March 19, 2023
Day 32: Timahdite to Azrou
Time change for Ramadan
Time is set back an hour back for Ramadan, so it will be light and dark earlier. We are on our own cycle time and get going at early light. It is 34 degrees! And we wear our woolen mittens for the first time this tour.
The road widened yesterday after the pass and continues to have an extra space as a shoulder. As we leave town we see storks everywhere. We climb more today, back up to 1969 meters. And, we don’t get as much downhill as we anticipated. Most of the altitude is lost in a steep drop down through a forest into Azrou.
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The town of Azrou has a “European” feel with red tiled roofs and nice houses. We pass the junction we will take tomorrow to Fez and we keep on going downhill and through the town. The start tomorrow will be returning up this hill.
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Audrey has sent us coordinates to her house and Patrick navigates us through the streets. She lives in an apartment on the second floor of a three story building. We are to look for a black door with #119. There is a narrow winder stair that could not meet one code requirement even if it tried. But it all fits, we get our gear and bikes upstairs and into our room. Since we pushed pretty hard to get there on a small breakfast we are hungry. Together with Audrey we walk to a café for pastries and coffee.
Afterwards Audrey has errands to do this afternoon. We settle in and do laundry.
When Audrey returns, we walk back to the main street, share pizzas. Audrey has lived in Morocco for 4 years (interrupted by a year of Covid). After volunteering with the Peace Corp in a neighboring village, she stayed and founded an NGO. “Amalna means “Our Hope” in Arabic. Our hope is to advance women’s development in Morocco. A primary focus of Amalna Maroc is to work with women’s cooperatives in Morocco, especially in rural areas, by providing education, resources and support that increase empowerment and economic opportunity for Moroccan women, including girls”. We have a great conversation about the effects of climate change that she herself has seen.
The streets are a lot busier in the evening. We walk up to a viewpoint and see a beautiful sunset over the city and valley below. We walk through the souk on our back to Audrey’s apartment. Everything is for sale here. The tompouce pastries Patrick likes so much are only 2Dh here. On the way, she helps at a shop where we could get the ferry tickets printed. Patrick has been researching where the ferry leaves: there are two options Tangier or Tanger Med, separated by about 40km of road.
Finally figuring this out determines our route from Chefchaouen.
Addendum: Kim Johnson our house/cat sitter sent these to Patrick today.
Today's ride: 35 km (22 miles)
Total: 1,246 km (774 miles)
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