Morocco Tour – Day 5 – Biking

This has probably been my favourite day of the tour – it was packed with fun active stuff that kept us engaged and busy all day but also exploring new areas of Morocco.  Yesterday we came down from the High Atlas to the Mid-Atlas.  The market centre for this region Tafraoute which is a small town of about 3000.  We stayed here two nights to explore the area a bit.

Our exploration of the country side was done by bicycle.  We had a local guide who took us out of the town and into the back fields.  Because it is September everything is very brown and dry.  Even though it continues to be quite hot by our terms (30C) it is dry heat.  In total we did a 30 km loop around the town.

Picking up our mountain bikes in the morning. The guy in the black tshirt is our local guide Hicham who owned the store.

Our group (minus one)

The dry rocky countryside was interesting territory to explore

Yacine, our tour leader

We stopped to explore an area where a Belgian artist about 30 years ago painted many rocks blue and pink.  We climbed one of the rocks for a better view.

We stopped for a yummy picnic lunch in the shade of a tree.  We have been able to get and eat many more fresh fruits and vegetables now that we are out of the major city.  We were just outside a cute little town called Aday so we climbed up the hill to enjoy the view.

Enjoying the view from Aday (lovely models are Jeanette, my roommate, and Simone)

Picnic lunch in the shade

We finished our bike adventures by early afternoon.  After a quick shower we headed out into the town to explore the small souk a bit and to wander the area.  We ended up in the souk for the locals – there seems to be one for the tourists and one for the locals.

Tafraoute square

Kitty chilling in the souk

Vendor at the local souk

Local souk

I mentioned my room mate above.  Because our group has 5 women who are travelling solo, four of us have been paired up and are sharing rooms.  The 5th paid the single supplement to get her own room when possible.  We’re all getting along really well so sharing a room has not been a problem at all.

On a previous day as we were driving close to sunset we saw that local women gathered on outcroppings of rocks to watch the sunset.  As we have some avid photographers in our group we decided to climbing the rocks above the town to watch the sunset.  The climb was fun which compensated for the not so spectacular sunset.

We went to dinner at a local restaurant and after dinner we were joined by some local Berber musicians who shared some local music with us.  We got to try out the drums.  Definitely not one of my hidden talents!  We were also joined by two young Berber women, one of whom actually drummed and they joined in the singing.  Our guide told us that this is the first contact he has had with local women in 12 years of being a guide.  It is very rare and very new for women to come out in public and interact with strangers.   Unfortunately I was so busy listening I didn’t take a picture!