Day 7 - Monkeying Around
I hit the patisserie after waking up and bought all kinds of fresh bread rolls, pain au chocolate, croissants - I think for about a dozen pieces I paid about Eur 2 or os. It was well below the freezing when I started heading back up the major incline - this stretch of the road I had made a deep connection with, seeing it for the fourth time within just 24 hours. Oh well, I was compensated by a nice view of Azrou, which means large rock - and yes, there is indeed a large rock in the city.
Main intersection in Azrou on a cold winter morning - with the large rock on the right
I read somewhere that there are monkeys loitering around in this area and saw a lonesome, somewhat frozen, hitchhiker heading south. He spoke some French, but I did not know the word for monkey, so I started scratching my right armpits with my left hands and made funny noises with it. He confirmed I was heading the right direction, to see those mammals. A sign further uphill also confirmed the correct direction.
Soon thereafter I saw the first, then the second, then quite a lot of monkeys.
Well, it was quite touristy out there, they had kiosk selling peanuts and other junk for the monkeys - but as it was rather early, the place wasn't too crowded. I thought the lonely rider on his horse looked cool.
Soon the cedar forest where the monkeys lived ended - and so did the incline in the road and I arrived to some quite unfriendly, but for me as a biker, a lovely place. Let the pictures tell the story.
All these different terrains - in a single day! Cannot say I was bored that day...
Then came another quite steep ascent and when I reached the top, I had a wonderful view. The trees reappeared and all of a sudden, the snow-capped peaks of the High Atlas mountains were in front of me!
At this peak, there was lot of stray dogs loitering on the side of the road - but they were really tame, they were probably hoping to get some scraps of food from people stopping to take pictures. As I was racing downhill, one of them decided to take a snap at my feet - luckily, he did not reach me; I was close to losing my balance, but luckily nothing relly happened.
If I hadn't realized earlier, in the 'cultural' part of my trip, by now I was convinced Morocco is an amazing place - to be honest, I have a lot more pictures and I'd rather insert all of them here, but then one should make some choices.
Later in the afternoon, I reached the town of Midelt, once again, a very well-kept city and found a place to stay. My clothes were in need of a wash, and I found a drycleaner, who probably made the best business of his life. I ended up paying 100 dirhams (about 9 Euros) for him to wash and dry my stuff - he actually wanted double the amount (hello, tourist tax). I wasn't too happy with the amount, but when I went back, he did not dry my stuff, everything was as wet as when it comes out of the washing machine. As it was closing time, there was not much I was able to do. Putting it on the heater in my hotel room would be a good idea, you might think - there was no such thing. It was again quite really cold, and again, all I got were some extra blankets. There was one electric heater, we put the wet stuff in front of it, which worked out quite well - my stuff was clean and dry by the next day.
Dinner I'd had in a very non-touristy place, all they had was kafta in bread, in questionable hygienic conditions, but I enjoyed the atmosphere of the place. I then sat down for a tea at one café, where people were busy watching a Premier League soccer game.
Dinner
Midelt had a bustling market with a main street, where I enjoyed walking about. I found a patisserie, where I played with the owner's two kids. I drank some refreshing avocado juice and had a great cream puff as dessert.
Market in Midelt
Google tells me this day was about 125 km and 1400 meters of uphill climbing (especially the first few miles were quite killing) and 1140 meters of descent. Here is the map of this memorable day.