We planned a monster day today…..after Mr Google had advised us that we were in for well over 2,000m of climbing. And invariably Google underestimates ascents by around 50%! Yikes!
But most of the climb was apparently after the 90km mark at M’Rirt, so we planned a long stop there…..to recharge bodies and batteries!!
Alas – and thankfully – Google got it well wrong…as Strava can confirm!
It was a long slow climb out of Meknes….after espying our first camels (from a distance)!
Starting cloudy and cold…it just got cloudier and colder as we proceeded…until by breakfast….at around 900m…the temperature had dropped to single digits!! Fingers and toes hurt….! Morocco. Mid-May!
Well, when I say breakfast…the last chance saloon…in the middle of nowhere….seemed closed when we arrived…for our ‘quick’ stop!
A guy turned up though. Very welcoming! But he had no idea how to operate the coffee machine…nor how to fry an egg!! And we waited….and waited….until hurrah…coffee arrived, and an egg-only omelette and two pieces of bread! Certainly better than nothing! (…well for egg-phobic Iain…barely better!)
And the unplanned delay meant that the temperature had lifted when we eventually moved on…the clouds had lifted….and we enjoyed just the best ride of our time in Morocco.
Quiet roads.
Interesting landscape.
And we passed through some lovely towns….before arriving at M’Rirt…another interestingly different place. We were greeted by a lovely old lady on a pedestrian crossing…who grinned and shook Iain’s hand…then proceeded to go one step further with mine…and kissed a very sweaty cycling glove!! Usually it is the guys who do all the greeting, welcoming etc….with the woman keeping to themselves. So this was an unusual change!
….and we came across our very first road sign to Marrakech!
Nice cafe!
But as usual….good for tea and coffee…but no good for food! We are not quite sure if they eat lunch here…but it is always hard to find places serving food (beyond the tourist spots….and we had not seen a single one since Meknes).
Lays crisps did the job!
Our detailed investigation of the contours had now shown that we had no 1,200m ascent to worry about…so we curtailed our recharge…and enjoyed a lovely – and mostly downhill – run into Khenifra.
Straight to our apartment when our gorgeous host kept apologising for being two minutes late! The perfect apartment with attached ground floor garage for the bikes! What a find! Lovely town too.
Our generous host was happy to advise where we could find beers…and even offered to pick us up…so we could save the 10 dirham taxi fare! We walked there…..
Found the place….to be told…no, not here. Round the back and up the stairs! Expecting the standard smokey speakeasy….we were surprised to find a relative gem of a place! (Akabar….for reference)
Friendly staff…
…land a waiter who took a liking for Iain’s sunglasses!
Hilarious taxi ride home…for we had no way of letting our driver know where we were staying! So Iain held the map…and I passed on instructions in French to the the driver…and Google took that moment to take us all over the place!! We got there eventually…with the driver chuckling about the erratic route!
A good day all round! And it was only the next morning…we discovered that our host HAD gone to pick us up (in fact after we were home asleep!). What a guy!
