As February ends, we’ve been on our bicycles for six full months and travelled over 7,000km. We’ve seen a few challenging roads over this time but today will rest forever in our minds as a route with a rare combination of exceptional scenery and terrain that nearly left us in tears more than once, had it not been for the amazing views all around us. You can see just a short clip from that day, not the hilliest part but beautiful!
Archive for February, 2007
89km Outside Igherm – Tafraoute
Posted February 28th, 2007
55km Tagmoute – Outside Igherm
Posted February 27th, 2007
After a couple days of rest in the beautiful and peaceful oasis town of Tagmoute, we carried on up the road, the first day in a two-day journey to Tafraoute. Our friend Brahim, also known as our fantastic guide to the desert and all things Moroccan, suggested we take this route because of the wonderful scenery. We never doubted how gorgeous it would be, with so many lush strips of wheat and date palms, Berber women in their colourful clothing, singing as they collected firewood and worked in the fields, and the mountains all around us. What we didn’t count on was the difficult road: part paved and part dirt, it climbed steeply outside of Tagmoute with several kilometers of switchbacks and then went sharply up and down at least four more times. Every time we reached what looked like a peak we prayed for a long descent, only to find another climb around the next corner. By the late afternoon our calves were throbbing and we were only just rolling into the crossroad town of Igherm. Five roads come together here, according to our map, and the town is full of cafes and signs for different buses to all the major cities. We sat down for a break and talked over what to do, deciding reluctantly to carry on in an attempt to trim back some of the 85km stretch to Tafraoute. After a short distance we realised we were shattered and found a quiet wild camping place, just over a hill to the side of the road, in a grove of flowering almond trees.
Here is a short video from that day, of an oasis as we left Tagmoute.
52km Tata – Tagmoute
Posted February 25th, 2007
Our journey to Tagmoute took us first through a swathe of bright green irrigated fields just outside of Tata, then up into the mountains where we admired the layers of rock, forming patterns of swirls and waves across the hills. There were hardly any cars on the road and to us this was cycling paradise: a beautiful landscape and a whole road to ourselves, not counting of course the occasional donkey or herd of goats trotting by on the side. We passed a few nomad tents through the day and as we sat down for lunch under a tree a young girl came by to see what we were doing, and also to ask if we wanted to give her our sunglasses. It made a change from the usual requests for candies or pens! She didn’t seem too disappointed when we said no, we’d like to keep our glasses thanks, and went back to the well where she was getting water and looking after several donkies. Early in the afternoon we rolled into the oasis of Tagmoute, which is a real paradise in the middle of an otherwise rugged landscape. Olive trees and date palms fill the fields, where Berber women gather in groups, working the land and chatting together.
48km to Tata
Posted February 24th, 2007
A slightly short day for us, thanks to our efforts the day before. We had a peaceful sleep near the nomad tents, waking up only when a couple goats wandered by during the night and brushed up against the tent. Maybe they were hoping for more vegetable scraps like we gave them the night before!
As we made our way back to the road we watched the nomads herd two large troops of goats out to graze, the women standing out from a distance with their colourful and sparkly clothing. The nomad life is fascinating for us and we feel lucky to have experienced it up close, both in the desert and now in the large stretches of nothingness between Foum Zguid and Tata.
Our bikes got us to Tata just before lunchtime and we debated where to camp – in the more austere but cheap municipal campsite or in a private site outside of town which was recommended to us by many people. Eventually we decided to stay in town, only so we could set up the tent and then get some shopping and other errands done before heading out into the wilderness for another week or so.
We enjoyed a lunchtime treat of chicken and chips, fed scraps to the local cats and then settled in for a relaxing afternoon in the sunshine.
100km Foum Zguid — Nomad encampment
Posted February 23rd, 2007
As with most of our long days, we had no intention of going so far, but after an easy morning of very flat riding we quickly reached Tissint, a one-horse town where we had planned to spend the night beside the local waterfalls. Like the rivers of the day before, “waterfall” is a bit of an exaggeration for a bit of water flowing over a few rocks. It’s certainly not Niagra Falls but then again, in the context of Morocco, it’s true to say it is more water than we can remember seeing most other places.
Tissint is also where the police have a checkpoint and while our passports were being examined we asked about the potential for camping. “That would be very dangerous,” we were told. “There are risks.” We asked for more information on the risks and the policeman mumbled something about terrorism and robbers, without being very specific, adding that there was a hotel in the town. He then decided we could camp but only if we left our bicycles and passports with the police overnight and stayed close to the checkpoint. It was all a bit too complicated for us and after a break we were feeling energetic so we decided to carry on.
We decided later that this was a case of “donkey head” which we seem to get every once in a while – continuing to push further on our bikes even when we’ve already covered quite a few kilometers and there are options for staying put.
We cycled another 25km or so before a headwind made it clear it was time to stop. There seemed to be quite a lot of nomad tents around so we pulled off the road several hundred meters and placed ourselves between two tents, which were still some distance from our own.
A peaceful evening followed, watching the sunset and the goats belonging to the nomad families coming home for the night. Just before dark a Berber woman came over to ask if we had any medicine for her little girl, about three years old. She had a cold and it was obvious her nose was stuffed up. We shared what we had as well as some fruit.
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