women. I've seen no men carrying loads. Men sit around, drinking coffee, and sleeping.

I made it to Agdal Telouet, to a rustic auberge where I had been a couple of weeks before, at the foot of the Tizi n'Tichka pass, which I will have to tackle tomorrow. But, after that, it will be downhill all the way in to Marrakesh.

The latest from Richard is that there are no taxis which are willing to take him that distance, and still no bus, so he is having to use Shank's Pony to follow on a day or two behind me.

7 April 2025 - Agdal Telouet - Marrakesh - 75 Miles

I started out from my rustic auberge de Muhammed after a nice Berber breakfast, and headed up to join the RN9 where it would pass over the Tizi n'Tichka. I started off at 1100 meters/ 3,600ft and it was a climb of another 1100 meters / 3,600 ft up to the Col de Tichka at 2220 meters / 7200 feet, so it was quiet a climb, but the weather was lovely and the road quiet. I though that the RN9 down to Marrakesh was all downhill from the Col, but infact there is another climb along the way, the Tizi Barka, another 400 meters /1500 ft climb. I think I've got my sums right there. After Tizi Barka, it is all the way down, pretty fast, to the plain around Marrakesh. I had thought of stopping at Ait Ourir, some 30 miles short of Marrakesh, but things were going so well I decided to carry on and get to Marrakesh that evening. A ride of over 75 miles, a lot of downhill, but a lot of climbing up so that I could enjoy the downhill. The scenery along the way was magnificent. The French built the original road in the 1930s, which has since been updated and is a good road for cycling, with a large margin. At one point I was aware of the blare of sirens and blue lights coming up the hill, the precursor police outriders to a cavalcade of very upmarket sports cars such as Ferraris, Porches, Aston Martin etc, all belting up the mountain road. And then an hour or so later coming down again. A local told me they were probably Gulf States Arabs, our Saudis, or other conspicuous consumption tossers that think its cool to drive cars like that in a place like that in a way like that. It doesn't impress me. God knows what the poor women carrying fodder on their backs up from the valley floor think, Probably the same as me.

I made it in to Marrakesh and through the chaotic traffic, not so bad when you begin to understand the tactics and the style of the traffic and drivers. I'll stay a couple of nights at the Gallia Hotel, from where we started a few weeks ago, and spend tomorrow getting myself organised, packing up the bike and making sure I am ready for my morning flight on Wednesday.

I had hoped that Richard would catch me up and be in Marrakesh on Tuesday night, but it seems that he is taking his time in the mountains, not sure if it's because he's become attached to them or he is still a bit hobbled by the Marrakesh Belly. He's going to take a bus from Marrakesh north and then do some more cycling up north and then cross by ferry from Tangiers to Spain. But, plans and buses haven't been working out recently for him, so I hope Plan E will be kinder to him. I even bought a bottle of wine from Carrefour, and a cork screw from the souk (antique, very good price, Sir !), which I will have to enjoy by myself now, although only a moderate amount because I think my tolerance these days is not what it used to be.

So, what are my thoughts about Morocco ? Well, I've enjoyed it very much, the cycling has been challenging, but rewarding, and it is definitely a place of amazing and awe inspiring vistas and landscapes, from mountain passes, to oasis valleys, to rocky desert, to lush green river valleys. The roads, generally, have been good, with the exception of some very fast and furious unimproved RN, such as the RN 9 of a few days ago. The careless driving culture I've already reported on. The Moroccans themselves have been invariably warm, generous and welcoming, and I have never felt in danger, or threatened, or taken advantage of. There is a lightness about their Muslim observance, although it is all pervasive with the presence of mosques everywhere, and the call to prayer, and people praying in public, but you get a sense that it is not a prosleytising faith that sees anyone who is different as necessarily the enemy. It feels very different to the Pakistani Muslim experience I see in Birmingham, which has a aggressive edge it. Morocco feels like Muslim Lite. The history of Morocco is more complicated than I thought, and the enduring presence of the Berber people, culture and language, attests to the history of Morocco before the arrival of the Arabs and Islam. I had wanted the food culture to be more enticing that it is in reality. The reality is tagine, couscous, brochette and various omelettes, salads and breads. Cheese omelette here is an omelette with a square of processed cheese, La Vache Qui Rit / Laughing Cow, which I haven't seen or heard of in decades. In Marrakesh in the big square I did see stalls selling snails, no doubt a hang over from French days, but I didn't have the courage to partake after my experiences last week. There is a baguette culture which I have seen in some places, again from the French. Overall, however the food culture is pretty predictable and not especailly exciting. I've been intoxicated with the scent of orange blossom and mint along the way, but usually mingled with the stink of putrifying rubbish and sewerage, which I think is a motif for Morocco in many ways - beautiful, charming, natural, but also unkempt, disorganised and generally chaotic. Marrakesh itself is a bustling, edgy, busy and chaotic city, and at every corner there are people hawking things, running little hole in the wall shops and workshops, food places, whatever they can turn their hand to. Everybody seems to be in the business of flogging something or other. The traffic in town is a nightmare, not for the feint hearted. In amongst it, there will be donkeys pulling loaded carts, and old men on bicycles, and people crossing the street. Inshallah !