March 9, 2012
Anergie - Anrge - Anrgui
swimming with the bike
It got cold and damp during the night and my down sleeping bag soon felt clammy and lost its thermal qualities. I'd expected it to. Tossing and turning, trying to keep warm, my sleep wasn't good, but when I open my eyes to bright sunshine, I know that I must have slept for a bit.
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I'd splashed out on a Katadyn bottle for this trip. Its boast is that it can filter most dirty water, and after filling it to get a drink from the shallow edge of the silty river and scoffing a cereal bar, my tent gets packed up and - once happy birthday to my daughter has been scratched in the small piece of sand where I camped - it's time to get back on the piste.
In the warm sunshine, there are parts that are okay to ride along and with just a few kilometres to go, a proper breakfast in Anergie beckons before too long.
Slowing me up a little is a steep-sided and deep gully; it has me ferrying my panniers to and fro again like yesterday.
Then comes the deep river part the villagers had told me of.
No Berbers are around for me to follow across, so my camera and the computer stuff get packed into a waterproof stuff sack, which goes inside one of my front roll-top panniers, which although called waterproof, wouldn't really be classed as submersible.
I venture into the river with just the bike, using it as a depth-gauge-cum-support. A small section of scree that rises gradually up from the river about 100 metres ahead seems a good halfway stop and ferrying the gear there isn't too bad after my legs get used to the chilling coldness of the water. It comes up to the bottom of my shorts. A return trip is made for my bags.
The second leg of crossing this flooded section clearly offers more of a challenge, with the surface of the river moving with those telltale signs of an undercurrent. Tentatively, my front wheel goes ahead, but it soon disappears as water comes right over my bike frame. I then opt to move out towards the fast running centre, using the bike as a prop against the force of the flow, which is probably rushing along at something like 20 km/hr.
Water flows up to my over waist and the bike has become a problem instead of an aid - the water pulling it downstream, swirling around the mudguards and drenching my barbag. It's a proper fight to stay upright.
But then, with a touch of good luck, my feet find what's left of the retaining wall of the piste - a barrier made up of the metre-long blocks comprising rocks trapped inside a robust, wire netting, the sort you see all around the world. This wall is only about a foot wide, judging by the surviving piece visible up ahead.
My eye traces the wall's route under the water and my feet gingerly feel for it, but sections had been tilted 45 degrees by the force of the flood surge, which makes getting a sure footing hard, especially in my floppy Crocs. And all the while my bike keeps getting whipped behind me.
Then my foot slips. Splash. My bike is totally under, yet still gripped by my right hand while my other is helping keep my head above the river as we sail downstream. I try not to panic.
Luckily the submerged wall comes to the rescue again and I clamber gratefully on top, the water now at a manageable thigh level. What to do?... stuck as I was in no man's land between my goal ahead and my bags left behind.
Even if (a very big if) it was possible to make it with the bike, it just doesn't appear it is with my heavy bags... certainly not without them getting soaked, thus ruining all my expensive camera gear and computer.
Then another bit of luck.
A Berber goat herder must have witnessed me floundering and appears on the opposite bank, waving for me to go back, towards the scree and my bags, but that seems too risky. I simply stand there, rooted to the spot for a while.
The water ahead is just as bad, flowing fast, but in about 10 more metres I'd be walking on the visible section of wall. It's just a matter of getting there. Slowly, tentative step by small step, I manage it.
Meanwhile the twenty-odd-year-old goat herder shows me the proper route. Stepping from the far bank, directly across from the scree, he walks with water lapping up to the top of his dark legs, gets to my heavy bags and picks them all up and loads them in my black Nylon holdall (which must now weigh well nearly 30 kilograms) then carries it back across.
Another Berber man with a donkey meets him and the pair walk slowly upstream, eventually crossing over to me at a shallow section of the river. To say it's a relief to be reunited with my stuff is an understatement.
The selflessness of Berbers. Neither would accept a penny, so instead I give the goat guy my hand-knitted wooly hat. Made in England. Yes, a rather bizarre gift, but that's all I really have to offer. Although he seems a little bemused, he's also quite pleased with it. Hey!... it's the only one in Morocco!
The ordeal has left me physically and mentally drained; completely knackered in fact. Just standing in the force of the chilling river has made my muscles ache. Consequently my bike gets wheeled along as I trek towards the village of Anergie, now a very short distance away.
A woman outside one of the first houses I see beckons me up the dusty slope to her home after I make the familiar motion of hand to mouth, signaling food needed.
By the time I've got up there, her husband has a plastic seat waiting for me, and a table on which he's set some bread, a saucer of olive oil to dip it in, and a plate of homemade soft cheese. Tea is soon brought out and I sit there in my soggy clothes, feeling quite smug in a surreal sort of way.
Their simple home has a view of white-capped peaks that loom up across the broad valley. They're massive. Right beside the rustic, mud-covered house is a wire pen in which lay a few cows, plus around six goats and a few chickens. Apart from their sounds, there's silence.
After a while, one of the teenage daughters brings out another plate of food, this one pilled with couscous topped with vegetables. I can't finish it. There's too much.
Again, the family firmly refuse my offer of payment, so I give the man of the house one of the little keychain LEDs that I've bought along - something I feel glad to have thought of before leaving Taiwan.
With my clothes practically dry from sitting in the hot sun for an hour or so, it's time to find a bed and the family points me in the general direction of a local place to sleep.
It turns out the gite owner is related in some way and he's waiting for me near Anergie's tennis court-sized souk, which is eerily empty. Once past the village's isolated mosque, the gite guy - a friendly French speaker - escorts me up a steep track to his place.
For 120dh, there's - beside bed, breakfast and evening meal - hot water for a shower, but I need to crash out for a while and that's what I do after gulping down a large bottle of Coke while sitting on the elevated terrace, gazing across to the majestic High Atlas mountains. It's so serene.
Dinner, as it often is in Morocco, is a piping hot tangine.
While taking away the dishes, the owner - Hammou, I think his name is - offers me a lift up the winding road to the high pass in the morning - a 12km climb. I say I'll think about it and then, realizing I won't be cycling far without my SPD sandal, show Hammou my broken shoe sole. No problem, he reckons, and takes it away.
With that, I go back to bed, still dressed in my two-day-old cycling gear.
Today's ride: 3 km (2 miles)
Total: 110 km (68 miles)
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| Comment on this entry | Comment | 8 |
Wow, that was a ride for the record books. I’ll bet your grandkids won’t believe you when you tell them this story, and you will tell them if you haven’t done so already. I suspect your wife would worry if she thought you’d be wading in raging rivers when you were off on a bike ride.
Well done.
Cheers,
Keith
3 years ago
How's life?
3 years ago
Hats off to those Berbers, who are tough cookies.
At least the sun was shining when I was in the water.
3 years ago
Yeah, I posted that note when you first joined the cycleblaze site. But no big deal. For what it’s worth, I got an email notification of your reply, but nothing in “My Cycleblaze”, so I had to go back and reread your journal to make this re-reply, if that makes sense to you. Still as impressive now as it was then.
I’ve been dealing with some health problems that keep me tied to the house. Long exercise is not possible just now, but I’m optimistic for the coming year. Anyway, winter has set in here in Burgundy. If it’s not raining, it’s foggy and the temps hang in the single digits. So keep those lockdown ride reviews coming. I’m doing my best to absorb some second hand sunshine. There doesn’t seem to be any in the local thrift shops.
Cheers,
Keith
3 years ago
There's a chance I will be able to venture a bit further soon, as I reckon my classes during the week may end soon. That'll free me up to get away.
Thrift shops are pretty rare here... I can't find one in Taipei.
3 years ago
3 years ago
Morocco - it's worth looking into going as it's close to Spain and ferries are not very expensive.
I've found people over the world to be good - it's rare to come across nasty folk - and I think being on a bike helps make us white guys more acceptable.
Talking of Spain, I know you plan to visit (again) and quiet roads there are not too hard to find, but it'll be different in the UK and more detailed planning is required. Just bear in mind the population of Spain is about a third less than the UK's, but the country is twice as big.
3 years ago