Day 13 - High in the Mountains, Low in Marrakesh

Like a decent Stahanovist, I woke up quite early, feeling motivated to start biking, but then it was freezing outside. Hmmm....I took one more very hot shower, thus heating up not only myself, but the room, as well. It was around 6:30 that I left the hotel, the caretaker was midst of his prayer to Allah. As my German cyclist said, the paved road ended - however, even the unpaved surface was quite OK. After a short downhill stretch, the road started to climb quite relentlessly, but I was compensated by wonderful views of the surrounding Atlas peaks.

The sun highlighting more and more of the mountains...(first pic at 6:50, last one at 8:30)

I had a bit of a weak moment, maybe it was the air (was over 2000 meters high), maybe that I did not sleep enough - or just because the ride really was taxing. One has to know his (or her) limits - and I did stop for a short while to pump up my body with some breakfast (I had one energy bar left from Europe, plus some quite tasty bananas from the local market). That helped, as soon I reached the N9, the main road leading up to the pass, called Titi N'Thicka.

Down below you can see the valley I had come from - it was quite a climb

The south side of the road leading to the pass was in a terrible condition, but then there was a huge fleet of heavy machinery parked on the side of the road - it is urgently needed.

I was definitely in a good mood as I neared the pass, it was just a couple of bends in the road and whistled to the stray dogs who were curiously watching me, hoping I would feed them. Then I thought my ordeal is over and I just had to roll down to Marrakesh when I reached the summit at 2260 meters.

No more climbing - so I thought

At the summit, I was offered some tea (and Wifi) by the shopkeepers selling minerals and fossils and I bought a couple of pieces as souvenirs.

Tea and free Wifi at the pass

It was time to start the downhill ride. The road was brand new, beautifully paved and it was wildly winding around the mountainside - what an amazing sight! What a wonderful ride!

The poor German biker I met the day before had to push up this side - all I had to do is roll!

I had been heading downhill for about 10 kilometers, when I saw two bikers, a couple, (the second bikers after the German guy) who were climbing out of a jeep. I was in for quite a surprise - it turned out they were Hungarians - living in Vienna! We chitchatted for quite a while, they were driven up from Marrakesh and were heading south, on the road I had been riding from.

Hungarian bikers living in Vienna cycling in Morocco

When parted, I understood why they decided to take the jeep to that point. The road leading to Marrakesh was under construction - it was a small, two-lane road unfit for the quite heavy traffic of mostly tourists, in their large jeeps, buses full of Asian visitor, but then this is the main passage between Marrakesh and the Sahara - so there was a share of lorries and trucks. The traffic was stopped twice for about 10 minutes each - as rocks were falling from the widening of the road. It was quite dusty and there was hardly any place to let the large vehicles pass me. My high spirits ended and I was seriously thinking of ending the ride there and then and starting to hitchhike.

Waiting for the road to open

Things did calm down for a while, but then I saw something quite unpleasant - I thought it would be a roll to Marrakesh, wrong, there was suddenly quite a nasty climb in front of me. I was swearing, not even silently, why could they not build a road from the pass that just goes downhill??? Oh well, it is what it is.

A village (with a large school, which is hardly visible here)

A deep gorge lost in the shadow

Scenic scenery.

Even that incline ended and after enjoying the view from the second summit (the second picture above), it was now really just downhill. There were at least 60 kilometers to Marrakesh, but then I was gulping up the miles, it went by quickly.

Eventually, the road levelled out and I stopped for lunch at a café, me being the only guest that afternoon, food was OK. Now that the Sahara and the Atlas mountains were behind, it was really hot, I even had to find some shade from the sun.

I pushed hard on the last 40 kilometers. It was the most boring stretch of road, a 4-lane highway with little traffic and I was yearning back for the out-of-this-world rock formations of the roads in the Sahara. Here were farmlands and nondescript villages. However, far on my left, in the afternoon sun, one could see the peaks of Atlas, the highest point being over 4000 meters...Think I absorbed those 40 km in just an hour and a half. So it was, that around 4:30 of this day, I reached Marrakesh.

First impressions of Marrakesh

I had quite a lot of to-do's when reaching town. I had already booked a hotel and wanted to pamper myself after all this riding, so I booked a 4-star hotel with breakfast (for an acceptable amount of 30 Euros), this was outside the medina, in the new town. I had to think about getting home, so not only finding the hotel, but also the train station was important.

Getting into the city, I landed in the old medina, where I rode through masses of tourists in the narrow street. Yes, Marrakesh was probably the most touristy of all the places I had visited, even more than Fez (a lot more, actually). I did not even bother to take pictures that afternoon, not even when I reached the main square, called Jemma el-Fnaa. More about that later.

Riding through some gates in the medieval walls, I reached the new town, with quite an international feeling to it - with lots of heavy traffic. I found the train station, where my suspicion, that bikes would not be allowed onto trains materialized, when 3 guards jumped on me as I wanted to push (and not ride) my bike into the station. There was a McDonald's just outside and I met up with Charifa, a PhD student in political sciences, who was waiting for her train (without a bike...) to look after my bike while I would buy the tickets. It turned out that bikes are completely out of question, they did not like when I asked if that was the case if I offered some bakshish. I'd have had to completely disassemble the bike, which was not the only issue. The night train I was planning to take was scheduled not to run the following evening, due to maintenance. Well, it was now off to Plan B - where Charifa helped me, she told me where I would find the bus station(s) - there were multiple companies running from various places. We chatted for a while about Marrakesh, of which she was not really found of ('Disneyland', she said, and I have to agree) and then of Morocco in general.

After some back and forth, I did find the (or 'a') bus station, they had a bus starting at 2:30 am from Marrakesh, which would arrive in Tangier by about 10 am. A safe bet was to secure a ticket, it was 230 dirhams. I then ran into a large anti-Trump, anti-Israel demonstration, it was the 'day of hatred' in many Muslim countries, they were protesting about the move of the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. I found my hotel, not far from the center of the new town (about 15 minutes to old town), which an OK value for the money - the room was quite spacious (the bathroom alone was larger than many of the other places I had stayed at) and offered a nice view of the city an the Atlas mountains.

View from my hotel - with the High Atlas in the background

For dinner, I had more kafta (boring, eh? no, I love it) at an outside kiosk (in Marrakesh, even the evening was warm), and also some lentil soup (plus tea and bread), all for 30 dirhams.

Tagine - yummy but I preferred kafta

I cleaned up a bit, changed to more comfortable clothes and rode back to the old town. Here everyone wants money. I got lost in the maze of the alleys of the medina and asked two young guys on bikes how to get to he main square. They took me through some back roads and when I was found my way, they wanted to get paid. I thought a few dirhams would not hurt, but when they said 'no bakshish, paper money', I told them to buzz off. At the packed main square, there were many groups of people playing loud music, drums, showing off monkeys on a chain, charming cobras, belly dancing...now the thing is, if you stop to take a picture, immediately someone will demand to get paid. I was quickly getting enough of Marrakesh.

Money! Just because I took a photo...I told him to buzz off, too...

I decided that the bus ticket at 2:30 am of Sunday is too late and found another bus company at the opposite part of the new town, which would leave Saturday night, around 8 pm, so I bought that ticket (was 150 dirhams) - me now having two tickets. On the way back to the hotel, I took a wrong turn somewhere and rode on some very long road, next to a never-ending city wall.

As Marrakesh and I did not become best friends, I thought of leaving at 2:30 am of that night - but was too sleepy for that.

This day, I covered some 150 km (130km of distance, but surely another 20km in Marrakesh itself), 1600m of climbing, however, 2900m of descent! Here is the map.