Day dist.: 59.36 kms
Total dist.: 722.4 kms
All night long I could hear the rain, a devastating thing for me. Keep in mind, I have absolutely no rain gear w/ me. Besides, the use of rain gear is limited to using it when you are riding and the rain breaks out, not to go riding when it is already raining. Even in my sleep I was working out plans on how to deal it. When I woke up I had made up my mind. I was going to stay one day longer in Tangiers. So, I took my time getting up and showering, but all of the sudden I saw sunlight coming through the window. My window was a back window looking to some sort of light well and I couldn’t get a clear picture of the weather. Well the sunshine changed everything. I went downstairs to the reception, it was already 11:00, and asked the receptionist to look at the sky and come up with a prediction. I assumed that being from Tangiers he could interpret the signs better than me. It was not sunshine as I had thought, just a few glimmers of sunlight. He actually went out and checked the sky, which was fraught w/ clouds and opined that the weather in Tangiers is like France that does not know which way to go. Upon that I decided to take the risk of getting soaked.
I rushed to the nearest bank and took out money, a great thing to have with you all the time. On the way back to the hotel I stopped to get provisions.
Picture at the port
Tangiers is a totally European city. Its buildings, its roads, its people, everything reminds of Europe. People when I asked for directions were helpful and friendly too.
Town center
By 12:35 I had hit the road.
For the most part, the national road looked like the highway. There were two directions separated by an island and each direction had two lanes. Several times I though I had mistakenly taken the highway.
Photo exiting the town
I had covered only a few miles when I came to grips with this day’s reality. There was an indeed very strong wind, and since the wind has always been my enemy, it was a head wind. The only comparison that comes to mind is that of last summer near Reihanli in Turkey where the wind almost swept me out of the road. But this was stronger. I had no choice and I kept biking. I was thinking to myself that this could not continue like this for ever, it would have to quiet down. But it didn’t. Soon I realized that it was not a random act of violence against me but it was systemic.
wind farm/park
as you can see in the picture above, there is a wind farm on the top of the mountains in the backdrop. Evidently they built it because they want to take advantage of the constant wind. This was not the only farm, the entire place was full of them. When I asked a road cop about it he said that this is always like this and it will not change till Tetuan. So this is it the system was after me. What are you supposed to do in a case like this? All normal people would give up, a thought that crossed my mind. But I subscribe to the John Wayne school of thought which says “a man has to do what a man has to do, that all he has to do!!!!” and that prompted me to go on. Needles to say, however, that I had to put a lot of effort and my speed would not go above 8km/hour.
More evidence of the mighty wind (notice the flags)
There is enough wind at this place to cover all the energy needs of Africa.
Proud Spithas
A least, I thought, the wind will clear up the sky from clouds and eliminate the chance of rain. One evil chases the other evil. The world would be better w/o evils but if you have to have them, the fewer the better. I could not be more wrong as it started raining while the wind was raging. I had to take refuge at a place I found that would protect me from the elements
I decided I would have lunch too.
It was 32 kms into my ride and 22 before Tetouan.
When the rain stopped, because unlike the wind it did stop, I hit the road again(16:18.) The problem was not only having to put in a lot of effort and move hardly at all but in addition I had very little control over the bike which was pushed right and left by the wind. On one occasion a sudden gush of wind pushed me and fell into the ditch next to the road and in another the wind changed direction in a second and for a split second, which made me lose my balance and before having time to disengage cleats from the pedals I fell flat on my face.
More wind farms
The wind as so strong during the stretch below and in combination of going uphill, it took me half an hour to cover it
Ladies in local dresses selling stuff at the edge of the road
The wind was unabated. It did not stop for a second, it wore me out, it almost broke my morale, I almost started crying!!! But I had to go on.
Ladies in local dresses working in the fields
I was approaching Tetouan.
Mountain next to the city
Finally, I got the first glimpse of the city
Even though I was almost there the wind would not stop. It stopped only after I was well into the city. Once there, exhausted and demoralized I asked around for a hotel and finally ended up at “Principe Hotel” at Tetuan Yousef Ibn Tachfine, 20. When I arrived, there was a world cup soccer game and a big crowd had gathered at the ground floor of the hotel, which was also a coffee shop, to watch it. The receptionist was one of the fans and wanted to get rid of me as soon as possible, so he gave me the keys to the room skipping the time consuming process of taking all the info from my passport. He told me get installed in the room first and then give him the passport. When I got settled and went down again he had to take the info. I noticed that the crowd was cheering for one of the two teams and since Morocco was not playing, I wondered which side and why. It was Spain against Uruguay and the crowd favored Spain. As I found out the reason was that this part of Morocco used to be controlled by Spain instead of France. That also explained why older people are fluent in Spanish.
I went out to the nearby square that was full of people as there was a concert of a Spanish group that I had never heard of going on. It was pleasant and people looked nice. The puzzling thing for me was the big church that was right at the square. Tomorrow I’ll take find out and take a couple of pictures.
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