11/05/2023 Bikepacking Morocco Day 89 : أعطني المال

As the morning rose to consciousness, I felt around this new body I was living inside. What was going on? After 13 days of sore throat ripping me from the inside, along with a raspy cough, I had somehow suddenly ditched this illness! Excited about that, but not the rain outside, I departed with the good that could be had from the morning, and headed off to “the blue city” of Chefchauen.

I’m not normally the type of person who goes to see cities for attractions (or one who climbs 1,500 extra feet for such privilege), but I decided to go to this one. I rode through the narrow blue alleys, took some photos and videos, thinking this was nice.. until a robed figure came talking to me in Spanish. He looked like a hooded character from Star Wars, and if he would have had glowing yellow eyes, I wouldn’t have been surprised. “Be careful, be careful” he scratched out, grabbing my seat bag. “Be careful of the wet roads!” He continued. I slipped away from his grasp like a fish and decided that was enough of the blue city.

A couple complicated searches for low carb food revealed that although I’m not yet in the Sahara desert, I have already reached the food desert. Soon I was off to the open road… I turned off on a one lane mountain road and about this point (3.5 hours into my ride), the rain finally let up.

Whenever you cross an international border, there is always a “grace period” where near the border you retain some of the elements of the former country that help ease the transition into the next. The grace period for Morocco ended right as I turned up the mountain road. After lots of beautiful and peaceful riding, I saw a man up on a hill, kind of yelling at a family or two down below. One of the kids looked bored with this discussion and he wandered around me while I was filling my water bottles. I wanted to know what the “fight” was about, so I asked the kid if he spoke Spanish. “No”. English? “No”. French? “No”. He was fluent in “no” in all 3 languages, so I bid him farewell.

Next I saw a cyclist ahead of me. Marcos from Italy was touring, burdened by enough water to fill an aquarium of sea turtles. And a turtle he was, riding about 1/4 my speed. We settled on a French dominant hybrid of Spanish/English/French and spoke in 3 word sentences. He has been on the bike for two years mostly in the Middle East and India. He had a good sense of humor. When I asked if he also had water in the container on his downtube, he said “no, it’s spaghetti”. (You know, being Italian and all) Actually, it was tools. Later he asked my age; I told him and then he wanted me to guess his age. I said “60,”. No. “62?” No. He was 50. Doh! Men, here is some advice: if you have a gray beard and you are 50, don’t play the “guess my age” game. Actually, women, same to you… if you have a gray beard….. Anyway, He has no blog or website; I’ve lost connection with him, even though he was a fun guy. I love the connected way I travel, but I secretly admire these truly off grid people taking their time with bikes prepared for the apocalypse.

Further along, i was coming down a hill and saw two young guys parked on the side of the road overlooking the valley. For some reason, I suddenly thought, “I need to talk to more people.” As a guise, I pulled up somewhat close to them and took a picture of the scenery I wasn’t really interested in. Right away, one of the guys walked up to me and started talking. I said, “do you speak Spanish?” He did.. in fact, he was pretty fluent! It was great to have a real conversation! Jonas has worked in a flower factory in Spain for 10 years. He is here for 2 weeks visiting family. When I told him my name was Brian, he said excitedly, “Are you Muslim?!” I said no. He said, but “Brahmin is a Muslim name!” He then continue that Islam is the best religion. I asked why and he said, “because it is easy”. Easy? I pushed him to explain that one. He said “easy. The rules are simple. You don’t kill, you don’t steal, and when you are talking to your friend, and he walks away, you don’t talk to another friend.” I thought I was losing that in translation, but asked him to clarify… and yeah, that is what he said. Anyway, I really did feel “called” to stop and talk to these guys - the first time so far - I normally consider this kind of stuff divine intervention… but was it God or Allah who drew me to them?

Further down the road, I could tell that I was now really in Morocco. The road turned to a muddy potholed mess. 3 boys rode up alongside me on bikes and started chatting. I tried my 3 languages again, but nothing. So, thinking, “what the heck,” with one hand I pulled my phone out of my pocket and clicked over to my translate app. I had downloaded Arabic for offline use and as we dodged potholes and cruised along at 12 mph, I spoke to my phone, “what is your name?” Each reported their name gleefully. Then they got down to business. I held the phone towards the kid nearest me and he leaned over his handlebars, to speak to the phone, dodging potholes and mud puddles at the same time. My phone quickly explained to me, “Money. From my heart.” My enthusiasm for our fledgling conversation dropped; I said to my phone, “i only have a credit card. I am sorry…. From my heart.” The three kids solemnly accepted this, and simultaneously fist-bumped their hearts briefly riding one handed before turning back. I saw lots of heart fist bumps today.

I didn’t like the content of that exchange, but at the same time, I was gleeful that I could have conversations with everyone now! if I could manage this while riding a bike, no problem while stopped! Upbeat and excited, I pulled over to talk to the next guy who waved me down, but we got by with French.

Not long after, though, I saw a pack of 40 kids come running from behind a house. I knew I couldn’t handle that many kids, so I accelerated. They came running, saying all sorts of things, but smiling and laughing and running alongside me. I picked up the pace and they began to thin out breathing hard. I felt relieved and slowed down a bit once I ditched them… only to find them coming again - they knew a shortcut through the hill! I sped again, but this time they were grabbing onto my seat bag. I accelerated like Marty trying to get the Time Machine to 88 mph. By the time the last kid let go, I saw on my GPS that I was ascending at 5000 feet per hour. These kids would have even given Sepp Kuss a run for his money…. Literally… and now I know where that expression comes from.

…And then it happened. Click-tap-tap-crack. I looked in my rear view mirror and saw that the front runner kids were now throwing rocks at me. Crap! Yup, the stories I heard were true. Luckily, I was so fast that they didn’t manage to hit me or my carbon frame. I wonder what will happen to Marcos tomorrow? Thank goodness Janet was not there.

Now, I decided to hurry. I pushed hard on the pedals, flying over the muddy road. I had seen a hotel on the map, but it involved a steep hike a bike up a dirt road at the end. Fearing kids now, I did worry about being swarmed, but it was dark and I snuck up to the friendly place. It’s really just a house, I think, but it works; I’ve got 3 beds for $12 and a place to stay out of the rain if it comes back. I want to tell you more, but even with 4 bars of LTE, there is hardly internet here. I think the bandwidth is probably being saturated (even though I can only see a few lights around the lake below).

Photos majorly De-rez’d due to saturated data.