Michael Tyler

Another easy day. Some slight hills.

The wind was a bit of a pain.

Blowing inland from the sea, it was pretty strong, although not too unpleasant in the heat.

The trip itself was more hilly and it took me from inland to the tip of a peninsula.

Here’s some nice pics from the journey.

The hotel of the good view

Was fairly entertaining.

My bed collapsed when I got into it, my hosts Dutch friends showed up and crashed out the beer and whisky.

Abdul, the guy who owned the place had lived in Holland for a while. These two guys had come to Morocco to visit. For supper, provided by the housekeeper, we had a fish tagine and some traditional hariri soup.

It was an ok stay but the rooms were not that great.

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On the bike. Again.

It was a toss up of taking a longer journey, (130km), or the short one at about 75km.

When I checked the weather for today, it said rain for this afternoon.

That never materialised, but it has been cloudy all day. This and the fact there were no hills made it pretty pleasant. I did of course plump for the easy option.

Tangier

I’m taking a roundabout journey to the frontier town of Tangier.

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This involved taking my bike on the bus from Fez CTM to Oujda. It was surprisingly cheap and easy, cost me 140 dirams for the 5 hours trip.

By bus. Whilst on the bus, I supposed, ‘what would be the best place to cross the border into Algeria’?

Hmmmm.

Not so friendly

It seems that Algeria and Morocco haven’t been friends for a very long time. The last time the border was open was in 1994. UK residents need a visa for entry also.

Bummer.

A bit of bad planning by me.

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Where I’m going to stop for a couple of days.

The trip was under ideal conditions. Mostly downhill and with the wind behind my back. 56 miles took 4 hours or so.

You don’t get any better.

Trip statistics

• Distance: 91km
• 18.25kph Ave speed
• Max temp 29°
• -720.85m Elevation gained
• 2,317 calories burned
• Time 4h 59m

In and around Fez Medina and Souk

For the last 24 hours or so, I’ve been here, in the old town of Fez.

It’s not really like anywhere where I’ve been before. There are no vehicles allowed in the Medina. Just people, hand-carts and the odd donkey.

It’s just a crazy place. Like a maze of alleyways. When you get into the souk, the alleyways are lined with shopfronts. So many colours, different items, some for tourists, a lot for Moroccan punters. They sell all the things you can imagine.

The food is pretty amazing.

It’s like internet shopping on wine, before the internet was invented.

Crazy.

If you lived here for a week, you’d need to buy your own mule to take all your stuff home for you!

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Today felt like a much better day. Not finishing off at night and not knowing where you’re staying is not the greatest. Last night whenI finished, I could hardly walk because I was so exhausted. Tonight was more relaxed, and I managed to wander around to town do a few things that I wanted.

To start the day

From 9.30 am until roughly 12 was entirely uphill. I was climbing from the off. For the last half hour, I refused to do any more, and walked, just to save energy and give my body a bit of a rest.

It was around every corner is another hill. Most of them being upwards.

Still, it was quite pretty and the weren’t many cars on the road. Could hear the woodpecker in the forest, and at one point, a tortoise walked out into the road in front of me!

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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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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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