Al Hoceima to Cala Iris

Bit of a weird one. Considering the jurney was half te previous days, the stress and exertion was double or more!

Campsite

Due to the fact I was planning on staying at a campsite, I hadn’t booked ahead. I’d looked at their website and according to that they had various types of accomodation available.

Bear in mnd, the last time I started a trip without a room, it ended in the worst hotel ever!!

The journey

I’m not sure what made this difficult. A combination of factors. Lots of hills ✅ Long day the day before ✅ Wind in my face✅ No coffee with breakfast✅ A range of things made it difficult to get the motivation. Also, it was a fairly short hop at 60km, possible in 2-3 hours.

Once I came away from Al Hoceima, the main road came away from the coast and went into the mountains. That’s where I stayed for 80% of the journey. By the last 2 hours, I was with the wind in my face, standing on the pedals to get up every hill.

Still, not far to go to the campsite. The name of the village was

Cara Iris

Is a little fishing village, the road leading from the east side is made up, the road leading out on the west is a dirt track. It doesn’t get any through traffic. It’s more of a fishing village.

Campsite assault

The campsite I’d planned to stay at was 1.5km up the dirt track leading out of the village.

When I cycled up this dirt track and arrived at the site, some mobile caravan owners from Austria arrived at the same time, so I let them go ahead.

They checked in and the guy got to me and I asked if the had any rooms, or ‘chambres’. (They had three types listed in the website). He said, we’ve only got one room and showed me to this bamboo hut. 200dirams per night. No breakfast.

No WiFi. No electricity. No food. Not a lot really apart from a hut and some showers, but it was one night and I wasn’t really that bothered.

When it came to giving my passport, he had a bit of a problem. “This hasn’t been stamped” he said, so I showed him the stamp from passport control on the way in, “no, that’s not good enough” he said. “Well that’s all there is” I said, he said “No, it needs to look like this, and he went for the Austrians passports and showed me their neat little stamps.

I got my phone out, opened the booking. com app and scrolled down through the 8 or so properties that I’d stayed at previously. “It’s been ok for these people though” going through all the major cities Marakech, Fez, Al Hoceima etc. etc. “No I can’t accept it”.

At this point he was pretty up close, I popped my middle finger up and said words to the effect of, “goodbye thankyou for your assistance, I will be leaving now”, with a slight comment about his weight. He became very annoyed and agitated and went to do the same gesture to me whilst hitting the front of my face! I mounted my bike. As I departed through the gate, he spat at me and said I should show some respect for Moroccans!

It wasn’t a good deal anyhow. Staying without breakfast is kind of a deal breaker, but breaking it in such spectacular fashion was pretty unexpected!

Back on the road

It track to be more exact. Just a dusty trial leading up the side of the wooded headland.

It was about 4ish, and I wasn’t too worried. I’ve got a sheet sleeping bag in the pannier, and if the worst comes to the worst, I can always wrap up and use this.

Turns out I didn’t have to, when I got to the top of the headland, the signal on my mobile started working again, I fired up hotels.com and made a booking in the nearest village. Turned out it was the village I’d just come from!

That’s where I’m writing this from now. I’ve had a nice shower. My devices are fully charged, and I’m about to go and get breakfast. They also did me dinner last night, 3 courses for 80dirams. And I got some laundry done, so, not a bad result. Plus I’ve used the WiFi to do the blog.

Plus, I got this wonderful picture walking down the dirt track.

Trip statistics

• Distance: 58km
• 13.79kph Ave speed
• Max temp 24°
• 912m Elevation gained
• 1,974 calories burned
• Time 3h 54m