Rain, rain and more rain
Trip Start
Jul 07, 2008
1
41
226
Trip End
May 27, 2010
Rabat,
Morocco
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Hotel Ibtissama, Mehdiya Plage
Cool and wet
We left Asilah in glorious sunshine and headed south towards Larache, There was quite a nice stretch of road where the scenery was quite nice, through some wooded areas, but all in all it's a bit samey. We arrived in Larache at lunchtime having only cycled some 50kms and headed straight for Pension Amal, from good ole Loney Planet and it was everything they said it would be. We managed to get the key to the terrace where we did our washing and hung it up to dry, which took all of about 10 mins.
Ramadan is still in full swing so we toddled off to the market and bought some avocados, apples and yoghurts, that would have to suffice until later in the evening. There really isn't much to do in places like Larache, so once you've had a look at the market etc, it's best to conserve your energy and go lie down with a good book.
When the Muheddin does his thing at sundown then the fun begins, everyone closes down for half hour while they break the fast. That night we ate in a local place, having tagine with rice and salad, with the usual hariri (soup) to start. It was great and we weren't ripped off - hurrah!
From Larache we headed off to Moulay Bousselham, a sleepy fishing village that has become rather trendy over the past couple of years, it;s about 60kms south of Larache and on the other side of the Merdja Zerga national park. We camped at Camping & Caravanning International, which is a bit grotty but in the most spectacular setting, overlooking the estuary. We ate dinner in the town but were eaten alive by mosquitos. When we got back to the tent we really wanted to sit outside to watch the electrical storm that was raging in the Rif Mountains but the mossies drove us inside. It was a clear night so the stars were amazing, but again, we couldn't really enjoy them because of the damn mossies.
This morning we went out with Hassan Dilil (from LP book) and his boat to look at the birds. The weather was bloody horrible, but the birds were beautiful. We saw Flamingoes (in the hundreds not the thousands we were hoping for), Cormorants, Curlews, Osprey, Dillin (spelling?) 2 types of Shanks, Plover and several others that we can't remember. Having done the Twitcher thing we headed back to the campsite, picked up our bikes and bags, loaded them into Hassan's boat and headed across the estuary where he dropped us off, saving us at least 14kms of riding around the reserve.
There's not a lot of good things I can say about the 83 kms today. It rained pretty much all day, the road had been washed away in several places or, just with extremely large potholes and/or great lakes of rainwater. Every time we went through a small village young boys would run out and try to pinch things off the bikes or would grab the panniers. I'm generally the patient one but today Dave had to take that role otherwise I would have strung the little buggers up by their testicles, putting it mildly. The landscape was pretty dull too, just small farms mostly. Although some of the areas we went through a couple of days ago smacked of large scale farming enterprises. Would I recommend it as a cycling route? No, take the bus would be my advice.
Kenitra, which we had to go through to get to Medhiya, is a complete and utter dump. On the way into town I was reflecting on how I feel as though I've been riding round and round a rubbish dump for the past week. There is rubbish everywhere, and there doesn't seem to be any civic pride in any of the places we have visited so far, but Kenitra takes the biscuit. Literally, the first thing you see as you enter the town from the north is a landfill rubbish dump. The road disintegrates from the normal two lanes into one because of the potholes and today especially because of the huge, and I mean huge, puddles across the road. Then you hit the town with it's waste lands full of rubbish all along the sides of the road, the fumes from the lorries are horrendous and generally the whole feel of the place is completely depressing. The choices for accommodation were stay in Kenitra and pay 280, or chance it and go the extra 10kms to Medhiya and hope that the campsites would be open. I'd rather stick pins in my eyes than stay in Kenitra a moment longer than I had to, so that was that, off to Medhiya.
Both campsites were closed and we couldn't find the youth hostel, and just as we stopped to discuss our options (sleeping on the beach for example) we found ourselves outside the Hotel Ibtissama. It was much more expensive than we would normally pay (300) but hey, we'd had a shitty day and we had very few choices. So we have a room with a balcony (great, because it means we can dry the tent out) and kitchen area (although the fridge isn't plugged in and there's no cooker which doesn't matter because we have nothing to put in the fridge and no food to cook!) and we have our own bathroom with plenty of hot water.
Isn't it always the way, just as you've got to the point where all you can do is moan (which is how we both were today when we arrived) something happens to completely change your mind. After showering we wandered 'up town' to find a few bits to eat. None of the restaurants were open and the only shop was trying to close as we entered. So armed with our bottle of Fanta and 2 yoghurts, we headed back to our hotel. As we entered 'the guys' who had first showed us the room and sorted out the bikes etc, were just about to break their fast for Ramadan. They had put extra food and chairs out for us and invited us to join them. So we had a lovely meal with them which consisted of harari soup, avocado and orange juice smoothie (sounds horrid but it was absolutely delicious), mint tea, salad and some sweet pancakes laced with honey and butter.
We got by on little bits of French, English and Spanish but you know what, hashish is the same in all three! They were teasing me saying that the mint tea was Moroccon Whiskey because when we arrived I had asked if they had any beer (it was a hotel after all!) but of course being Ramadan it wasn't on sale anywhere in Morocco. One of the guys left the table to roll a spliff and, I suppose, thinking that we didn't know what it was explained that it was hashish. Struck me as rather odd that alcohol was banned but hashish wasn't! Anyway, just like anywhere else (or so they tell me) the price of hashish varies depending on the quality, but I think there is a lot of it in Morocco. We have been offered it several times now and by people who you wouldn't dream in a million years would have any, like some bloke circa 65 years!
We are both pretty knackered now and Dave, I notice, has nodded off. We're trying to stay awake until 9pm when we have to go downstairs to meet the main man and do all the paperwork so we can get our passports back, I don't like them being out of our possession.
Tomorrow Rabat, Fingers crossed the weather is fine.
Laters
