Start at AL HOCEIMA End at NADOR
Day dist.: 125.42 km
Total dist.: 1095.1 km
Riding time: 7:07
Avg speed: 17.6 km
Mx speed: 53.8 m/h
Despite the promise to myself and to the respected audience, I fouled up. I woke up at 9:30, instead of the intended 6:00. This was really strange, if you consider that the night before I was asleep by 11:00. The only explanation may be that I took a sleeping pill help me fall asleep early, my bed time is well beyond 00:30, and hoping for quick results I took the entire pill instead of the usual half. So, not only did I fall asleep early but I also remained asleep for much longer. So, I was 3 hours behind schedule and 130 kms away from Nador, my destination. I left out the usual staying for a while in bed and immediately jumped out of bed. I was on the road at 10:40.
I had precise directions from the hotel as to where go to find my way to Nador via the new coastal road. The only upsetting thing was that I had to redo, in reverse, the last 6 kms that led me to Al Hoceima. It is almost like religion to me never to repeat a distance already covered. NO choice here. In addition, I was now paying yesterday’s easy downhill w/ a steep uphill. But a man has got to do what he has to do.
View exiting Al Hoceima
A beautiful copse exiting Al Hoceima
The never ending ntl road
The coastal road is indeed new, as promised and there were no steep uphills or downhills, with very few exceptions, so, I was moving fast, at least compared to the few previous days.
View of coast k ntl road
Lonely mosque by the coast
Rolling hills
More coastal view
The never ending road
Spithas on the side of the road
Rare appearance of both Spithas and myself on the ntl road
Approaching a town
Empty national road
Road cut through the hills
At some point I entered the province of Nador. I guess that all this time I must have been on a different province. Since administratively Morocco is carved up into provinces, one is always in a certain province. I had no idea which one, though. Now, thanks to the sign, I know I am in Nador province and it makes a big difference. Road signs have their use!!!
The weather was hotter than usual, I would say in the upper 30s, but I coped really well. I had lots of water w/ me which went out fast. At some point I resupplied and out of insecurity I oversupplied and found myself carrying 3 bottles of water 1.5 litters each, a total of 6 kilos.
All this time I never made a real stop to rest, just short stops to drink water and stretch. Also even if I wanted to, it would not have been appealing as there were no trees in evidence and therefore no shade. Finally at 18:30 and 112 kms into my trip I thought that it was time for a rest. Indeed I found a holy tree, that is an olive tree, and camped under it for 45 mins. I had lunch and then lied on the ground to get a rest and prepare myself for the final dash.
About 20 mins before I stopped for lunch I had passed by two bikers that were headed in the same direction. We did greet one another and I opened the distance as I was biking faster than they did. While I was resting, they passed by the olive tree said hi and continued. After my rest I was on the road again and to my surprise I caught up with them again. I though that all this time they would have reached their destination but instead they were not too far ahead of me. The reason was that one of them had a flat tire and instead of fixing it (he probably did not have the tools,) every few miles he just pumped air into it, evidently, that slowed them down. This is exactly what they were doing when I caught up w/ them. We chatted and found out that our destination was the same. We both decided to proceed together. Actually, since they were local they knew all the shortcuts. Their names were Hossein, who was a teacher, and Mohamed, who was a doctor. In about one hour we were in the city. Following Hossein’s recommendation I went to “Hotel Central,” a descent place with a very jovial receptionist.
After I got installed and had taken a shower, Hossein stopped by and, in his car, he gave me a tour of the city. By now I found the city typical of Morocco, that is, wide streets and good taste in the buildings and the city plan. After the tour, we went to coffee shop that apparently is the meeting place of Hossein with his friends, one of whom was Mohamed. They were all very nice and cordial to me. We had a conversation that started about my biking from Marrakech to here and went on to discuss the Berber people. What prompted the discussion about the Berber was that when they talked to each other the language they used did not sound Arabic to me. I had assumed that it was Arabic w/ a local accent but the answer I got when I asked was that indeed it was not Arabic, it was Berber.
The Berbers were the original people of East North Africa and had been successively colonized by the Phoenicians, the Romans, the Vandals, the Arabs, the French, and the Spaniards. Their identity and language, however, persisted. People in the area speak Berber at home and also know Arabic. I learned that until recently, Berber was discouraged and their education is in Arabic. By law they cannot even name their children w/ Berber names. The word they use to call themselves in their own language is Amazir, which means free people, and not Berber. Berber is a name given to them by the Romans who found it very difficult to keep them subjugated and had to deal w/ constant uprisings. The Romans actually called them Barbars from the word barbarians. The word, however, got a face lift by the French into Berber. A couple of words that I learned was the word of yes, which is uach, and for no, which is la (I suppose from the Arabic.) According to the info I got 75% of Morocco’s population is Berber. Also, it appears that in the area of Rif, which is where Nador is, the entire population is Berber and they intensely dislike the Arabs. After an hour and a half, we decided to call it a day and Hossein drove me to the hotel. The thing that stroke me as strange and unexpected was to see, as we were driving towards the hotel, four prostitutes working at the side of the road. One of them was actually in the process of closing a deal. Hossein pointed that out to me and I was left flabbergasted. I never expected to see a spectacle like this in a predominantly Moslem country. I guess we are all predisposed to see our environment through the lenses of our prejudices.
The group of Berber friends and myself
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