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.

Al Hoceima
Al Hoceima

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.

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Narbon to Al Hoceima

A full day of cycling.

Started at 8am, waited for breakfast for a bit. Set off around half past.

This is a picture of my hotel.

Hotel Beautiful

It was like a palace. Don’t think I’ve ever had as much clean living space for so little money.

They also let me take my bike up to the room, so I got off in the morning without any delays.

Had my breakfast, next thing to do.

Visit the market

I had some dates I used to use for snacks along the way. That and peanuts. Peanuts are filling and pretty heavy duty. More like a mini meal on the move. Dates are lighter, a more sugary affair that will just give you a boost, if you stop for a drink or a breather.

Anyway, I guess these dates fell out. The first thing to do after setting off was to visit the market on the way out of town.

500g of dates cost 12diram, or £1.

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Berkane to Nardor

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.

Pickers picking
Not too hot today

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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Oujda to Berkane

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.

Oujda
Oujda

Tangier

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

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Fez to Oujda

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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