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Category: travel

Beni Mellal to Khenifra

Beni Mellal to Khenifra

Or thereabouts.

I’m gonna keep this short and sweet. I’ve had one of the worst nights sleep and I’m not feeling a blog is going to be adding anything to my feelings of wellbeing.

A holiday?

Aparently yesterday was some form of a holiday in Morocco, which I knew about. Not only that, the hotels were booked up along the way, I only tried one because there was only one.

When i reached to only town with more than one hotel, they were all booked due to a festival in town, and I had to cycle a further 8k to the hotel.

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Oulad Ayad to Beni Mallal

Oulad Ayad to Beni Mallal

Rathethan cycle out of some rather high mountains, I decided to make it to Beni Mallal as a priority.

  • To get rid of some excess gear weighing me down.
  • To pick up a elastic bandage for my knee

Short cut

After speaking with the hotel manager yesterday, he said that a bus could take me from a crossroads 18km outside the village into Beni Mallal.

I wasn’t seeing any benefit from cycling out! He said he would take me down around 11am.

11am

Came and went. The guy was busy, I left him to his job.

Around 12 he came up to the lounge where I was scrolling on Twitter and said jump in, (his 1970’s Citroen), he would give me a lift all the way to Beni Mallal (which is about 80km).

A nice gesture. He used to be a taxi driver in Paris for 18 years. His English was better than my French and Google translate helped us out.

The journey didn’t last all the way to Beni Mallal. After 40km or so the hills became plains. I said it would be fine to drop me and I would cycle the rest of the journey.

Which I did. The knee didn’t cause me any problems at all.

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Ouzoud Falls

Ouzoud Falls

Well, my leg seems to be recovering well. Today I only had a little light exercise walking around the falls.

My hotel

Casba oum Hani d'ouzoud
Casba oum Hani d’ouzoud

Is comfortably located with a stunning view across the valley. In the morning I awoke to the sun rising behind the mountains, gradually lighting up the terrace outside my room as it rose.

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Marrakech – Ouzoud Falls

Marrakech – Ouzoud Falls

A bit far this one. Worked out to be around 165km by the time I arrived at thehotel.

That would have been ok, but I have a knee injury. I’d forgotten this and by 130, it was starting to cause problems.

Apart from that, it all went well.

Cycling Marrakech to Ouzoud Falls
Cycling Marrakech to Ouzoud Falls

It was actually more than 86 miles. That’s just when the Fitbit ran out. All in all, the trip was 104 miles.

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Marrakech

Marrakech

So, I’ve realised that the WordPress app simply doesn’t function and I’ve had to delete it.

Now all the blogging I’m doing on this cycling trip across North Africa will be done on the browser.

I’ve not got my computer with me this time, just my phone and tablet. That will make it slower, and it won’t be possible to customise and add content in the way that I’d like. It is better than spamming Facebook.

it’s taken a few days to realise this is the case, but from here on in, I’ll be doing the blog.

Missing blog?

Yes. The observant of you may have noticed that for the past few months, my blog had gone missing.

This isn’t a case of a missing blog, more of missing internet. That’s right. For at least the last 4 weeks, if not longer, the internet stopped functioning, (more or less), in Banbury.

No hotspot

I use the internet through mobile hotspot, so if my mobile signal drops, I have no internet.

In the last four to six weeks, there have been a few days when I’ve not even to make calls because the signal was so bad. I made a call, or more of a message to my provider 3 who initially have me a week of, then when I got back in touch the following week and made a formal compliant through the complaints department, (rather than just customer services), they gave me some more money.

After that, I’ve just given up. The service is usable but it’s intermittent. I wouldn’t count on being able to do any big uploads, which I haven’t. Hence, no blog.

This is the first and it’s being done on my tablets browser via the hotels internet.

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Highs and lows of lockdown year 2020

Highs and lows of lockdown year 2020

To comemorate it’s passing, I’m mounting a late vigil here on the blog.

Many people say they won’t miss it.

It started with some large wildfires and bad environmental stuff and worked it’s way up to a global pandemic!

No need to be frustrated though… The solution is here!

Look at it from above….

3 months on and into 2021. I’ve had a look through and gathered what I thought might be some of the best (and worst) parts of my 2020.

The lows

The highs

Photo gallery

Take a brief look at my photo gallery for the year.

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