September 28, 2014
Saturday & Sunday: Overnighting in Casablanca: Rabat to Beach Resort near Kenitra.
I told Sead I'm on a five week cycling holiday in Morocco. He thinks it extremely funny I will cycle to Casablanca as it is without telling him the full story.
It is the same procedure in the morning. He helps me take down the tent even though it is a one person job. A second person only gets in the way. And with a brush he sweeps off sand before I roll the tent up. Then with everything packed and on the bike he accompanies me back down to the service road where he shakes my hand wishing me bon voyage.
The road soon goes to divided highway with an ample smooth surfaced shoulder and with a tailwind I easily ride the seventy kilometres into Casablanca by noon. What a contrast with much of the rest of the country. Clean palm tree lined avenues on the way in and smooth running trams in the centre. People, both male and female in elegant attar. Could be Cannes or Saint Tropez.
I am still looking at taking the train to Tangier and follow signs for La Gare Du Casablanca, following a long street with tram-lines in the middle in from the port to a plaza surrounded by French colonial buildings with the white railway station and square clock tower taking up one side. Out front red "Petit Taxis" queue. I lift the bike up steps and wheel it into the ticket hall where there are five people queued to buy tickets. When it is my turn I've the bike leant against the wall to the side of the counter and I mention the bike to the clerk behind the glass, who nods his head and says "no bikes"
Scrub that. I resolve to ride the remaining three fifty kilometres to Tangier. Funny enough at this moment I see an Australian backpacker couple coming through from a train that had just arrived and think with a sense of satisfaction, yeah. I've ridden here all the way from Ireland and to take some other kind of transport now, on the next stretch would mean I couldn't later validate the, ...and rode back...
On coming out of the train station I spot a hotel to the left. A big art deco building on the corner. When I get there reception is up a steep flight of marbled stairs, so I lock the bike in the first floor hallway and go up. Upstairs is old fashion mahogany colour reception desk and deco with a fifties look. The price is a reasonable 150 DH, but the reception man says when I mention I've a bike, that they've no place for bikes. He looks down the stairs at the bike and I try explaining, with the panniers removed, the bike doesn't take up much room, but he's having none of it and suggests I keep the bike in a car park over by the IBIS hotel on the other side of the plaza.
I cycle over and take a look at the car park. There is no one about I can talk to. There is a rack with assorted cheap mountain bikes locked to it but I wouldn't be happy leaving my bike here overnight. I keep riding in hope of finding an alternative hotel.
The next hotel in a street down from the plaza readily excepts my bike. Dearer at 250 DH. The manager helps me lift it upstairs and out a door onto a first floor roof-terrace at the rear and checks me into room 8, which has a window out beside where the bike leans.
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I shower leaving the shower-floor covered with sand and without dressing lay down on the bed. Instantly I'm asleep. Later waking I think it is morning. Then see late afternoon sun radiating in through the window.
Approaching dusk I stroll to the tram-line street, turn right and stop at a café bar midway to the plaza. I look longingly at the chocolate cake in the display and decide I've earned it and order a slice with a café olay. The price is 27 DH. A lot more than usual on a coffee stop. The cake is the right sweetness and complements the coffee nicely. Later I have a succulent beef sandwich with chips at a place downstairs from the first hotel I tried checking into.
Sunday is a long day riding north and I only made a few not very interesting notes. But the good road continues and I finish the day watching surfers ride the waves as the sun continues further across the ocean.
Today's ride: 205 km (127 miles)
Total: 6,775 km (4,207 miles)
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