Imi n’Ifri – Aït Bouguemez
Ride: 62 km Climb: +1490 m / -2142 m
Sleep – the elusive element. Another early wakeup at 3:30 and that was it for the night.
Breakfast thankfully included both eggs and cheese so some protein finally. I had a word with the Spice Roads rep who promised to fix the protein problem. Truly not impressed that Spice Roads haven’t mastered this aspect of dietary requirements, when they advertise being able to accommodate any dietary requirements, and STILL need to be schooled in it. A block of cheese, boiled eggs, some nuts, anything guys?
We had a 90 min drive to the cycling start point today which moved slightly as we left past our ETD time of 9 a.m. The terrain became rockier and rockier as we moved towards the mountains.
There was a quick stop in a large town (Sour el Aaz) for coffee and nature break – it had some well kept sections and government buildings/projects making it look more prosperous than most. Every café had a row of tagines outside and inside preparing for the lunch rush. The tagines are electric – they have a plug in electric base which looks incongruous, but delicious smells were emanating. The coffee was Turkish-like, very strong which was great – the breakfast coffee has so far been undrinkable in the riads/hotels. Most villages that we’ve driven through have been very third world in appearance, with the concomitant garbage scattered everywhere, very basic houses and one or two nicer areas but most looking quite poor.
the town mosque, with its colouring making it appear fancier than most
We gathered the masses and piled back into the buses for another brief transfer and then mounted bikes and the climb was on. Immediately.
Oak, burro and man
quick mechanical repair on the way up
It was quite warm to start with (29C) but as we got higher it started to cool which was welcome. Grades were not bad to start with but quickly ramped up to 9-10%; like going up Seymour in the heat without any warmup. The ebikes soared up and the superhuman muscle bike riders managed to almost keep up. I assumed the usual position as lantern rouge and struggled up as much as I could then abandoned and rode the van to the pass; the van and truck driver were very good natured and were able to catch up to the rest after I was loaded on. Just not feeling the oomph here and not able to climb as much as I was doing in Canada before leaving, but making it a bit further each day. ?jet lag. ?heat ?bike positioning (quickly uncomfortable in the seat).
We wound our way to the top with a couple of stops for water replenishment – this type of cycling wouldn’t be possible without support vehicles as there is nothing but rock around. Spectacular views but nothing much else, little habitation apart from nomads camping with their flocks. There were a number of apparently abandoned dogs by the roadside on the way up and Abdul, my van driver, stopped a couple of times to give them water and some food – hard to comprehend how they were surviving in those remote and apparently barren environments, and where did they come from? Abdul’s French wasn’t great, unfortunately, and everytime we tried google translate there was no cell signal.
I assumed the role of trip photographer, marvelling at the tenacity of the muscle bike riders going up grades of 11%. The corners of those switchbacks were ugly… everyone eventually struggled up the first pass, navigated a steep descent on a narrow road with some truck traffic, and then began climbing again.
This was the steeper climb, and it seemed interminable. 3 km below the summit there was lunch for which eggs appeared for the first time in response to my request for a protein substitute. Sadly there was no explanation of this given to the rest and by the time I got to through the lineup they had all been scoffed. Sigh. At least we couldn’t complain about heat at this point, as temps had dropped significantly and we had all donned coats.
The pass was finally achieved and the requisite pictures taken.
looking down from just below pass – very desolate countryside, occupied by at most a few nomads with livestock
the road down from the pass
I retrieved my bike for another steep (but fun) descent, again needing to be careful of passing vehicles on the narrow road (significant dropoffs). We couldn’t pick up a lot of speed anyway due to intermittent potholes and washouts that had been filled in with red clay – there were rain clouds looming and I was just very thankful we made it down the steep parts before the rain started as those clay sections would have been deadly slick in the wet. There had been a little sprinkling on the way up, not very significant but a sign that things were different, and the temp had obviously dropped at the 2000 m elevation in the passes so we had donned windjackets at the pass.
We dropped to a place called “Happy Valley” which turned out to be not so happy in parts. The rain started and the road became intermittently quite muddy, passing through what seemed like a continuous village.
Lots of people about, mostly friendly but the boys were occasionally a pest; some had their bikes grabbed, others had pebbles thrown at them and two brats held a long bamboo stick held across the road which they didn’t move until the last minute – and it wasn’t clear they were going to. It was a long descent (with a hill up of course at one point!) so we were fairly spread out and although the leader scolded in Arabic to the kids when he passed, by the time others went by they had decided they were going to get away with it again… quite the opposite to the friendly Moroccans we were told about.
the roads were fairly well used…
A fairly heavy rain started in the lower 1/3 of the trip and as the muscle bikes didn’t have fenders those of us on them were pretty muddy by the time we got to the turnoff (a “skunk line” on the backs of coats, socks and shorts). The last 2 km were on a dirt road, now dodging puddles and mud, and we had an amazing hill up to the Kasbah (palace) at the end to finish off the day’s climbing. Just as we arrived the thunder and lightning really set in and the deluge began in earnest so we scuttled in to the accommodation.
the Kahsb
It was the usual disorganized who is going where, puzzling as the spice roads rep had left the group a couple of hours early to organize things. It turned out there weren’t enough rooms, so the rep had to stay in a different hotel 12 km away and she wasn’t well pleased with that, understandably. I was put on the top floor, off an open courtyard with towels outside the door so that the water didn’t run into the room. A nice room with surprisingly more plugs than yesterday’s but the power started flickering in the storm and as predicted, eventually went out. There was no running water to begin with which was apparently a supply issue with everyone trying to shower at once. I managed to eke out enough to wash my muddy clothes in installments and it took awhile for the hot water to reappear again but got ‘er done. Unsurprisingly the wifi was unreliable, coming and going and requiring resetting after the power came back on, hence the late posting.
Dinner was served about 8 pm and the vegetable tagine arrived, again without protein. The cooking process looks to make the meat very tender and it was enjoyed by all. Late to sleep and am hoping tonight’s sleep will be better.
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