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Helen’s Take On… video of Cycling Across the Sahara

Guelmim, the ‘gateway to the Sahara’ as it is known, which hints at it’s former importance as a trading post on the caravan routes of old, had few distractions for a solo cyclist like myself. I spent little more than 24 hours in town and fairly evenly divided this time between sleeping, doing my laundry on the hotel rooftop, eating chicken in the rotisserie on the Place Bir Anzarane roundabout, making use of one of the many internet cafes and drinking coffee – all of which required no further exploration than the 100 yards of road from where I had come to a stop on arrival in town.

Rachid and Rotisseries

Rachid the friendly owner of the rotisserie I happened to have stopped at on my arrival in town, helpfully showed me to a decent hotel and bartered the rate down to a fair Moroccan price. Between Rachid and the hotel owner, they carried my panniers up two flights of stairs to my room and took my bike round to a back street to park it in a garage – Now there’s service for you. It was Rachid also who later the following day, when I returned to the hotel mentioned that Lars, the Swedish cyclist had arrived in town – not surprising really since we had arranged to meet up when we first encountered each other a couple of days earlier in Tiznit. Rachid then sent his brother on a small mission to look for Lars who was looking for me.

I have encountered time and again throughout all of Morocco this kind of help that I must remember not to take it for granted. Nowhere else on my travels have I come across such a friendly, liberal, hospitable nation.

The desert beckons

A whole lotta sand

Having met with Lars, we had chicken for lunch at Rachid’s rotisserie before departing on the journey south towards Tan Tan. The afternoon’s ride seemed hard work on a full stomach, but was at least made easier with company on the road. Conversations however being regularly interrupted by one of us having to manouevre into single file so as not to be knocked by a passing truck.

We camped that first night about 100 metres off the to side of the road, behind a raised mound of dirt and rock on the floor of the flat hammada. Lars happens to have the exact same tent as me, which seems to be a popular choice for trans-African cyclists – most likely because it can be pitched without the need for pegs and if it’s hot or you’re lazy like me, can be erected inner only, thereby providing a gentle breeze through the mesh lining and affording a good view of the starlit sky on clear nights – all without having to worry about being pestered by mosquitoes, flies or receiving unwelcome visitors, by which I mean the likes or scorpions, spiders or dung beetles (of which there are plenty) and not Swedish cyclists who happen to be travelling with you.

Not so hot

Speaking of clear nights, I’ve been somewhat disappointed with the limited star-gazing opportunities. The weather here has unsurprisingly been dry, but it has been clouding over before sunset and only partially clearing sporadically through the night. The sky becoming cloudless and bright blue only in mid-morning. This means that dispite the clouds, we still feel the full effects of the midday heat. Compared to central Spain in mid-August however, the temperature is at least bearable and cycling is pleasant enough with the breeze that typically picks up after lunchtime.

A head wind

The ‘breeze’ I talk about was a noticable headwind on that first day out of Guelmim and certainly didn’t help our progress. Lars assured me that he had been fighting this headwind ever since Marrakesh, although it was the first time I had noticed it. Fortunately since that day, we have advanced with ease with the aid of a tailwind and I can only hope it continues in our favour.

Check points

During the following day’s ride towards Tan Tan, we passed the first police check point that I have had to stop at and show my passport. Until now, the police have waved me on through and even pointed their speed radars at me to find out my speed and encourage me to go faster.

Taking a coke break at a cafe opposite a check point

Muffled calls of ‘plus vitesse’ and ‘bonne route’ reaching me as I fly past the unlicensed cars and haulage trucks that have been stopped for checks. Those are the check points where the police have been actually doing their job, compared with many posts where the uniformed men would be sat in the shade looking any which way but towards the road and passing vehicles.

The sudden requirement to stop and have all my passport and bike details thoroughly recorded, as often on the back of a notepad as on any official looking documentation, is most likely due to nearing the ‘border’ of the Western Sahara, rather than any suspicions surrounding my unshaven cycling companion. The police have always been friendly enough and the same questions at every stop of where we have come from, where we are going and how long it will take sound more like casual conversation starters than an inquisition.

El Ouatia encounter

The second night we stayed in El Ouatia, a small port town also known as Tan Tan Plage. After dinner at one of the roadside cafes in the town centre, while walking back to the hotel, a couple of police stopped us and asked for our passports. A barrage of questions made me wonder whether there was a problem, especially since they already knew not only which hotel we were staying at, but also which room number and where our bikes were being kept – one in the room by the far bed and the other in the hallway opposite. No problem though. They were just checking that we were OK and wanted to assure us that if there was absolutely anything we needed we were to go to the Royal Gendarmerie for assistance. All a little strange, but nice to know we’re being looked out for – not that I’ve ever felt there’s a need for it though.

Near is far

The route to Tan Tan was not as flat as expected, considering we were supposedly travelling across the hammada.

Which way?!

Instead, the low-lying barren hills visible on the horizon all around gradually neared in front of us, until we were slowly crawling uphill against the headwind. The lack of features throughout the landscape made it difficult to judge distances: invariably, the hills took longer to reach than the suspected distance suggested and similarly, the hills too longer to climb than their unassuming height should have required.

This deception, for me at least, extended to other features on the landscape: what looked in the distance to be a water tower, turned out to be merely the back of a sign on the opposite side of the road. With these deceptive perspectives and shimmering hazes on the road ahead in the midday heat, merely reflections of the sky but giving the appearance of pools of water, make it easy to see how desert travellers in the past have mistaken mere mirages for verdant oases and even cities rising out of the dunes.

Where are the camels?

Despite passing a road sign with an image of a camel only a few kilometres out of Guelmim, it wasn’t until four days later that we passed any real, living four-legged, hump-backed wandering herds.

Camels - you lookin' at me?

The first camels, or more correctly dromedaries since they are the Arabian kind with only one hump, were in a group of about fifteen, of varying colours, ranging from sandy white through golden to a dark, almost chocolaty brown shade. They seemed unperturbed by our presence and only slowly meandered away when I kept creeping, not very stealthily mind you, for ever closer-up photos of these kings of the desert.

Bizarrely though, the first camel I spotted was cooped up in back of a 4×4 that had been stopped, like us, at one of the many check points. The police barely registering the large head sticking out of the wound-down rear window and had waved the vehicle on before I had chance to capture this odd sight on camera.

The force of the Atlantic waves

The road continued along the coast from Tan Tan Plage towards, first the village of Sidi Akfennir and then, Tarfaya. Following the coastal cliffs, the road was flat with the exception of the banks of three rivers that flowed in the Atlantic which had to be cycled down one side, over a bridge and up the other.

Fisherman's hut with El Ouatia in the background

Stopping regularly and wandering over to the cliff edge, on looking down you could see the waves crashing against the rock faces, the force of which caused white spray to rise to impressive heights before dispersing into a fine spray which could be refreshingly felt on the bare skin.

Angler’s huts dotted the clifftops. Ramshackle wooden sheds, covered with tarpaulin, noticable as fisherman’s abodes not from the clothes hanging, haphazardly from these shacks or the blankets lying to air, but from the nets scattered on the surrounding rocks and the buoys and ropes lying in heaps against the huts. The majority of the fisherman however don’t own boats and simply fish with long rods from the tops of the cliffs. As I cycled past on the road, I could barely spot these men atop these mighty cliffs if it wasn’t for a lone parked car or motorbike suggesting their presence.

As we neared Tarfaya, the cliffs receded and turned instead to vast windswept, sandy beaches, the force of the Atlantic waves continuing to pound the shores. The beach faded into the misty distance, the air damp and full of moisture. This region of coastline is renowned for strong winds and poor visibility and many a ship has been wrecked close to these shores. I saw several small fishing boats bobbing incongruously just offshore, barely distinguishable as boats in the vast ocean that was laid out to the horizon and far beyond.

That was the view off to the right, looking west. In every other direction however, was the same flat, barren, stony hammada as far as the eye could see. No hills, no trees, just a continuous row of electricity pylons diminishing into the distance and signalling the direction of the road which they follow.

Piste failure

Using the Michelin map for guidance, we had planned on taking one of the pistes across the hammada as a short cut between Sidi Akfennir and Tarfaya for the road which contoured around the coast. Having reached where the piste should have been, there was no obvious track to take. I thought I found a disused, unsurfaced road which was now mostly covered in sand. Not a thick layer of sand, but enough to remove all evidence of the track beneath for large sections at a time. A little further along, Lars spotted what looked like a piste and we turned off the asphalted main road and decided to try this route instead. Unsure what the piste would be like further along, we agreed to go 10km before deciding whether to continue or return to the main road. We had only just agreed this and set off slowly down the bumpy track, when we came to drifting sand that had settled on the path, making cycling impossible and us resorting to pushing the heavy bikes on through with the tyres sliding on this unsure surface. Five minutes later and we unanimously agreed to give up and take the road. There are going to be plenty more unpaved roads that I’m going to have to struggle my way down on this journey to Cape Town that I didn’t mind giving up on this one.

Coffee, coke and beer

We bypassed the town of Tarfaya and camped by the roadside a few kilometres further on. The following morning we made a concerted effort to leave early and were rewarded with an easy 90km morning ride into Laayoune, the Western Sahara’s principal city.

Kefta and kebabs for dinner in Laayoune

This included time for coffee and coke breaks which are something of a necessity – a caffeine fix first thing; a refreshing, sugary energizer as it gets hot; any excuse to break up the monotony of endless hours in the saddle.

After eight continuous days cycling, I’ve been enjoying a lazy couple of days here in Laayoune – sampling most of the cafes and small restaurants that line the street, which the hotel we’re staying at is on. We even found a bar for a few beers to celebrate. Celebrate what exactly we didn’t decide. I have now cycled over 5,000km since leaving the UK a little over three months ago – that seems a good enough reason to celebrate for me.

So we’re now leaving Laayoune behind for the 800km ride across the Western Sahara and into the next country, Mauritania.

Having a second rest day before cycling again tomorrow. There’ll be no more breaks for the next 800km to Nouadhibou in Mauritania. And no hotels or showers either. Just sand, sun, camping and cycling down one long road. I’ve got another cyclist and my ipod for company though so should be fine!

The landscape from Essaouira to Agadir was dominated by the Argan tree, which is indigenous to this region and similar to the olive tree. I passed the occasional shepherd by his flock of goats, who seem to find the fruit a plentiful delicacy.

Goats in an argan tree

The goats could be seen not only reaching up on hind legs but actually climbing up into the upper branches to reach those nuts too high off the ground. As I stopped to take photos of goats in one tree, I glimpsed out of the corner of my right eye one black goat fall out of the upper reaches of another, only to land on all four feet while simultaneously head-butting the ground before pivoting on immediately and attempting to climb the very same tree again. There’s perseverance for you.

A goat and a grope

I stopped to talk to a couple of shepherds by the roadside, who seemed very enthusiastic about me taking photos of their goats. While the older one ran off to catch a small goat, I showed the younger one how to use my camera, just in time before the small, bleating goat was thrust into my arms. Once we had successfully captured me, the goat and the older shepherd in digital pixels, it was the young shepherd’s turn to be caught on camera. The older shepherd had us lined up and at this point the younger shepherd grasped the opportunity, while I was clutching the goat, to grab my arse. Now I wasn’t having any of that, so with a sharp left elbow to his ribs, he soon let go. He instead went for the ‘we’re pals’ embrace of arm draped over my shoulder…but just as the camera shutter clicked, his hand wandered down to get a feel of my breast. Cheeky bugger. Good try though, but bet he was a little disappointed! It’s not like I’m the most buxom lady (not even a lady some may argue) anyway, but with my new cycling lifestyle the pounds have been shedding and there’s no guessing where they have been shed first (It’s so unfair! Why don’t the pounds ever drop from the hips!).

Show me the money!

I passed several small villages on my ride through the rolling hills. Each time kids would come running to the roadside, invariably shouting for “d’argent”. One boy had obviously been paying attention during his French lessons because he very politely screamed, “donnez-moi d’argent, madame”. I have been surprised that these calls for money haven’t been echoed throughout all of Morocco. Up until this point however, it had been far more common to hear cries for ‘un stylo’, especially in the Middle Atlas.

A slow beginning

I camped the first night in a ruined building and was awake early the following day. On the road in the cool, cloudy morning, which is turning out to be typical along the Atlantic coast, I free-wheeled down the hillside, wrapped up still in my long-sleeved top, into a small town. A number of white plastic chairs arranged neatly on the pavement, all facing out towards the road, alerted me to a cafe open for business, even at this relatively early hour of 8.00am. By the time my not-quite-fully-functioning brain at this early hour registered that this meant coffee, I spotted another cluster of plastic chairs, some of which were already occupied by elderly men quietly pouring tea, just ahead of me. This time I braked quickly and within minutes I too was lazily sitting back, stirring sugar cubes into my milky coffee, watching the small town slowly come to life as shops gradually opened, market stalls were laid out, pavements were swept, workmen emerged from their homes and the white plastic chairs one-by-one were filled with men with little to do that morning.

Coffee addiction

Stopping for coffee has become a bit of a ritual for me. Almost every town I pass has a long row of cafes, each with their own set of chairs arranged on the pavement. The first shouts coffee, the second tempts me to stop. This unhealthy addiction (in every coffee I stir in two sugars) is verging on an obsession. I rarely pass through a town without stopping now. Fortunately, the further south I’ve gone, the less towns I pass, but from Essaouira to Tiznit it seemed that all I was doing during the day was either cycling or coffee-ing. Now I’ve reached the Western Sahara and the coffee is a make-your-own with nescafe instant sachets, my preference is for coke – probably even more sugar!

Curse of the plastic bag

The road just north of Agadir followed the coastline and I spent the majority of my cycling hours, head turned to the right, looking out to sea.

Fisherman at Taghazout

The Atlantic coast here is a popular fishing region and there was always within sight, a parked car or motorbike and a man with his fishing rod silhouetted against the deep blue sea and sky. One thing more common than the fishermen, was the black plastic bag. These carrier bags clung, slowly fading under the sun’s rays, to the windswept trees and scrub, transforming parts of this otherwise beautiful coast into barren wasteland.

Litter in Morocco is a big problem. There doesn’t appear to be any centrally organised refuse collections and throughout the countryside it is common to see discarded yoghurt pots, plastic bottles and of course the cursed black plastic bag littering the roadsides.

Surf’s up

Football on the beach

I had a rest day in the popular surfer’s hangout of Taghazout, where I spent the day idly drinking coffee, relaxing with the locals, wandering along the beach while watching boys playing ad-hoc games of football in the sand and the fishermen directing their boats out to sea as the sun began to set. I then continued my journey south in earnest, cycling the 125km from there to Tiznit in one long, tiring day.

A clash of cultures

I followed the main coast road through Agadir – past countless hotels straight out of package holiday brochures, rows of villas and up-market apartments mostly unoccupied now the high season of the school holidays has passed and on through the run-down end of town where the buildings were fading and falling apart and piles of rubbish lay uncollected on the street corners. The only overlap of these vastly differing ways of life, was a little old lady stubbornly kicking her even more stubborn mule, with what looked like all her worldly possessions piled haphazardly on to the cart that the unwilling mule was hauling behind it, slowly making it’s way down the wide avenues between the large white-washed villas glistening in the sun.

Tiznit a lot to do here

The long road ahead

It was difficult to leave Tiznit. Not because the town had a lot to offer, but because my legs were tired and I kept finding excuses to delay getting on the bike again. First there was coffee, then I met an Italian backpacker and went for breakfast and a second short walk to the Grand mosque, which wasn’t Grand at all (in fact, was only worth seeing for it’s architectural style more commonly associated with the fabled and fading Malian town of Timbuctoo), then I got chatting to the hotel owners and then it was time for lunch. Once I finally got on the bike, I was first stopped by a local who suggested a nice place to camp on the coast and then another fully-laden cyclist came towards me and said ‘Helen?, Helen Lloyd?’ Er, do I know you? It seems there aren’t many women cyclists on these roads and Lars (I had to ask his name) had emailed me a few months back and remembered. I was leaving (I really was and really did) and he was just arriving though so we left it that we would email to arrange to meet up and cycle some of the way together. The company could be fun.

For the next two days, I detoured back over the hills to the coast for another scenic ride along the Atlantic coast, stopping at Legzira beach for the night.

Sunset at Legzira

I was treated to yet another stunning sunset and freshly caught fish for supper, eaten outside under candlelight. I was going to camp but the cafe owner offered me his spare room on the terrace, which I was thankful for later that night, when the sky clouded over again and the misty, salty, damp sea air clung to everything in the open making it quite chilly until I closed the door and wrapped up in one of the blankets he’s laid out for me.

Gateway to the Sahara

The next day’s ride to Guelmim was a tiring slog back over the hills via the Spanish-styled town of Sidi Ifni, but I’ve already told you about that day – the day of the cactus plant. And it was in Guelmim, the ‘gateway to the Sahara’ that I met up with Lars, the Swedish cyclist, and began the journey on towards the Western Sahara.

I spent a couple of days cycling from Tiznit to Guelmim recently – Two small towns in southern Morocco, which have little to entice tourists who aren’t on a journey south towards Mauritania. Now I could have taken the direct main road but that didn’t look like much fun. Instead I took the ‘scenic’ route over the hills to the coast and then back over the hills to Guelmim. The first day to the coast was a pleasant ride and my evening spent watching sunset while eating freshly caught fish made it worth the extra few kilometres.

The next day however, my legs were feeling tired and they did not appreciate the long winding road on the continuous incline. I’d had breakfast early and stopped for bread and cheese triangles part way up the first steep section. This particularly uninspiring meal was the only food I had left. I’d eaten all my biscuits when I’d woken in the middle of the night with a rumbling, empty stomach and massive sugar cravings which I was unable to ignore. I was now regretting having eaten the remaining half packet… if only I’d just left one or two!

The road gently wound it’s way between the hills, ever onwards, ever upwards. The terrain was invariably rocky with an abundance of small cactus plants, which have been characteristic throughout Morocco. Occasional smallholdings dotted the landscape, whose main source of income appeared to be from the cactus plant. Around each smallholding, certain sections of the cactus-covered landscape would be fenced off. This I presume were their crops, but the fenced in sections were no more abundant with cactus plants than those outside. The fence it seemed was just a means of saying ‘these are mine’.

Previously while in the Middle Atlas mountains, I had been given some carefully washed and peeled fruit from the same cactus plant – not my fruit of choice given a typical Moroccan market stall, but juicy and sweet nonetheless. When struggling uphill, with no food left in my panniers, but an abundance of this cactus fruit in every direction, within easy grabbing distance of the road, they suddenly became very appealing. Up to the point where all my thoughts were concentrated on which particular fruit looked the juiciest – should I pick a ripe-looking red one, a green one or some gradation of yellow. In the end, I was so desperately in need of sugars that I didn’t really care too much about the colour, so long as it was edible.

So I pulled up my bike and launched my leatherman at the closest fruit, paying scant attention to the fact that this was actually a cactus plant. Cactus plants, as you may well know, are often covered in prickly, thorny or spiky surfaces. I too knew this, and could indeed see said thorns quite clearly, but some uncontrollable urge to get the juicy fruit inside me was just too great.

So with a few pricks to the fingers, I soon had the fruit, a yellow-turning-red one, in my hands and was rapidly attempting to peel it. What I was unaware of until I took my first mouthful, was that the skin of the fruit was covered in hundreds of little sharp hairs, which inserted themselves into everything that they touched. So I’d barely enjoyed one refreshing mouthful before I was distracted by more urgent matters – namely, vainly attempting to remove, one-by-one, the hundreds of tiny needles which were protruding from my fingers and lips.

The lush fruit fell from my hands and rolled along the dust-strewn sideway as I attempted to remove a few needles from my tongue (they made eating a rather non-enjoyable experience). So that was the end of that then.

Now back to those needles… those sticky little prickles seemed to be replicating. Of course they weren’t, I was just carefully removing them from my fingers, only to wipe them onto my shorts and top where they stuck steadfastly. Worst of all, they wouldn’t just smoothly retract like they’d so easily gone in, they’d break off just above the surface of my skin – intractable little barbs.

In the end I gave up. I went back to cycling. My legs didn’t seem to hurt so much after this. The dull aching of muscles was overpowered by acute pin-pricks as my fingers wrapped round the handlebars and the prickly needles in my shorts rubbed against my thighs.

It’s taken two days and the same number of showers to finally remove all evidence of my fight with this little fruit and be able to type on a keyboard without my fingertips feeling the after-effects.

That’s the last time I’ll be tempted by fruit from the Saharan garden.

Right, I’m off to buy more biscuits…

Oh, a brief update until I get chance to write more: I’m currently at Tan Tan Plage (also known as El Ouatia) having spent the last two days with company from Lars, the lost cyclist from Sweden. Tomorrow we’re making our way to Tarfaya and should be in Laayoune on the edge of the disputed Western Sahara in three days.

Feeling like the whole Moroccan police force is looking out for me so there’s plenty of help at hand in the unlikely event  it should be needed.

Rissani - Gateway to the desert

As has become customary, within five minutes of unloading my gear from the 4×4 and barely taking a seat at a roadside cafe, I was in conversation with a local guy and my plans for the day were changing with every exchange. My intention when I left the desert was to cycle back to Erfoud and then begin the journey towards Marrakesh through the Dades Valley which I expected to take a good five days. However, I was still rather weak from having been ill and not eaten properly in days, that I was happy to sit and sip coke for a while. Mohammed, the guy I was chatting to owned a shop in town and he invited me back for tea (really quite sick of the tea now, but it always seems impolite to refuse, especially when I’m in no particular rush) and if I wanted I could rest there for as long as I wanted. So having drunk yet more moroccan whisky as they call the tea here and slept for a while on a pile of carpets in the corner of the shop, it was mid-afternoon before I emerged into the daylight again. Mohammed offered to show me the old kasbah in town, which as it wasn’t far away I agreed to. What I didn’t realise was that after looking round the old kasbah, Mohammed wanted to show me the ruins of Sijilmassa, the jewish quarters, the souk and then get on a motorbike for a tour of the other sites in the vicinity. By the time I returned to town the sun was low on the horizon and I was being invited to stay for dinner and rest in town with Mohammed’s family at least until the following day. I knew if I did this, I would never make it to Marrakesh on the bike.

Despite feeling exhausted from the afternoon’s tour of Rissani, I got on the bike and cycled to Erfoud with the sun setting and kids returning to their homes in the countryside for company until I reached the outskirts of town when a local farmer joined me for the ride. He invited me to stay with his family, but by this stage I could think of nothing more luxurious than a cheap hotel room in which I could fall straight to sleep. So I thanked him kindly for the offer and made my way into Erfoud. Stopping for food and bottled water (not feeling brave enough yet to try the tap water again) I was again invited for tea with some locals who also said I could stay with them. I was beginning to think I was being very ungrateful about all the generosity and hospitality on offer, until my stomach came to life again and I had to look for a hotel in earnest, just so I could use the toilets. This was clearly not the time to be accepting invitations into newly-made friend’s homes, only to become rapidly acquainted with their toilet facilities.

The following day I was exhausted and weak and the thought of cycling 145km to Tinehir made my stomach tighten and recoil in horror. I decided another rest day was in order. By the time I had recovered and was feeling fit enough to cycle, I was running out of time to make the coast to meet another friend.

Kasbah ruins - Meski

So I called up Kevan, who was still in the desert at this stage and was offered a lift to Marrakesh, which I gratefully accepted. I’d travelled through the Dades valley on a previous trip to Morocco and there was going to be plenty of long-days desert riding ahead of me, so I didn’t feel I would be missing too much.

The journey to Marrakesh retraced, at a significantly faster pace, my route through the Middle Atlas. I then spent the following 24 hours in Marrakesh doing little except eating and drinking… replenishing and rebuilding my reserves I kept telling myself. My eyes and stomach working overtime with the overwhelming variety of sights and smells of every conceivable style of food coming from each street corner. A true assault on the senses.

With a concerted effort I was finally riding out of the city in the heat of the day, towards the coast and into the blinding sun (I’d lost my sunglasses and not yet replaced them). My legs were tired and the kilometres passed slowly along the straight, flat, monotonous road. As it was getting dark I passed a small town where I stopped to get some food for dinner. I decided I’d cycle a few kilometres down the road and set up camp.

On leaving the town however, I was joined by two teenagers on a motorbike who insisted on riding behind me. Then there were two motorbikes. And a third. The dark road being illuminated by their headlights and guiding me around the potholes and alerting the oncoming trucks to my presence. There was no way I was going to be able to stop and camp without this small army of youths on two-wheels, which by the time I was feeling exhausted was now numbering eight bikes.

As fatigue set in and my polite requests to be allowed to cycle alone were repeatedly ignored, by temper frayed and I stopped by the semi-tarmacked road and told them where to go in no uncertain terms. My outburst, in finest English, was understood far better than any previous French attempts, even though none of the lads knew a single word.

I did feel bad for the outburst, since they were only trying to help me progress down the road in safety, especially when they quickly dispersed with one lad returning to apologise profusely for any inconvenience they’d caused.

Once the bikes had all disappeared into the distance, I pushed my bike off the road and looked for a discreet place to camp. I happened to be next to a quarry with not a single other defining feature on the landscape. At least, not one that was visible under the starlit sky.

I hauled the bike into a space between the mounds of rubble and set about making my bed for the night. A quarry may not sound like the most sumptuous abode, but when you’re lying back, cosy in a sleeping bag, arms folded behind your head, looking up towards the vast sky, it’s darkness impenetrable except for the stars, glistening in their billions, countless, across the black canvas, you can imagine yourself anywhere, in any time.

I slept out in the open that night, too tired and lazy to put up the tent. My lack of effort was rewarded with fifty-eight bites to my legs, abdomen and neck, which since then have itched intermittently with such intensity that I have woken myself numerous times with ferocious, unconscious scratching to the point that I look like some contagious, disease-carrier. Bring back those pesky black flies of the desert any day.

Awaking to the cockerels and dogs in the distance, alerting me to the dawning of another day, I was on the road by 6am. To the beat of Bob Marley, I cruised towards the coast, covering the remaining 100km with ease to arrive in Essaouira mid-morning.

Essouira - Relaxing on the Ramparts

Here, in this cool, chilled-out town, I met up with Gina and Giles. More friendly faces. The luxury of an apartment. Plenty of time for a beer, or a coffee, or sitting on the beach, or swimming, or eating, or another beer. As you may imagine, I didn’t want it to end. In three days, I ate such an obscene quantity of food that my clothes nearly fit me again, so it’s a good job I’ve been back on the bike, burning calories..

So now I’m relaxing further down the coast, at a small surf town called Taghazoute. Again, I’m finding it hard to leave. So for now, I won’t. Time here has little meaning, which is why it’s getting on for six weeks since I arrived in Morocco and there’s still a way to go before I reach the border. Time is one luxury I can afford.

Beach sunset at Taghazoute

Sunset at camp east of Erfoud

There are, I believe, actually four great desert races held throughout the year. As well as the Marathon des Sables through the Sahara, there are races in the Gobi desert, the Atacama of Chile and at the other temperature extreme in the Antarctic desert. One world renowned runner, Dean Karnazes, this last year became the first of only two people ever to complete all four races in one year – he did pretty well too!

Having spent a few days in the Sahara, in south-eastern Morocco close to the Algerian border, camped amongst the dunes of Erg Chebbi, shading from the blistering (literally – I got sunburnt on my cycle ride into Erfoud and my arms are now covered in hundreds of little raised blisters – nice!) sun, I have a new-found respect for those who do complete this race, even if I still think it’s a somewhat idiotic and pointless thing to attempt in the first place. Each to their own and in all fairness, there’s probably several people who would question exactly why I am spending two years cycling 20,000km to Cape Town, the route which includes said desert, albeit along the edge of it.

Camp at Erg Chebbi with traditional Berber tent

My experience in the Sahara involved desert runs of an entirely different kind though… It turns out that my stomach upset in Er-Rachidia was not cured twenty-four hours later. It was merely a brief respite from the stomach cramps that enabled me to cycle to Erfoud and lull me into a false sense of well-being.

Whilst my companions in the dunes have been learning new desert survival skills, I have been wishing away the hours, lying in the foetal position upon my thermarest in the shade under the Land Rover. The continual buzzing of the ever increasing number of black flies that for all intent and purpose with their hovering and landing on any exposed body part add to the feeling that I may as well be rotting away in a foetid waste dump.

Besides chasing what shade there is to be found and ineffectually swatting away the pesky flies, I’ve been expending what little energy I have dashing as fast as is possible in sand, which is not very fast, over and down the ridge of a small dune, grasping a shovel en route to my own private, ever-expanding latrine in the desert.

Tracks in the sand

Fortunately, my choice location for a toilet in this tract of sand, perched beneath a tuft of dry grass, was not a haven for camel ticks, waiting in ambush for the first living creature to pass by (or squat), as was the case with other such grassy outcrops. I was able to fend off one persistent camel tick, but a small army of them bent on feasting me may have been somewhat harder to fend off whilst otherwise engaged.

When the shovel was being used to dig out the stuck 4×4, my tool of choice for digging my shit-pit in this endless sand-pit was a flip-flop (partly because that’s what I had at hand when I needed to go). I was soon, out of necessity, as effective with this as any dung beetle that decided to tunnel into the sand, or indeed a dog burying a bone (I imagine, since there was no dog or bone).

I suppose the flies, however bothersome but present in daylight and by moonlight and rather than hovering round my ears preferred settling on my rear, did distract my mind from thoughts of other less benign animals in the area. It didn’t take an expert tracker to see signs of spiders, scorpions and snakes.

Dunes of Erg Chebbi

Indeed, it didn’t even take a tracker since I saw for myself three scorpions a wolf spider and several of the group I was with saw a sand viper (I could have too but was too exhausted to go investigate after my last dune-loo dash).

Looking on the bright side (not my backside), by being ill in the desert I was at least afforded a loo with a view and it was definitely preferable to several Moroccan toilets I’ve encountered on my way south.

So no I haven’t run the Marathon des Sables, but I have felt physically drained and dehydrated enough during my own mini desert runs to know it’s not something I’d ever do… and I have the greatest respect for all those who manage to complete it. Hats off to you all (and trousers up).

100km out of Chefchaouen and I’m happily trundling along on the bike, my thoughts intermittently interrupted by passing cars where the driver or passenger provides some form of encouragement; be it waving, cheering or enthusiastically beeping the horn. One Landrover overtakes, but pulls over just ahead of me and as I cycle past, I hear the driver shout out, ‘Helen!’.

What? Wasn’t expecting that.

Winding up the Middle Atlas

I slam on the breaks, turn back to see who it is and am somewhat surprised to see Youssef’s brother, Reda, who I’d had dinner with the night before, leaning eagerly out of the window. I turn back and he asks if I want to join him and Liza, a Polish girl, and go to visit his relatives in El Hajeb.
I didn’t really want a lift – I thought it was a bit like cheating. But for me the trip is about the countries I travel through and the people I meet. The cycling is a means to enable this and to turn down an invitation for the sake of a few kilometres seemed absurd. So I slung the panniers in the back of the 4×4, strapped the bike to the roof and off we went….

Needless to say, Reda’s aunt and all her family were incredibly hospitable and after several days in El Hajeb, seeing the surrounding area and partaking in Ramadan festivities I headed to the coast. I needed to get a visa for Mauritania from Rabat. For this, I used Kenitra as a base, staying at Abdul’s (Reda’s cousin) apartment.

In all, I spent two weeks off the bike. In those two weeks I experienced a side of Morocco that the passing tourist rarely gets to know. I’ll say more about this in another update, when I can give the friends and families I’ve made the time they deserve.

Travelling in Ramadan has been great, but there are several disadvantages – one being that normal working hours (if you can call them that in Morocco) just don’t apply. And so, with a third trip to the Mauritanian embassy in Rabat, I finally came away with the visa I needed.

The art of procrastination

In England, I am very skilled in the art of procrastination; always finding things I don’t really need to do and doing them instead of doing things I really need to. Of course, anything that needs to be done, can always be done tomorrow and if it can wait until tomorrow, then why not the day after that. I’m well adjusted to working on Africa time. Take today for instance – a day off to write this update and buy some things in town: despite getting up at 6.30am, I’ve only just got to a cafe to write and it’s now gone lunchtime. First there was some washing to do, making tea, buying and eating breakfast; none of which can be done too quickly. Then cycling from Khalid’s place where I’ve been staying took a good deal of time – only three kilometres from the cafe, but first the tyres on his bike needed pumping up, then we stopped to talk to some friends, then looked for a repair shop to fix the loose chain, then stopped at another friend’s house to drop off some bags, a stop at a shop for food and drink and then finally to the cafe. Everything slowly slowly.

Late afternoon in the Middle Atlas

In Morocco however, I’m good at getting on with the things I need to do, they just take an awful lot longer than they should. The main reason for this is that, since my arrival here I’ve barely had a moment to myself – only when cycling, and not always then either, do I get time alone.

Moroccans by nature are very friendly and will go out of their way to make you feel welcome. My first three nights were spent in hotels, but since then I’ve been welcomed into people’s houses and invited to stay for as long as I want. Indeed, I’ve had to turn many people down and sometimes it has been difficult to leave. This probably explains why it has taken me twice as long as I expected to get here. I must have some willpower to continue though, because if not, I’d never have got this far!

The cycling continues

Taking a break in the cedar forest

Having finally managed to leave Kenitra, the plan was to start cycling from Azrou, just a short distance from El Hajeb where I’d stayed at Reda’s aunt’s house on the edge of the Middle Atlas. However, by the time we finally left Kenitra having fixed one problem with the 4×4, stopped for lunch and then tried to get the windscreen wipers fixed (it had started raining, which made driving a little tricky) it was getting late. It is clear to me now that there is little point in making plans here – they will only change numerous times and what actually ends up happening usually bears little resemblance to the original idea. And so on this occasion, I ended up leaving from Mrirt and taking a different route altogether, through the heart of the Middle Atlas mountain range, along the back roads that either don’t feature on my GPS, map or both.

I cycled along increasingly small and bumpy dirt roads to the source of the Oum-er-Rbia river. It was a pleasant evening ride, or at least it was until it got dark and started to rain. I arrived at the source cold and bedraggled, but after a hot shower, hearty tajine and relaxing in the Berber-style hotel room I was soon back to normal. Shortly after I was fast asleep on a mattress of multi-coloured blankets as is typical here.

I had planned for an early start the next day and in true Berber fashion, I left after midday, having been to explore the source of the river, chat to the locals, eat breakfast and drink lots of tea. The tea here, is not like your good old English breakfast or even Earl Grey. Rather, it’s a green tea with an unhealthy quantity of sugar added for sweetness, which may partially explain the poor state of many Moroccan’s teeth! Sometimes there’s mint added too, but I prefer it just with the sugar.

I had hoped to cross the range and get back on to the main road in one day, having been informed the road across was about 30km from the lake Aguelmame Azigza which I arrived at after a couple of easy hours. This I realised was a gross underestimate when at the next junction there was a signpost telling me I had another 76km to go. There was no way I would be covering that in the remaining hours of light. Especially with the hills, state of the roads and lack of food I had on me.

Berber hospitality

Berber shepherd near Itzer

I cycled until it was nearly dark where the road had turned into little more than a dirt track due to the rain and subsequent rockfall. I also passed by a small collection of houses where there was a little shop to buy biscuits and bread which solved the problem of food. I just then had to find somewhere to camp. I spotted one flattish area between the trees on the hillside, but thought I could get a bit further before dark, so I continued. I hadn’t counted on the road becoming rather steep and slowing progress to a crawl. Twenty minutes later, I could barely make out the surroundings and was wondering whether to turn back to the spot I’d found before when the hillside to my right flattened out into the perfect camping area. It also happened to be part of a smallholding where the Berber family were sat outside.

After extended greetings that are typical in Morocco and consist of welcoming and introductions in Arabic, Berber and French together with shaking of the hands which are then kissed and placed on the heart (all very touching and time-consuming!), I asked in my far-from-fluent French if they would mind me camping there for the night. It turned out they only spoke Berber and so after some animated hand-signals from me to assist my French and explain my dilemma, they insisted I stay in their house for the night.

I did feel more than a little guilty for intruding, but after sharing out the biscuits I had and sitting together drinking tea I felt more at ease. Their mud and stone house was simple but clean and certainly sufficient. Indeed, far more like a home than some you find back in England. We sat on the mats laid out on the floor with a small, low, round wooden table in the middle for the tea and food. The wood-burning stove in the centre of the room kept the place cosy and warm and in the corner was piled up blanket on top of brightly coloured blanket, presumably for use when the snow starts falling in a month or two. On three rickety wooden shelves, dented but shiny kettles and pots were neatly lined up together with glasses, plastic containers for food and a spice rack. Everything you need for a fully functioning kitchen.

Having washed outside while the mother laid out a space for me to sleep in the next room, we sat down together again for a simple meal of meat, probably goat, and bread. It tasted great to me though – I was ravenous by then!

It was an early night – electricity hasn’t reached these parts, so once it’s dark there’s only so much you can do by gas lamp. It was also an early start – when the two children were sent off with packed bags to school at 6.30am. I’ve no idea where the school was, but it can’t have been close. Fortunately they had a donkey for a taxi service. After breakfast of more tea, bread and home-churned butter I said my good-byes and left the mother to milk the cow and the father to pray.

I made one wrong turn first thing – navigating in these out-the-way places without a map is sometimes a little tricky. I knew I needed the ‘main’ road across the Atlas, but at times this was indistinguishable from the smaller dirt roads leading to clusters of houses. Usually there was someone nearby to ask directions, but it was still early and the only other life I came across was a group of barbary apes.

Cinquante Dirhams

Once back on the ‘main’ road, it was several hours before I came across another vehicle although I did pass several shepherds and men on mules trundling along. My first encounter though was with a young man about my age who was walking with his dog. As I crawled slowly up the long switch-backed road, he took the more direct route straight up and our paths crossed on several occasions. It was only at the top of the hill that we stopped to make conversation, which quickly turned into him asking and then demanding fifty dirhams from me (which I really didn’t have on me). For a brief moment I thought I could have a problem on my hands – he was grabbing onto the handlebar and refusing to let go. So when my polite explanation that I had no money for him and then ruder response when he still wouldn’t let go failed, I slapped him on the arm. I didn’t slap him hard, but he was clearly shocked that a girl could possibly hit that he let go instantly, which gave me enough time to make a speedy getaway down the other side of the hill. If he’d tried at any other point on the way up, things may have been a little trickier for me.

Leaving the cedar tree covered hillside, the road opened out onto a grassy plateau being grazed by a lonely herd of goats. Once I’d crossed the green expanse, the road began winding downhill, with spectular views in the direction of the high atlas mountains, the highest peaks of which have already received their first light covering of snow. Towards the bottom of the hill, I came across the first car of the day and then soon after spotted electricity pylons, which had been absent for two days and even a couple of the mud houses had satellite dishes pointed skyward.

I arrived in Midelt about 4pm feeling rather tired, so decided to stop for tea to recuperate before cycling bit further to find somewhere to camp. At the cafe however, I got chatting to Lhoussain, who invited me to stay with his sister and her family in town. Once again, an offer hard to refuse. Although very tired that evening, I didn’t get to bed late, having been for a tour of the town, eaten another delicious tajine with the family and had my hands decorated with henna.

A long day and lots of apples

Gorges du Ziz

First there was the elderly Berber lady at the top of the 1907m pass, dressed in matching faded blue and white print skirt and blouse with off-white woollen under-trousers, worn out jacket and intricately detailed silver bracelet hanging loosely off here right wrist. I got the impression, that these clothes were once her smartest outfit and were no reduced to everyday wear to keep warm up in the mountains. We didn’t speak the same language, but we sat side by side happily eating a couple of the small orchard of apples I had been carrying in my pannier, having bought more fruit by the roadside earlier.

Then there was the bus-load of dutch tourists who had stopped to take photos in the Gorges de Aziz and couldn’t quite believe I might want to cycle through Africa.

Then there was Khalid who’s car had broken down but said he would be in Er-Rachidia later and I was welcome to stay with him. If I went to Cafe Islane when I arrived we’d probably meet.

Then there was a young boy who passed me in the opposite direction on a bike, quickly made a u-turn and pedalled after me – he just want ed to talk to me and practise his French as he wants to be a tour guide.

Then there was the middle-aged, moustached Moroccan whose van had broken down on the last hill before the lake. He transports fruit and vegetables between Midelt and Erfoud. He had even more apples in his van than I had in my pannier so we ate a couple of his apples and chatted a bit until I said I really had to be going if I was to reach Er-Rachidia before dark. With that, he gave me two more apples (as if I needed more!) for the road and off I went.

I cycled past the lake as the sun was setting and I pulled into the cafe as it was almost dark where I immediately bumped into Khalid. I’ve been staying with him and his friend Omar for two days. Unfortunately the first day I was ill, having drunk some dodgy water and spent most of the night stumbling in the dark to the toilet. Some ‘Berber medicine’, a herb called chihe, promptly made me throw up the remaining contents of my stomach and more or less cured me though.

So having fully recovered, my appetite well and truly restored, I’m ready to get on the road to Erfoud tomorrow.

Update:

Since writing this update I have been to the desert and can unequivocably say that the last sentence I wrote was an over-optimistic outlook rather than the reality…. more on that later though in my next update ‘Desert Runs’.