Our last day of riding. All smooth tarmac and almost all downhill. It starts off warm and just keeps getting hotter and hotter. We make good time and push on to try to finish before the hottest part of the day. We look for shade when we stop for food
We’re on the road at 8:30am, after I lose the key to the bike locks for half an hour – doh! Everyone is pretty annoyed, me included. Despite the rest days, this has been a very testing trip to say the least, and occasional frayed tempers, while rare, are inevitable
Shaun and Steve go for a hike up the nearby peak, Jbel Oukaïmeden, while I sleep for the morning – despite feeling better, yesterday had still been tough day when I wasn’t feeling great to start with. The tiny town of Oukaïmeden is very quiet, it being off-season after all
Shaun’s birthday. Yay! Being both a keen mountain and road cyclist, he is especially excited at the prospect of what lies ahead because it’s a real bucket-list item if you’re a roadie. Normally, I’d be excited too, but after a dodgy tummy all night I’m back in survival mode. Straight
When I wake I feel quite weak still but am ready to eat. Hussein rustles up some pancakes, which taste a-ma-zing! Shaun and Steve are also feeling the effects of yesterday – even though they could probably have ridden today, we decide it would do us all good to have
The big one. Wow, this was a hard day, one that almost broke the trip. At 8am it is already hot and windless, the sun blazing down from a cloudless sky. We climb for a few miles up a road, accompanied by a friendly dog that appears from the undergrowth
As day dawns I’m struck by just how magical a place this is: the valley is wild and spectacular, with towering peaks either side and no other dwellings. There’s a stream running over the bare earth, just a couple of feet from the house, where we all washed our socks
It’s an early start, for this is going to be a big day. After a few miles, we leave tarmac and navigation is initially tricky – back in the UK I’d been forced to use satellite imagery to plan a route through the scrub, because there are no tracks on
“I almost sat on a scorpion!” exclaims Steve, a little shaken. We’ve just reached the top of the day’s first pass (over 8,500 feet) and stop to feast on tinned sardines, bread and dates, our staple food. The day began less eventfully, with a seemingly endless 6-hour climb up to
Despite our comfortable room we awake early, not feeling that well rested, knowing we have a big and particularly remote day ahead. Having checked with José on arrival, we’d determined that the Assif Melloul river gorge was passable, just! The word ‘river’ in Berber, the local first language of the
We’re pedalling – wow, this is really happening! As we ride clear of Imilchil, climbing steadily towards Lake Tislit on a paved road, the landscape opens up, feeling remote and empty straightaway, with steep, scrubby slopes teetering up to sizeable mountains either side of us. We are in the Haut
Touchdown! Blimey, we are actually in Morocco! My first time in Africa. After a lengthy wait in the endless queues at immigration we meet our drivers: we are in one vehicle and our hefty, boxed bicycles in a small truck. French is the second language in Morocco, as much of