Ride: 51 km Climb: +1070 m / -870 m
I slept again!! Feel like a new person (with a cold) 🙂
The hotel we were in last night was amazing – had some time to walk around this morning. Apparently there are peacocks living in the grounds though I didn’t see them.
Plumbago, cape leadwort
We loaded into the vans for an hour transfer to ride near Taroudant, with a Plan A and Plan B. Plan A was to do a loop, depending on whether or not the mine was working today (it’s a Sunday so there was optimism it would not be), and if it was working we would do an out and back to avoid the heavy volume of dumptruck traffic on the return route.
The drive to Taroudant was quite uninspiring – the countryside was polluted with lots of garbage, abandoned buildings, dying trees and many greenhouses with banana trees that looked like a light breeze would take them down. Full of people, though, on all modes of transport – donkey and cart, bicycle, motorbike, tractor, rickety truck/bus, etc. etc. and when we passed through Taroudant a carnival was going on with rides etc. which was mobbed. We got onto a secondary road that had beautiful pavement but was also uninspiring with lots of garbage and abandoned building materials, arid vegetation and Argan trees. We started from a random pullout a short ways before a medium sized town, and it was a gradual pull uphill to start, then once we were through town we dropped down a rickety road and then started to climb.
And did we climb. Up, and up, and up. It reminded me of the first day where we also first climbed to a dam, but it was 27C today and not 39C thankfully. And of course it is nothing on an ebike – some of the gradients were really wicked so the muscle bikers had a hard haul.
From the dam it was more haul uphill, occasionally losing elevation again as we wound our way up the side of a hill up a valley.
Some parts were quite pretty but the general theme was up, up, up….
One of the easier sections
Ed from Edmonton, one of the superhuman muscle bikers. Most of the time he kept up with the ebikes, even up most hills.
We went through some small villages that looked quite impoverished, and the roads through them were always terrible.
This one was actually quite pretty with bougainvillea out and a well kept section.
On and on we went, with a stop for dates and water refill, and we were to meet Hassan and the kitchen truck for lunch and make a decision at that point between Plan A and Plan B. Unfortunately there was some confusion about where Hassan was setting up – one of the van drivers, Havid, parked at an intersection and directed us all up one fork (incorrectly it eventually transpired) so a small group of 6 or so of us at the front kept going, up and up … accompanied by Yousef. We got to a major intersection which I suspect was the intended turnaround point for the loop and suddenly were told by Yousef that we’d already passed Hassan (none of us had seen either him or the kitchen truck) and we probably had to go back… but without confirming this he left with 2 or 3 of the group. The rest of us, which included most of the muscle bikes, had just toiled up some significant hills and wanted to be sure we needed to go down again so we waited a little. There was no sign of Yousef going back so we decided to turn around and descend after trying to get hold of the leaders by phone and getting no answer. So back we went, and then got a return phone call part way down – we were asked to pin our location and send it so did, and Redouanne eventually met us and took us back down to the intersection where Havid had directed us one way, and back up on the other road. Quite disorganized… We gathered that the group had splintered when one rider had a flat and it needed to be repaired – a small bit of metal in the tire had to be removed and the tube replaced. Surprising that we haven’t had more flats, given the debris on the roads.
It was another lovely lunch with the appearance of lentils for the first time, under the shade of some acacia trees. We were told here that we had a CHOICE of food for dinner, and were sent an extensive menu by whats’app – the hotel wanted our choices in advance. The menu even had a vegetarian section! Orders duly sent in after much discussion; I chose vegetarian lasagna in the hopes of getting some cheese at long last other than the laughing cow sections we get at breakfast…Thanks to Maroc telecom I was able to connect to the internet and the tracking check of the Chicago marathon here showed Etienne having completed about 24% of the course.
Due to the volume of trucks that we encountered on the initial highway stretch the decision was made to do the out and back (Plan B) and down we went. Though down wasn’t strictly true as the ups and downs we’d made on the way up became downs and ups on the way down and there were some wicked hills up on the way back too.
They were largely not too long though so we made good time and were at a cafe in the town at the bottom in time for the finish of Etienne’s marathon – he finished just as we left for the last leg. (A cafe I boycotted after observing the proprietor, and coffee maker, coming out of the toilet and going directly behind the counter to serve without handwashing…).
Back onto the bus for a short transfer back to our hotel, which is just inside the medina walls. Taroudant has a 7 km circumference medina wall (vs 21 km in Marrakesh) and is known as “little Marrakesh” but has a reputation for better prices in the souks (markets) so after unloading, checking in and the usual shower and laundry I decided to walk to the markets. The reception told me that the Berber market had burnt down, so I headed for the Arab souk with some of the Victoria contingent. We got through a gate in the medina wall and it was full on traffic and pedestrians/bicycles.
medina walls in background
It got busier and noisier and the Victoria ladies lagged further and further behind until at the next intersection they decided to abandon and returned home, except for Johanna so she and I proceeded on until we reached the souk. It was typical developing country chaos with bicycles, motorbikes, pedestrians, caleches, carts and cars all competing for the limited road space. We made our way into the souk, and had fun wandering through.
Honey was a big item on offer, as I had heard it was, so I got some orange honey (from orange blossoms ostensibly) – quite funny as the store had bees buzzing around the honey jars. I was given samples of eucalyptus, flower and orange honey but liked the latter best so that will be used in chocolates for Xmas.
The store owner told me the honey came from his own beehives in the mountains. Near lunch we had passed a large collection of hives and they were buzzing around as we ate.
As always, the spices and foods in the souk were fascinating.
some were identifiable, and some not – some stall owners were helpful and answered questions and others not. Fair enough, it was busy and there weren’t a lot of tourists around, mostly real shoppers.
lentils, beans and couscous; turmeric, ginger and garlic
several unknowns in this batch; this stall owner didn’t speak French or English. The one that is being pointed to was identified as wormwood by our guide later on, and am still waiting for an id on the mossy substance next to it.
As we were winding our way back through the souk I happened to look into a jeweller’s and saw Yousef, one of our guides. He was in a silver shop, buying a replacement wedding ring as he had lost his yesterday during prayer ablutions. With his help in negotiation both Johanna and I bought a pair of silver earrings, made by local artisans – Taroudant had been recommended by Aziza as a good place to get these. We headed back to the hotel for dinner with Yousef, though I have to say my route was definitely faster and shorter than his! We ended up doing a loop with a fair amount of walking but very interesting.
Dinner was slow, and although nice to have a change the cheese layer in the lasagna was about the best part of it. The creme caramel for dessert wasn’t to sneeze at and it sure beat boiled eggs and veggies though 2 boiled eggs were delivered to me by Kamm, the spice roads rep.
In our dinner briefing it was noted that tomorrow’s climb has the biggest elevation gain of all – 1600 m, and over a short distance so portends to be brutal. I have no fear as the ebike takes one up anything, but the muscle bikers will have a challenge, especially after such a lot of climbing already on this trip. It’s our last major climb, though, the next day takes us to the coast with downhill and undulations.
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