Day 8: Safi to Camping la Plage Bhaidah, Aquermoud

February 23, 2023

Still along the coast

“Do we go up the escarpment, because I see a road up ahead going up,” Rachel asks. Patrick says: “That would be it.”

Breakfast is served at 8 am in the restaurant on the fifth floor of the building. There is a nice view over Safi and the waterfront. We notice how the promenade along the ocean cliffs is built right over the railroad which disappears in a tunnel. What a great improvement that must have been when they built this, from a rail yard along the ocean to a promenade. Breakfast is very nice with fresh juice, good coffee (café au lait) several kinds of bread and a boiled egg. We haul our stuff down the elevator, hang everything back on the bikes and head out just before nine.

We’ve gone about 13 km from Safi. First, through the sardine factory area; then we stop to put on face masks when we reach the phosphate plants that are billowing out smoke and noxious dust. A guard wags his finger at us thinking we are going to take a picture, and we show him our masks.

Then we start the long climb. Just when Rachel is about to stop, she hears Barb from our spin class “you can do better than this!” And she makes it to the top. A few hills later in the day, the voice in her head didn’t help anymore and halfway up would stop to push.

Another 18km, we stop at a café for coffee and eat a snack. We watch two policemen at the round about with a radar gun ready to stop traffic. Immediately out of town is another big hill.

Just down the road another steep hill. Rachel almost made it the whole way riding.

It's always that last little bit of a hill that gets steeper

We go through a few more towns today than yesterday. We go through one town that has more horse/donkey carts than motorcycles. As we continued riding we can see an area with lots of activity up ahead. The road becomes a superhighway for all the horse drawn carts. As we pass through the area, we see trucks loaded with bales of straw. They seem to be selling them to the farmers. Then another steep hill with horse/donkey carts everywhere.

“We are in another province and the road changes,” Patrick says as the road improves. “The coasting sure goes nicer on a smoother road,” he adds. There is a stretch of road construction amounting to pushing sand around on the shoulder. Eventually we get past this.

As we go through the last town that is near to where we are stopping for the day, Patrick spots a petrol station. Well, it’s really just a petrol pump on wheels. We fill up our fuel bottle because we might need it tonight. Our goal is a campground on the beach in Aquermoud. We had found it on googlemaps and emailed them to make sure they were open. The response was that yes, they are open, but they only allow RV camping: very specific…no tents. They do have rooms for either 150 or 200, so we asked for a room for tonight. Better than camping somewhere in the dunes we figure. The wind is very strong today.

The campground is about a kilometer off the main highway, initially a paved road leads steeply down towards the ocean, then a sandy track to the campground / bungalows. When we arrive we are told all rooms are full! That’s not going to work. We show the email with the room acknowledgement, but they are indeed full. And we are not going any further! After some discussion we are allowed to camp. There is a nice sheltered site, a restroom and a warm shower. It costs 120dh, but then they tack on another 50 for something we don’t quite understand. Ah well.

We try to walk along the beach towards some fishing boats we see laying on the beach, but the wind sandblasts us back to our tent. Not worth it. We boil some water and have instant noodles for dinner. The wind then forces us into the tent. No problem it is warm and we have books to read. There is rain in the forecast for tonight, at about 7:30 the first sprinkles hit the tent.

Just a side note, the sarong Rachel is wearing the one she had in 1994 in Africa.

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Today's ride: 77 km (48 miles)
Total: 323 km (201 miles)

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Rachael AndersonWhat an amazing place! Too bad there’s so many steep climbs.
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1 year ago

Rachel and Patrick HugensHi Rachael, it's partly because we are not strong yet, and then I'm not a good hill climber in the best of condition. Morocco is beautiful and yet ugly in parts. Lots of trash on the side of the road....In '94 when we came out of africa after 6 months and to Spain and France, especially France, we were appalled at the trash. We'd been 6 months is Africa where they swept the dirt! Every piece of "trash" was a resource.
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1 year ago