Day 2 - Into the Blue

On this Monday morning, I left the busy streets of Tetouan - people hurrying to work, children making their way to school in long white coats, a sort of uniform. The road at the beginning was really wide - and the town had a large garbage dump on its outskirts, with swarms of seagulls circling above; not the prettiest sights. The traffic at first did not bother me, but the road soon became a lot narrower, as it crept up the mountains (called Rif). There was quite a bit of construction going on, the government is working on widening this highway - which is justified, given the amount of cars, lorries and buses. Here I got my first sense that cyclists are not really considered to be a sovereign participant, but something inferior, a sort of an obstacle. The formula for lorries goes: 1. honk loudly from behind 2. immediately rev up the engine 3. leave the poor cyclist behind, who has by now come to a full halt close to the ditch at the side of the road. This is something not typical Moroccan, I've had it in many other countries, less in Western Europe, even less in the US. Oh well, even the lorry drivers are happier when they don't leave injured bodies behind, so I guess (or hope) they knew what they were doing.

The weather was in the morning still a bit cloudy, there were a few drops, but it cleared out nicely. The morning of the day was mostly uphill, the altitude gain was over 1000 meters, some 300m of that alone in the last 5 kilometers (it was quite strenuous). Next to the road, I saw some quite impressive cactus formations.

Cactus...

After about 65 kilometers, I reached the town of Chefchaouen. Here I found two very friendly guys at an information booth, who offered to look after my bike; I also found a kiosk where I bought a map of Morocco (by this time, I was dedicated to staying in the country). I entered the medieval walls of this beautiful city in my biking cleats, which turned out to the be quite a mistake.

The town is famous not only for being located up a steep hill overlooking a valley, but its narrow, steep streets are painted, as another blogger correctly said, in 50 shades of blue. Pictures tell 1000 words, as they say, so here are a couple.

My only complaint was that my I kept slipping on the steep steps in my cleats, yeah, I should have definitely changed to my sneakers. Although there were plenty of tourist places - the town is a popular destinations for European visitors - lunch was at a very local, tiny place, selling only (what I believe was called) harira, a chickpea soup with bread and some tea. I paid 10 dirhams, so below Eur 1 and was quite stuffed.

I purchased some goat cheese, which was really delicious. Not only goat cheese is produced here, this region is one of the main sources of cannabis in Morocco, so hashish is sold all over town - they did not have a killer sale with me, as I was there for biking. And talking biking, even though I love the town, I felt the urge to leave, it was only 3 pm, so had a couple of hours left in the day. The next town with hotel was Ouezzane, some 70 km away, not an impossible task.

The road was now a lot less busy and was also quite scenic, lots of green, which was not something I would see in the following days. Except for a few steep inclines, it was a downhill ride, quite enjoyable. It was close to dark (so around 6 pm), when I spotted a sign to an ecological tourist place, a nice stone building with a big garden surrounding it. A dog was quite agitated to see me, but was soon calmed by its master, who offered a warm meal (also a good soup), a hot shower (out of a bucket, mind you) and to pitch my tent for around 60 dirhams, a good deal. I found a patch of green grass to pitch my tent, had my dinner outside and with some 110 km and 1500m of altitude gained (and, again, lost) went to sleep, dreaming of blue alleys.

Here is the profile of the day.