Yesterday we rode our bicycles in Morocco. We took a ferry from Algeciras in Spain across the Strait of Gibralter, and got dropped off at a huge port in the middle of nowhere, about 40 miles east of Tangiers. It was bad weather and I probably should have stayed on the boat, but we brought our bikes all the way over to the Mediterranean and I thought, well, might as well go ride.
The terrain was about like the Spanish coast. It was hilly and dry and brown. There were nice views of the sea from the coast road we were on. The road was in good shape and sparsely populated. The winds began to howl and rain pelted us intermittently. The wind was so strong that gusts would almost knock us down. It was tiring but not horrible. Maybe a 6.5 out of 10 on the "suck" scale. The big concern was the waning daylight. We got a really late start with customs and ferry difficulty and general confusion. I wasn't terribly interested in riding through Tangiers at night with no lights.
We passed a few nice houses with new cars parked in front of them. Also there were areas which were pretty trashy. Occasionally you'd pass a man walking down the road in a long robe. One guy was screaming to himself and making violent retching noises. There were some goats wandering about. We passed through some villages where there were groups of men standing around not doing much. Staring at us seemed to be the entertainment. Which wasn't too surprising since we looked like we came from outer space, with our $8000 bicycles and neon-yellow Lycra.
The woman in the couple I was with really wanted to stop at a roadside shanty where there were several men and teenage boys standing around. She wanted ice cream. Her husband was ambivalent, but I said no. It was getting dark and we were still miles away. Besides that, there seemed to be a lack of women walking around Morocco in tight spandex. I felt a little awkward about that, although she didn't seem to notice any problem.
Later, at another customs checkpoint, the same woman gave her passport to a scruffy-looking guy wearing a Lakers t-shirt who was randomly hanging around the checkpoint acting like an official. He pored over it and finally she got it back from him. Maybe he really was an official.
I did enjoy speaking some French to people we saw in Morocco. It's the official language there along with Arabic. My Spanish is piecemeal at best and I'm a lot more comfortable in French. I asked an old toothless man in a robe if he'd seen bicycles like this before. He looked at me like I'd stepped out of a flying saucer wearing a tutu, and said no.
We pedaled through town which was mostly deserted. There were some big abandoned hotels and wide plazas. It looked like someone thought there was going to be a big seaside tourist vacation boom, but it never happened. We rode our bikes over a canal which flowed a dark maroon color and smelled bad. I figured it was agricultural effluent but it turned out to be blood. Yes, blood.
It was the Feast of Abraham, which is a big holiday there. From what I heard, every family in the country kills a ram in honor of Abraham sacrificing a ram instead of his son Isaac. So the canal was filled with the blood of countless rams. The deal is, you kill the ram, then cut off its head which you toast in a fire before presenting it to your mother. I'm obviously no religious scholar but I think that was how it worked. The head is the only thing you're allowed to eat that day.
We got back in time for a late tour of the Casbah, the famous winding downtown area of Tangiers. There were no streetlights, only the lights from a few cafes. Also, there were several groups of men and boys burning ram heads over oil barrels. There were piles of horns and skins laying about. The cobbled street was vaguely sticky.
Our tour guide, "Magic", pointed out some buildings and sights and then led us to a rug shop, where we were trapped for an eternity while the proprietors showed us all the rugs with great flourish. I didn't feel at all like buying a rug, and wanted desperately to rest and wash the grime off my face. But it was difficult to leave because outside the rug shop was a true maze of tiny winding alleys and steps and dark corners. I didn't feel like wandering around lost in the dark. So we waited around until Magic could lead us out. Along the way back we passed a cafe where people smoked tobacco and hashish. I would have liked to have smoked some tobacco out of a hookah with some dudes in robes, but it was too late. Next time I will try to accomplish that.
coast road
customs by bicycle
sheep heads o'er an open fire
I should have mentioned -- another thing that makes our appearance more interesting is that the majority of folks are on tandem bicycles. Those are pretty eye-catching when you see one go by.
I, however, am on my recumbent bicycle, which nobody has ever seen before. I may as well be from another planet. Kids cheer when I go by, and traffic stops in the middle of the road. One lady tripped over a curb this morning when she was staring slack-jawed at me riding by.
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