11/09/2023 Bikepacking Morocco Day 93 : Travels with Mila

I still talk to God, only here, I call him by a different name. Last night when my intestines were tearing me apart, I said, “please Allah, make my stomach feel better in 10 minutes.” Allah doesn’t work on Swiss time, but by by 2 am, I wake up on the ground with a deflated air mattress, freezing... and a better stomach. It was so cold, but I found the hole in the dark and patched it. Then, since my neighbors were probably asleep, I gave Janet a video call at 3am (6pm her time).

In the morning, my new buddy Mila (named by my sister for “miles,” because Mila is going to be doing a lot of miles!) was faithfully waiting outside the tent. We split the next can of sardines 50/50, and I used the empty tin to give her an entire bottle of water. I can see why people love dogs. After having been chased by so many mean dogs, you can quickly forget that there are loving dogs out there too. She never begged; always patiently waited. We set off, and I found myself lingering on the downhills waiting for her to catch up. A pack of dogs came to attack her and I turned back to defend her. I started to think of ways to carry her downhill. She easily outpaced me on the ascents. What am I doing? I really liked her, but having a dog means no hotels and difficult border crossings. I said good bye to her at the top of each hill… just in case. She caught up to me while I was drying the tent on a downhill, but after 2 hours together this morning, we had our last goodbye. 😞.

So, some of the mystery has been solved about my Arabic app. For the last 36 hours, I was amongst the Berber people of the Middle Atlas. Anything I told you in English about what was said during that time was just pure coincidence! This explains why “what is your name?” works, but nothing else made much sense. The “Berbers,” who prefer to be called “Amazigh” are not a homogeneous group of people. They actually have 4 languages that can’t be understood between each. They have a variety of cultures, living in different places, and they are NOT Arabs. Their bloodline is actually from Stone Age people of Northern Africa. The people I met in the mountains spoke nothing other than their own dialect, meaning that of the 5 languages I have available in my head or pocket, body-language was the only one that worked. I wish I knew what the kids were saying; one girl came running towards me down a steep hill with her hand up. She said “shoes, shoes”. That is all she said over and over. Did she know one word of English and want shoes, or is this a homophone in her dialect? People live a hard life in these mountains. I have included a photo of some of the houses. I have a rough idea of how hard it is after freezing last night, and trying to find water that wasn’t contaminated with laundry detergent. It is not densely populated, but there is always someone somewhere. If you think you are totally alone, stop and study the landscape. If you are good at “Where’s Waldo” you will see the men, blending in with the rocks, guarding the sheep. In the rest of the world, cellular phones and YouTube have revolutionized the monotony of shepherdry, but here the only entertainment is a guy in red on a bicycle trying to say, “salam alikalum” and waving back with a big smile.

Still suffering bouts of nausea, I did my entire ride on half a can of sardines and the first 7 hours on one bottle of water. The other bottle I had given to Mila. Parched, I got to a dusty town and tried to take the easy way out to water: a gas station. There I met Mohammed, an English teacher. After some conversation, he showed me his bike - a Trek with a belt drive and generator hub. Wow. He said, “I bought this for $1000USD it was stolen in America from some hard working man. It is bad, I know. All the bikes in Morocco are stolen from hard working Americans.” At least he was being honest. He spoke soft, excellent English, and when I told him about my freezing night last night, he said, “you can borrow my sleeping bag. It is 5 Celsius”. I said, “but how will I get it back to you?” He said, “life is not important.” “What does that mean,” I asked. He explained, “I am Muslim, and material items are not important. This is how it is for Muslims.” He invited me to his house to get water, which i purified just in case. He invited me to stay a few nights… and I wavered. His dad is bedridden with Alzheimer’s, and I worried about painting a brown Picasso in his toilet. I came close to saying “yes”, but decided to ride onwards in the tailwind.

The scenery changed from mountains to desert, and I really just wanted to get a comfortable place to recover my insides. A guy named Rashid found me and before taking me to a hotel, he happily gave me the Cliffs Notes on Berber people, which I posted above. After much chat, he suggested we have sugar free tea tonight. Hence the abrupt ending to this post. Good Night!