Day dist.: 188.11 kms (new personal record)
Total dist.: 572.4 kms
Said goodbye to Eunes, the very nice and helpful guy that was running the hotel and hit the road at 9:00. I had to go through a heavy city traffic that delayed me a bit but successfully crossed the nearby bridge into Sale, and easily found the “route nationale” to Kenitra. I was moving really fast and was at Kenitra at 36 kms by 10:30. I was a non-stop ride.
According to my google map there are two ways to go to from Kenitra to Tangiers. A direct one along the coast(A1), and probably a lot more pleasant and a roundabout one (N1.) I definitely preferred to take the more direct one. I was still at the city’s outskirts and to help my search went into a pharmacy to ask. I take it that a pharmacist is educated enough to give accurate info of that kind. The lady only knew one road and that was the long one. Despite my efforts to extract more info it was not possible. I left and followed her info with many doubts though. So, when I saw a convenience store I went in to buy water and asked the same question. I did get the same answer. As I was exiting the store, a cab stopped by and thinking that cabbies, despite being the most dishonored and lying race in the world, they also know the whereabouts better than anybody else. I asked him the question showing him the map at the same time and explained to him that I am doing all that by bike. He told me that he would show me. I would have to cross the town and that would lead me to the highway I wanted. I went to get Spithas and when I returned to the cab the cabbie insisted to put Spithas in his tiny cab and he would drive us to where I needed. I suppose he was fishing for a ride where he could also charge the tourist premium. I told him it was out of the question and he got into his cab and proceeded to show me the way. After pointing me to a certain direction he left. I confirmed his instructions w/ other people and biked on. I ended up being the long way that I was trying to avoid. Probably the shorter and pleasant road is the highway that I am not allowed to ride anyhow.
Kenitra is a pleasant town but nothing special
I continued on the national road that looked like this
I made a stop at a small place (looked like a trading post) called Mugram at 64 kms to buy water.
All the area that I was crossing is an agricultural part of the country. It is a flat plain and seems to be very fertile. There are a lot of tractors plying the national road and as one of those tractors was driving ahead of me I practiced drafting for about 10 kms (65 to 75 on the odometer.) The farmer was not aware of me for the first half, he then saw me and smiled at me and before he had to turn he waved goodbye to me. We were moving at 24kms/hour but I hardly had to do any pedal. It was as if I was going a slight downhill road.
At 81.3 kms I arrived at Sid al Alal Tazi and rode on
Cowboy town
Never ending road
At 116.6 kms (15:09) I arrived at a bigger town called Souq el arba dharb (the four markets.) I made a short stop to sip water and two very friendly guys came up to me to talk to me. When they found that I come from Greece, they immediately talked about soccer and how Greece lost to Argentina. As I told you, if Greece had won the game my travel would have been a lot easier done with more class. I bought a kilo of bananas and biked on.
Exiting Souq El Arba
Cowboy country
The scenery
At 16:15 and at 131 kms I decided to take my lunch break. I found one of the few trees that were there and got settled under the shade.
I hung my wet clothes on Spithas to dry and ate my lunch. It was time for the nap. Actually I must have napped for at least 45 mins and woke up only because this spot happened to be the spot where everybody from the neighboring village came to find some form of transport to wherever they wanted to go. All of the sudden there was a lot of noise and that woke me up. I left at 18:00 and hit the road again.
There was a lot of pottery being sold in the area
The sun had been setting and the scenery started looking different
I biked on into the night and had to take out the blinking flashlights and hang them on my knapsack so that I could be seen by the oncoming traffic. Just like the other day when I had to ride during the night, even though on both occasions I was exhausted having more than 150 clicks under my belt, I felt reinvigorated. My explanation is that on both occasions I felt in danger, especially today where the traffic was thick and there was no shoulder. So, danger reinvigorates you!!!
Finally I made it to Larach. I entered town at 21:30 and by 22:00 I had found a hotel, Hotel Malaga, at Plaza de España. What stroke me as odd in this town, is that when people in the street were shouting to me, they shouted Spanish rather than in French. Also, all the names of the coffee shops, the hotels, etc., were in Spanish instead of in French.
Went out for a walk and by 23:00 I was in bed
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