Tourletters from Sidi Ifni
The trip has reached the Atlantic Ocean, a significant milestone in the journey. From here we have 3 weeks to head south, crossing the Western Sahara, Mauritania, and then into Senegal to end at Dakar. The end of the journey is starting to be in site.
Today was the most restful of the rest days we have had. As there is little in Sidi-Ifni to see, I did not have to make any plans and enjoyed a day of sleeping late, doing a little bike work, having a nice lunch overlooking the sea, and taking a nice long walk on the beach. Although the remainder of the route won’t have much climbing, I think we will have some of our more difficult days ahead as many are long, and most are sure to be quite hot. Having a nice rest today will hopefully refresh the legs (and rest of the body) for the days ahead.
In order to finally get to the Atlantic, we first had to cross the Atlas mountains two more times and then cycle through the Anti-Atlas. For Stage 33, we left the Gorges du Tadra and did a reasonably flat stage to stay at a Kasbah in the town of Skoura. The owner took us on a tour of his family’s Kasbah which was a short walk away. That night there was a huge thunderstorm with strong winds and we woke up with the haze of the last few days gone, and snow quite visible in the Atlas mountains.
There had been a case of “traveller’s sickness” going around camp (many riders took the truck or van today), and it was now my turn to have it. So the remaining stages into Marrakech were quite difficult for me. Stage 34 passed through the town of Ouarzazate which has several movie studios where many of the Hollywood “desert classic” films were shot so the landscape looked a bit familiar. After passing through the town, we started the climb to Tizi-n-Tichka and the plans were to bush camp just over the summit. However, Rob found an Auberge before the summit that would let us camp or stay in some of their rooms. Given that so many people were ill, it was a much appreciated find.
Stage 35 took us over the Col du Tichka summit, then on a long, sweeping descent with great views. The last 30 Km was flat and had quite a bit of traffic as we approached Marrakech. Camp was supposed to be at a somewhat barren desert campground, but once again Rob found a brand new camp that had a wonderful swimming pool, palm trees, green grass, rooms and a restaurant. It was a wonderful place to spend a rest day. Although I did get into town to see a bit of the city, and of course the famous Djenaa el-Fna square, I took advantage of the rest day and nice camp (and medicine from the staff) to try to get over my illness.
While I wasn’t completely recovered for Stage 36, I did feel much, much better. We did a group ride out of Marrakech and after that I took it easy as it was a long (148 Km) stage with 2500 meters of climbing. The road surface was quite bad for a while – they had used quite large chips for the chip sealing. Once we got to the mountains it got quite nice and the climb was easier than I expected. The road snaked along the mountainside with several switchbacks and great views. Camp was at an Auberge just over the Tizi-n-Test summit and you could see the descent we would do the next day. As the truck could not do the descent (it would not clear some of the overhangs) a second van had been rented to carry just the gear we would need for this night.
I expected the morning for Stage 37 to be cold, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. We started with a very technical descent (lots of switchbacks, narrow road, and gravel) and at the bottom was the truck. They had driven quite a ways to avoid the road we did and were waiting for the rental van to get our gear. We had a flat ride to lunch with lots of traffic, and so I was glad that we turned off the busy road just before lunch. After lunch we had a good deal of climbing, and it became quite hot as the little tailwind just about equalled our speed uphill so there was no net breeze at all. The day ended at our first bush camp of the trip.
Stage 38 brought us to the Anti-Atlas mountains and was quite a hard day as it was plenty of short, sometimes steep, climbs all day long. We were around 1750 meters the whole day, but it would vary up or down by 100 meters. Good if you like rollers, which I don’t. We passed many small villages and plenty of pretty rock outcroppings. The campground in Tafraoute was surrounded by these outcropping and by many palm trees so it was quite a pretty place.
Stage 39 continued our journey through the Anti-Atlas and then what was probably our last long downhill of the trip. The town of Tiznit was a good place to explore and had many shops. Rik, Wout, and myself opted for the “Sahara Special” and got our hair cut quite short. Hopefully it will make it cooler in the desert and it will certainly make it easier to maintain in our many upcoming bush camps!
Stage 40 was a pretty short stage (you know when you get to lunch before 9:30 that you will be in camp before the afternoon), and this was the stage that brought us to the Atlantic. It started with some climbs before finally seeing the ocean, heading downhill and then south along the coast. The campsite (which also had rooms that many people took) in Sidi-Ifni was right on the beach.