Mon 25 to Fri 29: Tangier to Fes.

August 29, 2014

Tanger doesn't seem such a big place. There's one swanky avenue back from the Mediterranean shore with nice cafes and a busy trawl of noisy traffic along palm tree lined thoroughfare. A mix of modern cars and old trucks and vans, their engines rattling along belching out smoke. Seems they drive them here until they die.

Beyond this the city is a messy sprawl over low brown hills of the hinterland. From my seventh floor hotel window I see on one such hill a blazing bonfire sending up a great billowing column of thick black smoke rising into a blackened pawl over the late afternoon sky. Outside a little later the stench of burning tyres lingers.

I spend a small fortune checking into the IBIS for three nights at sixty-two euros per night. Small fortune when you think Is only spending ten or eleven euros a day in Spain, except for two nights there spent in hotels. Though at this price I could only expect luxury and it felt like being a king for a few days. The buffet breakfast containing everything imaginable you could eat in the morning enough to fill me until mid-afternoon, when I return to the same café on the avenue for a filling lunch for 50 DH, about four euros. And in the evening I have all-you-can eat salad in the hotel restaurant for another 50 DH.

Being two weeks behind with this journal, I spend most of the day in the air-conditioned room with the laptop open, typing and going back rectifying mistakes. Occasionally looking at the map wondering about a route ahead. A second day of this routine of sitting and occasionally looking out the window at the traffic jam below has me anxious to get back on the bike.

Wednesday morning I check out and set off riding following the highway I'd entered town Sunday afternoon onwards, following signs for Rabat. Then there's a major roundabout without any signs. I assume Rabat is on straight, but after three kilometres with significantly less traffic than before, come to another roundabout without road signs, where the only way onward are exits straight on and right, both uphill through narrow streets of rough tenement blocks with little traffic. I'm thinking no. Navigation will be a problem if there persists to be few road signs pointing the way.

I double back to the first roundabout. The road alongside a straight concrete-lined waterway. The water rubbish-strewn sludge and green slime reeking of rotting food waste, human waste and god knows what.

I find myself on a reasonable good divided highway at last heading towards Tetouan This country does have road signs and dainty white red-top French style kilometre-marker stones showing how many kilometres to a city ahead. Tetouan is 38.

Leaving the city behind men and women on the stony shrub studded hillside alongside mind small flocks of sheep. And after an early stop for lunch at a gas station restaurant the road onward climbs with pine forest to the side. Old trucks labour up behind and catch me up and pass. I have to endure the exhaust belching out the side a hot smoky noxious concoction. The same trucks get in my way descending the other side, lurching down in low gear. Brakes squealing.

Turning left at Tetouan the road is reduced to a narrow strip of uneven and irregular broken-edged tarmac and for most of the afternoon climbs with intermittent forested slopes and a quarry and reservoir in the bottom of valley on the right. Children to the side call out friendly greetings, many in Spanish. A man with a bushy mustache with outstretched forearms and palms of hands waving downward calls out "Un momento!" I stop. He sounds genuine enough as he asks me usual questions until he starts gesturing about funny cigarettes. Then takes from his trouser pocket a small block of hash resin rapped in cling-film.

Further on I meet with aggression. A teenage boy with a troop of smaller boys come running into the road toward me as I pass screaming angry abuse at me. I couldn't work out what they mean as fear begins to make me pedal harder. At another place another boy runs after me chanting angrily and makes an unsuccessful grab at the bag on my rack.

Then the next town after a long climb as it is growing late, which I had been looking forward to reaching to buy some supplies is a real shitty place. I get lots of stares. I ride through until the far end of town. Here the people look less threating so I stop at a small kiosk and buy a cold drink and crisps, then sit at one of the tables outside to eat, drink and cool down, nerviously trying to look as inconspicuous as possible. Meanwhile one and then a second ancient Mercedes van pass. The engine of both almost dying under the weight of people crammed into the back and boys hanging onto the open rear-doors for a lift. A barefooted man with old jeans black with greezy filth and a ragged shirt shudders by in a trans, head down, chin to his chest chanting to himself an insane mantra. Minutes later he returns, still in the same state. A fat lamb is being reluctantly dragged along on a tether by his owner to an eating place a door along, hoofs digging into the ground as if he already knows his sorry fate.

I think it is going to be hard finding a safe place to camp. There's a gendarme office opposite and after considering asking can I camp in their yard, decide to ride on.

Having climbed so far the road ahead descends and soon there's pine forest on the right without any house near. I find a trail in and push the bike a good way from the road before finding a well hidden level spot for the tent.

First wild campsite in Africa. Well hidden.

Thursday morning I'm on the road at nine. The bike feels the lightest it has been in a long time without any food weighting it down. Absolutely. No food having finished the last of the porridge this morning. And there's only a few days more alcohol to boil water and make tea. Where I'll get more who only knows. Superettes pass for supermarkets here and the biggest I've seen back in Tanger was no bigger than a convenience store, stocking only basics. For the most part I've been relying on cafes and roadside food stalls. I'm beginning to miss cooking for myself.

All morning I cycle along a valley with light brown shrub dotted hills to the side and the occasional small pine forest. Shortly after twelve I stop at a roadside café attracted by the smell of cooking meat. The man behind the counter tells me it is lamb so I order and take a seat. He comes and puts a plate of bread, a glass and the bottle of water I asked for on the table. Then after a few minutes more comes out and puts a bowl of brown chunks on the table without any salad or whatever garnish. A closer look reveal the brown chunks to be liver, supposedly lamb's. Not exactly what I expected but a good source of iron and vitamins. I eat it all and also the two rounds of bread, but could have done with salad or at least something else. Later when paying he charges me 30 DH. A little much for such an unsatisfactory meal.

In the afternoon I've a bit of a headwind, like a hairdryer blowing hot air in my face. For a long section of road a machine is repainting the white line in the middle and hi-vi vested workmen are putting cones upon more distinctly white aftermath so cars don't drive on the wet paint, meaning vehicle can't easily move out to pass me as I struggle against headwind. A bus already almost brushes me, but fortunately all of the other cars where possible drive between cones and pass on the oncoming lane.

My view out during an afternoon rest at a water tap.

On the way into Ouezzane at five-thirty, I stop at a nice gas station restaurant with a garden dinning area in shade of dwarf palm trees. I have what will be my evening meal, chicken with garnish plus a big side salad and a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. The bill is 40 DH. I get my money's worth, not ripped off like at lunchtime.

I ride on through town and take a left for Fes. This road is a striking improvement on the road hitherto with smooth even surface and regular straight edge. Furthermore the road passes through an avenue of trees providing shade for a long stretch. People working in the fields to the side look a lot more friendly than of late. Two boys minding a herd of goats shout out a warm "Bonjour!"

Ahead there's an extensive area of eucalyptus plantation. A place to camp and when I reach its edge, I turn off on a trail alongside and ride a fair way from the road before turning into the plantation and finding a level spot, put the tent up.

I lock the bike to a tree by the tent opening and as I take the panniers off and move them into the tent, I hear faint voices through the trees. Then whilst in the tent I hear someone call out at close quarters. Coming out I look in the direction of the earlier voices, when I hear the later near call again from the other direction, behind me. I turn and see a non-threating man. He introduces himself. His name Mustafa.

Telling him where I'm from and as he doesn't speak English, he asks "....francees?". "Non" "...espanol?" "Si" "Es prohibitado a camper....es peligrosso.. hay Ladrones" He is from the local municipal and won't allow me to camp here, afraid I may be robbed and recommends I cycle back to a motel I passed leaving Quezzane.

After an exchange of emails and a photograph, I take down the tent and pack all on the bike again then set off riding the eight kilometres back to the motel, which I reach at nightfall. The cost is 270 DH (24 euros) for the room and I've been assured the price includes breakfast. A little pricey as I get the impression they've charged me a higher rate than locals.

Mustafa advised me there are thieves and therefore for my own personal safety its dangerous to camp.

Breakfast is reasonably good. A large pancake, olives and chunks of goats cheese, orange juice and coffee. And I'm on the road at eight-thirty hoping to cover the remaining hundred and forty kilometres to Fes by evening.

Once by where I was going to camp the evening before, the way ahead turns to bad road again across treeless plateau be-striped by wheat cultivation. Yellow strips of stubble alternate with freshly broken brown strips. Wheat harvesting is labour intensive, being first cut, tied in sheaves and brought to a stationary tractor-driven threshing machine where the grain is separated from chaff and straw. The grain bagged in hessian sacks and straw in small bales built together into huge stacks. Or loaded onto ancient trucks. The sacks inside the body and the bales built extremely high on top to the point where the truck splutter along the highway barely more than walking pace.

Again today there is lots of aggression directed towards me. They approach from the roadside when lease expected. When you are off guard. I wish I could translate what they're yelling in such a horribly aggressive manner. I'm frighten. Terrified. Groups of angry teenage boys. One boy comes running after me and I ride hard getting away. In another instant three come out into the road just as I approach and make to bring me to a halt, but I act in time swinging out around them. They jeer and one follows making a grab at the right-hand rear pannier. Thankfully fear driven adrenalin turn the pedals hard.

I enter a small town ahead and here I feel safe, reminded of cycling solo in Bolivia, always feeling safe in towns even after nightfall and vulnerable in the countryside, having had a few scary situations like today.

I can't quite figure it out, apart from I'm an easy target on a bike, slow with valuables easily wrestled from me. Or even my fair completion. Whatever. I stop for coffee and sit for a while calming down.

Today's ride: 342 km (212 miles)
Total: 5,037 km (3,128 miles)

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