Morocco: from 12 to 1

The again vastly delayed blogposts are mostly connected to a slight writers block on the previous post, enhanced by the busy, engulfing travelling life I’ve been living in this new country, which is also continuin back in Spain.

As can be seen on the map on top of this blog, I made a round trip of Morocco during 50 days. I went in the direction of a clock, that's why I decided to give them the titles on how I imagine I moved along the fictional dial. The first post will be about the three cities of Tanger, Tetouan and Chefchaoun to only the northenmost part of this kingdom.

Arriving with the bicycle through
 the narrow streets of the Medina

Morocco had always been the ultimate objective of my journey, although I wasn’t sure at the start if I would have been able to reach it. As told in the previous blogpost, suddenly arriving literally in front of this African country, I was confronted with many fears and insecurities. I wasn’t so sure if I really wanted to cross the sea, if this visible, but so very different world would be a fit for me, or rather, if I would well fit into it.. Also complicated by technical obstacles like exchanging currency and need for acquiring a local sim card, I was quite nervous when arriving in Morocco on the 12th of March. The custom officers only seemed to care about travellers carrying drones, so I swiftly cycled into Tanger. I was immediately comforted by the many men on the streets, who smiled or greeted me, while I was cycling by. With a sim card from Maroc Telecom and a wallet full of strange banknotes I went to the hostel I had booked, called Bayt Alice. The low price of the hostel, 12€ per night and my idea that this time I truly wanted to get to know the city (unlike Sevilla), I had booked several nights. That stay was one of the nicest I had in my life, without doubt. There was something about the owner, Nadi, that was so comforting and reassuring, who spoke perfect French and we laughed a bit about the cancelled ferries due to the bad weather. For the rest, the hostel was a beautiful Riad, a traditional Moroccan house with a central courtyard (in this case closed off). It was located in the medina, the old city of Tanger, made out of small, curvy, labyrinth-like alleys. A splendid terrace with a view on the bay and Spain in the distance was fabulous in beautiful weather, but for the most time of my stay, many rainclouds chased by and I was sometimes obliged to take shelter in the small kitchen on the rooftop.  For me the hostel experience was also something new, in a way, after months of mostly warmshowering or bivouacking. Suddenly I found myself surrounded by young people, easy to talk to and eager to venture out together. By that time however my possible unease about my first “African” city had already been relieved. My brother Marius, who had travelled the north of Morocco a month before, had put me into contact with a friend he had made.

Enjoying the first Moroccan tea with Angelo, with an enchanting view on the Tanger bay

After installing myself in the hostel, I ventured out to meet him. He turned out to be a middle aged man called Angelo, an Italian. Delighted we conversed in Dante’s language and he graciously showed me around the city. The way he talked about his life here, about diverse affairs going in Morocco generated a sense of home, of recognition, of familiarity with this new city and I felt more at home and more confident. It was with this newly gained confidence that I got acquainted with the first set of other travellers in the Bayt Alice hostel and I told them about my plans to go break fast in a specific restaurant where Angelo was going as well. I got on especially well with Salomé, coming from the Netherlands. I also wrote “break fast”, because this year the Ramadan, one of the most important religious periods for Islam, happened to last for the whole month of March. Especially compared to the period after it was over, the country had a special vibe over it. The people seemed to be living on the same strict rhythm. During prayer time on different moments of the day everyone rushed (the men mostly) to the mosque. You could see how everyone at the end of the day was tired, hungry and thirsty because of the fasting. When it was time for breakfast (around 18:30), called Iftar, everyone disappeared for it, and suddenly for about an half hour streets, shops, markets, were completely deserted. During the Ramadan I few times joined for the breakfast, and the traditional harira soup, dates and bread were delicious to me. 

But when on my first day I took some newly made friends to the place Angelo was going to, not everyone was wild about these simple dishes. Salomé, who already had travelled to Morocco a few times, being an enthusiast about the country, was quite into the Ramadan. She convinced me to participate in the fasting and we woke up at 4 o’clock in the morning for the Shur (meal before the start of fasting). To my surprise, it wasn’t that good of an idea. Probably more mental than really physical, I felt weak and did not do much, besides sitting behind my computer; and thus it was not the best day. But it inspired huge respect for all Muslims who still go about their days on an empty stomach. I still tried to honour the Iftar moment and not go to any restaurant before that, but I did take breakfasts and lunches. During my stay I took some walks around the Medina, but also enjoyed my time in the hostel, with the quirky old furniture and the beautiful terrace, even though the weather was not clement  at all.

By that time Elorri and Valentine, who had been travelling from Sevilla through the same bad weather, but left one day later, arrived in Tanger and we met up again. I did not expect that everything was as cordial as always, even though Valentine and I had agreed that what happened in Sevilla was really ok. But after talking about our respective travels over a late night Moroccan tea in one of the iconic Tanger bars, Valentine and I took a walk around the romantic medina where we continued the newly found amorous contact. We expressed more clearly the liking we had taken to each other and we stood kissing for many hours below the old city walls, indulging in many tender thoughts. We didn’t talk much about what it all meant, about the future, about our unavoidable separate travels. I brought her back to the hotel and after a much too short of a night I spend the last day in Tanger relaxing and visiting the old American embassy. I learned that after the American Revolution in 1776, the Moroccan Sultan was one of the first to recognise the country, which created historically excellent relations between the countries. That evening Salomé, the two French cycling colleagues and I found each other again in one of the most renowned hash bars of Tanger, café Baba. A pictures of the Rolling Stones sitting inside the very same room hung up on its dingy walls and through thick smoke of different substances the place did feel quite raw and alive. We had tried before to find a place to dance, but the few that were not expensive and exclusive clubs were closed because of the Ramadan. In the peculiar atmosphere of Baba, we again had a great time though and when it was time to go home, I had a similar night with Valentine, passionate, but again with few talking about what this actually should be. I was concerned about how Elorri would feel about this, maybe left out or like a third wheel. Valentine told me that she was fine with it, but I still felt like coming in between these two’s travel, which was one of the reasons that hindered me from really allowing myself to feel more. We knew we all were going to Chefchaouen, so when, very late and still heated from feeling her so close I brought her back to her hotel we knew its wasn’t time for goodbyes. At the same time I knew that this whole thing didn’t do enough, no yearning, no tormented thoughts. Being sure of future meetings, I took an attitude of wait-and-see.

Obligatory shortcut over questionable roads

The next day I cycled the rather short distance to Tétouan, my first encounter with the Moroccan countryside. After leaving the busy, dirty and modern city of Tanger behind, I suddenly found myself in a rather barren nature, green “fields”, with curious bushes and plants, dotted with rather impoverished villages. Houses were sometimes half-built, with bare concrete bricks, iron rods for future cement pillars sticking out of rooftops. Glimpses inside (sometimes no windows) showed rooms with very few, simple rudimentary furniture. The sides of the streets were often littered with all sorts of waste, to me a depressing sight. At the same time I was surprised by the many people outside and especially the amount of children. Since I left that morning, I had been greeting everyone I made eye contact with. Many people were staring so the best thing I found to do was greeting them. Every time it meant that big smiles were exchanged and aware of this difference with travel in Europe (where most of the people either don’t look at you or look away after eye contact) I was in excellent spirits. I stumbled after a turn of the winding road in the hills onto a group of men, bleeding and skinning animals in a small forest and they laughed at my probably shocked face. I don’t think a first day of venturing into Morocco could have been a more stereotypical “culture shock”. Of course many things were similar by the way, as it is not my goal to only write about how different it all was. The roads were good asphalt roads, villages calm villages and the leaves green. The big roads were full of trucks and taxis and on the sides people went about their days. Industrial zones were closed off with fences. Many things were the same as always. 

That way I swiftly arrived in Tetouan, not counting the obligatory decision of mine to cut off a piece of the route, which found me pushing my bike up a steep hill over a small path and then descending over a muddy road, which left my bike completely covered with sludge. I had found a cheap hostel where I would stay two nights, that was not at all like the comfy riad in Tanger, but more like an attempt of the owner to host as many people in a barren apartment floor as cheaply as possible. But the guy at the reception was quite friendly and even invited me for the Iftar. My bike, just like in Tanger, could be stored inside in a room that was under construction. By that time, mostly under the influence of Salomé, I really got the idea of trying to respect the fasting of Ramadan. Although I had eaten before leavening around 11:00, I had refrained from another meal until then. During those days, a kind of stress had gotten unto me, of wanting to fast and respect the people around me, but not being able to do so (as hunger and travelling were too impactful). After the long meal, where I talked with the young man from the reception and his cousin about their studies and lives, I kind of crashed. Probably the lack of sleep from the last days, and the feeling of being alone again played an important role. I went to bed early that evening and stayed there until the next days afternoon, mostly spending time on my laptop and finding it impossible to get up. This pattern, where I was kind of crashing if reaching a new destination with wifi and a place to stay, would show up again and again in the coming weeks. By now, I’ve kind of accepted that it is my way of dealing with both the energy-consuming aspect of travelling and any mentally lower periods. That afternoon I kicked myself out of the bed and went to discover the old Medina. It was very vivid, full of people and stuffs. Impressive was the huge jewish and muslim cemetery extending on the northern hillside, the many artisan (like carpenters), the butchers with half cut down animals (like cow heads) hanging on hooks, the old tanneries with the many oval-shaped baths for the leather treatment and the wooden roofs put on the narrow Medina streets to provide shade. There I found an amazing small bookstore, shabby and filled from head to toe with books. Especially the collection of Quran’s was impressive. They send me to a spice and oil shop (where I got a short shoulder massage with argan oil), who then send me to a special Riff artisan shop and so forth, although it was always a bit tricky to make clear that I wasn’t going to buy any of the products. Finally I returned to the hostel for Iftar once I had bought enough food for the next morning and a good dose of special, fried biscuits oozing with honey that are only prepared during Ramadan. I was still tired, both from the busy afternoon, and from the lack of eating. In hindsight this was really me adapting to a new culture, a new country with its set of rules; Tanger still was quite European. 

Leaving Tetouan, it's still sunny out...

The next day I left, heading for Chefchaouen. I made a dose of oatmeal porridge, and one of my roommates, who had been smoking a lot hash the evening before and had some kind of cannabis-induced hangover, asked if he could join in and I gladly made him a portion too. After that I left, picked up some spare parts in the only bike shop in town. I had stayed in contact with Elorri and Valentine who were already in Chefchaouen and they had some bicycle problems, that had not been been resolved in Tanger. I offered to give it a try and replace what was needed. The parts were half the European price, which made me very happy and I bought an extra chain for myself. I left on the main road to the blue city, under a sunny sky, with the impressive Rif mountains on my left. Soon dark clouds gathered in the valley and I endured a few showers. All in all it was a beautiful ride (especially knowing I was going to sleep in another hostel there), and I stopped halfway in a little town to buy some lunch, the delicious moroccan pancake called Msemmen, that I ate bashfully hidden from the road leaving the village. After a last steep climb towards Chefchaouen, it suddenly appeared in all its beauty on the valley flank. Without a doubt it is the most pittoresque/touristy place of the whole Rif region, but for a good reason. It used to be a holy city closed for non-muslims for a long time. The medina is made of all shades and kinds of blue, built up against the steep Rif Mountains. The hostel this time was very nice again, with a beautiful terrace view on the mountains.

Best view on Chefchaouen that I was able to capture

The Rif is, for those who don’t know, one of the biggest producing area’s of cannabis in the world, with hash as it’s main produce. Chefchaouen, being so close to this region, is considered as the hash capital of Morocco, where the best quality hash can be found for the best prices. The hostel and some of the guests were quite obviously focused on this speciality of the city, some had been living there for months.

I immediately started conversations with some of them and other people and after Iftar and a meal in a restaurant, I found Salomé, Valentine and Elorri again and we had a few tea’s in some cosy cafe. They were sleeping in different Riads, the French girls even in a house on the hills opposite of Chefchaouen and with an imposed curfew it meant that they had to return rather early. In the evening The next day I went to see them and did some maintenance on their bikes, also exploring the beautiful city on my way. It was clear from their plans that they weren’t going to cycle that much anymore, so I swapped out the cassette only on one bike. I also took time to clean my chain. They were leaving the next day to Rabat to cycle all the way to Essaouira along the coastline. I had a strong feeling that I wasn’t going to see them anymore, at least during this travel. While I was there, I quickly kissed Valentine, but it was a kiss without any passion, as if it was just something mandatory. The idea that we were not going meet again, made us both a bit distant. It was a slightly painful moment, to address this, but we were both very understanding and we brought whatever romantic liaison that existed between us to an end. I was not sad, rather relieved that nobody’s feelings got hurt in any way. I also felt truly grateful for the time we had. 

We wished each other all the best and I returned to the city and had a great time exploring the Medina, looking for a certain famous leather craftsman, that I ended up finding by accidentally sheltering for rain in his brother-in-laws souvenir shop (but he was too busy to make anything for me). That evening, I went to the Hammam with two guys from the hostel. We looked for one that the locals went to and had a great experience, getting massaged with the rough washcloth and brown soap that is mandatory there. With these friends (going together to Hammam instantly cements relationships like that), I spent my last hours talking on the hostel terrace and then the next day I packed everything and left.

The steep Rif mountains as seen from the hostel terrace

Leaving Europe

Portugal offered me a host of different travelling experiences mentally. It firstly faced me with my own irrationalities, where stubbornness met self-imposed restrictions, procrastination encountered the fear of missing out, where a longing for efficiency crossed with laziness. What do all these vague contentions mean? They are part of my structures and the things that move me. I for example have been having for a while the longing of doing more than 100km a day. Of course I have had more than a few days of doing less and the kind of game I play with myself consists of covering the current gap, where if I now do a shorter day of biking, I feel the urge to even up to a hundred the next day. It is a self-imposed rule, a kind of driver that comes from my longing for distance, advancement. Of course it means that if I fail the target, or halt somewhere along the way, it feels like stalling. I have to remind me, when this slight competitive panic gains traction, that the purpose of the travel is mostly to not feel pressures and “being in a flow”. Weird how I can stress myself out sometimes.
Another of my irrationalities is that when I started to feel really dirty and unwashed, my last shower dating from Salamanca, I did not really stop somewhere to wash. In my vision the first shower I would have would be in Lisbon. I did wash myself a bit, but it did not help me feeling fresh. I realised that I was craving a “resting” place to completely crash: showering, washing clothes, charging, fixing things. Somehow I did not allow myself to do that before. It is my typical strictness that put itself in the way. Not wanting to pay for accommodation, and always feeling I would be much too late to find something on warmshowers I kind of hushed myself to continue, thinking about Lisbon. It is a mental trick, where every time I admit to the strict part of myself that although it would be nice, I ultimately do not really need this and could do without it for a bit longer. It is also a kind of laziness where I don't have to focus on organising a stay and which that way just puts advancing on the bike as the thing I can focus on.

First impressions of Portugal
were awe-inducing

A last example is that I did almost no research for my Portuguese vertical crossing, and that no wise person on my way gave me suggestions for where to go. I of course could have decided to set myself in a cafe with wifi-connection when entering the country to figure it out and create a route I would be happy about, but I didn’t, because I procrastinated it. I felt that at the moments when the questions arose (where am I actually going?), that I should continue (100km a day!) and so I based myself on the rather vague (and quite honestly disappointing) Michelin map looked at a few times. The only thing I was sure of is that I wanted to visit Lisbon. I also knew that I wanted to partly bike along the coast and if possible through the most beautiful mountainous regions. But then came the dilemma, would I sacrifice extra days to venture deeper in the hinterland, to for example explore the Serra de Estrella (that I eventually spotted on Komoot)? In theory I certainly had time for it, but somehow I wanted to continue, because I felt that Morocco was calling. But then again, why couldn’t I spare two or so days? I was clearly subject to inner conflicts between mental and emotional forces.

Lush Eucalyptus forests

To me Portugal indeed was a green oasis compared to the sometimes very dry Spain. Lush Eucalyptus tree plantations are everywhere and a lot of the country hinterland has a kind of “Tolkienesque Shire” vibe, with many tiny houses and little gardens and different cultures. The Douro valleys extensive vineyards were also impressive, but what I was missing in Portugal was a more pronounced separation between villages and quieter, natural areas. The sprawl of habitations was often quite impressive and although very well-integrated in the surrounding landscape, I did not often experience what I would title as “natural landscapes”. I felt a certain monotony, as if the landscape had been tamed and dimmed out, most of the hills terraced and most of the forests originating from plantations. Certainly the grey days right after entering the country didn’t help, neither the semi-isolation, for the almost complete unintelligible Portuguese made conversation impossible. And I was left feeling rather estranged by what I saw and what I experienced. 

But this feeling got brutally broken when I probably got the worst bicycle trouble of my life. It was a complete chain reaction, literally starting at my chain: a wrongly linked chainlink of the new one I bought in Spain (I learned a lesson there) tore at the derailleur, that got completely bent, then broke of with half of the hanger, getting caught between the spokes, some of them in their turn tearing themselves out of the rim. When the derailleur got stuck, I happened to just be climbing and thus got to an immediate standstill, wearing clipless pedals and thus falling to the side. The bags, cushioning the fall and sparing me of the impact, did snap one of the bolts holding my rear rack.

Big problem and starting to solve it.

From the estranged feeling, I suddenly arrived in a mindset of problem-solving: how to go from a crippled bike to arriving in Lisbon? I started by turning my bicycle into a single-speed bike by removing the broken derailleur and using the tension of the shortened chain to keep it in place on one cassette cogwheel. I then set out to repair each of the problems and already the same day, a Sunday to be more precise, I was helped by an incredibly kind father and son who had a bicycle and motor repair shop. They managed to remove the stuck bolt and the broken hanger, while I got invited by the local youth for a port wine aperitif in a next door cafe. The next day I managed to replace the cracked rim, a bit of a time consuming job, but I made a good deal with the local bike shop, who was very friendly too. It was also there that I realised that I would have to order specific parts online and decided to ship them to the capital. Another reason to advance swiftly to Lisbon!

One nicely found camping spot

The next days I mostly followed the coastline down south. It was very diverse, but often not that spectacular. It started with very extended and beautiful empty heathlands close to Marinha Grande, but soon became rather typical grasslands and cliffs, powdered with holiday villa’s and surf tourism infrastructure. Many new real estate projects were in construction, a sign that Portugal’s coastal tourism is far from dwindling. Only the last day was very interesting: I firstly met Ronald, the first bike packer since Sabrina in the Pyrenees. What was extraordinary is that he was also from Antwerp and we even had some acquaintances in common. Unfortunately we were heading opposite directions, otherwise we would have certainly travelled a bit together. Later that day I arrived at the Cabo de Roca, the westernmost point of Europe. It was a weird idea to have reached that and to be actually standing there, amidst tourist from all over the world, but at the same time a very normal place at the coast. 

Arriving in Sintra

After that I crossed over the hilly natural park of Sintra to the famous village of palaces. I was more impressed by the majestic, jungle-like nature of the first than the wealth and extravaganza of the latter. I decided to do the effort of riding the 30km to my Warmshowers hosts, even though I had lost quite some time pushing my bike up the hilly bits, but thought it would be okay to ride mostly downhill to Lisbon. But my bike started protesting right after leaving and the slightly elongated chain started skipping on my cassette, not being held back by the derailleur, which led to sometimes a complete blockage of my drivetrain. I could only help it by manually loosening the wheel and putting the chain back on a smaller cogwheel. To make matters worse, I also experienced another flat tire, which held me back even more and I walked a substantial part of the last stretch, both because of the often blocked chain and wheel and the hilly Lisbon suburbs. 

Lisbon under threatening clouds

Luckily I was very well received by my hosts, Quentin and Agathe, French expats. In the following days I was finally to savour the luxury of a place to stay and "crash" again since Salamanca, with laundry, showers, a soft couch to sleep on and a shelter for the almost tropical rain that fell continuously on the city during my stay (good timing on my part). Visiting the town was thus limited to indoor things, but I managed to repair my bicycle fully on the second day. On the first day I also met two very important people, Valentine and Elorri. They were also bike packers and had contacted Agathe as well, who passed on the message to me that they wanted to meet me. When we finally sat in front of each other, we not only had an amazing time talking and exchanging about our travels, but it turned out we were going in the same direction and even ultimately to Morocco! I suggested at the end of our evening that we bike together for a bit and so it happened that when I left Lissabon on the 1st of March, my birthday, I was not alone, but in the company of these two French co-travellers. 

And suddenly we were three...

That day, in splendid weather, we started exploring the famously beautiful coast south of the capital, taking two ferries to get to and from the Setubal peninsula, that was extremely beautiful. The elevated natural park of Arrabida was truly astonishing as was the dark, moonlit ferry crossing to the Troia peninsula. There we slept in the wild heathlands and cooked a nice birthday meal of Mexican tortillas. Having the vague idea of splitting up the next day at noon, we cycled together further down the wilder coast, with dry forests and heathlands. 

A road submerged by waves and suddenly Elorri, Valentine and I are back on the road together

We decided to split up in the afternoon, but when we both came stuck shortly after each other on a road at the beach that sometimes got submerged by waves we coagulated again like blood cells. We realised that it wasn’t yet time to split up, as we were clearly advancing at the same speeds, as we had different plans on how to get from Portugal to Sevilla we still agreed on the idea of parting when needed. The mood was always good and they both were interesting conversation partners. 

Cycling over gravel with
Elorri in the background

They amazed me with their natural way of travelling sociably. They were incredibly comfortable asking for help and meeting and staying in touch with people. They had since they left in January barely bivouacked and always asked locals to camp in their garden. Almost always were they eventually invited in and helped out. Another thing they liked to do is asking in bakeries or restaurants for the unsold food, which worked sometimes and got them excellent food for free. I was in a way jealous of this travel mindset and got more confronted with what I see as my rather shy and socially lazy behaviour. I have no problem talking back to people, but starting a conversation with anyone, let alone asking for a favour is often quite an undertaking. It’s weird, because it is so simple and yet I often prefer to try to fix my own things, see if I can work out a solution before asking for help or a place to stay (in the same vain as the strict mindset I talked about before: "do I really need it?"). Both travel styles have there advantages, but I greatly admire those that put meeting people on the first place.

Bivouacking at Nouno's!

They showed me how they did it that evening and we ended up bivouacking next to the holiday house of Nouno who happened to prepare the house there for guests for the next day. What a luxury as we could use the water and electricity of the outside kitchen of the place (but absolutely no fire!). Elorri, Valentine and I had an amazing night there, talking and learning each others games to play in group. The next day saw us continuing on small dust roads and between beautiful barren coastal nature and boring fields. We split up eventually as they wanted to visit some kind of “eco-lieu” up in the mountains. I was completely focused on going to the symbolical south-westernmost point of Portugal, the Cabo de São Vicente. We knew we were heading the same way and would probably meet up again in Morocco somewhere, so the goodbye wasn’t sad at all. I was mostly very grateful for the unexpected and amazing company I had had during those three days. 

The Cabo de São Vicente, Southwesternmost point of Europe.

I cycled further south, lunching at one of the most beautiful beaches of Portugal and followed a part of the Eurovelo over delicious gravel roads. I reached the Cabo at nightfall and took it all in for a while, the idea of having almost cycled the whole of Portugal and the beauty of the coast. I slept very close to it, with a view on the sea, listening to the crashing waves and mentally ready to get to Sevilla and Morocco. 

Difficult to describe the landscape and how I felt about it

The vibe changed after that day completely. I left the Portuguese coast and went back to the hinterland, this time almost devoid of the eucalyptus trees and consisting of broad hilly plains, populated by flowering bushes. The landscape was semi-agricultural, alienating and empty, but thinking back at it, it was very beautiful. The weather took a change for the worse too, with a big downpour just as I left the coastal city of Sagres. It was a warning shot for the next days, as conditions would decline gradually. 

Pulo do Lobo, truly impressive

It turned out later that this March in Spain was the wettest one in decennia. I remember especially the moment when, close to the Spanish border, I decided to do a multi-day detour, in order to see the Pulo do Lobo rapid and crossing into Spain to see the Parque Natural de Sierra de Aracena. I was sealing my fate for wet weather that rendered it very hard to enjoy most of the things I wanted to see. To get to the Pulo do Lobo, where the Guadania river suddenly cuts through a rocky valley, starting with an impressive waterfall, I cycled through the surrounding natural Parc under pouring rain the evening before, with submerged crossings, one of them forcing me to push my bike hundreds of meters through bushes to get to the other side using a shallower ford. The next day, luckily the weather had its last good moment.

Midway crossing the swollen streams during the night

For all this time I listened to an excellent podcast (but with an awful lot of terrible ads that every time broke the listening experience) about the life of David Bowie, with many interviews with key-figures from different stages of his career. Remembering the those days leaving Portugal was thoroughly marked by the gradual (re)discovery of Bowies life, including his more negative sides. Looking at the wild, meaningless landscape, I was instead picturing London of the 60's and 70's, sweaty studios, screaming crowds of fans, the meany dissapointments of a struggling you Bowie and the many adventures of his rising fame. I left Portugal after a beautiful last stretch, but in a totally casual and non-symbolic manner. Of the Sierra de Aracena, I saw almost nothing the next day: I cycled under the rain and in misty conditions, my head withdrew in my jacket as deeply as I could. I was aware of the lush forests, but not really invested.

The Cerro Colorado mine, wow!

Ironically the most impressive view and the highlight of my day was when crossing the Rio Tinto open mine site, with the Cerro Colorado mine, an enormous hole in a mountain and the biggest open-pit mine of Europe. It was populated by monstrous trucks that like ants went up and down carring the mined copper ore rocks, every building was huge industrial architecture. The name clearly came from differently coloured lakes, basins to store the probably toxic waters and chemicals released during the mining process. I later learned that it gave its name to the Rio Tinto Group, the second biggest mining company in the world. After that I arrived in an enormous, empty landscape of bushy hills, similar to what I saw in Portugal. Under the continuous rain, I felt little for sleeping in my wet tent (hadn’t been able to dry it), when by chance I stumbled upon a kind of refuge. Although rather dirty and unwelcoming, like an abandoned house, there was dry wood stored in a chimney and enough room to hang up my clothes and tent. What a comfort, to warm in front of a fire and be sheltered from the rain. The rain would not stop that night and continued violently in the morning.

Incredibly thankful for that refuge!

It would be my last stop before Sevilla, and somehow I made the stupid decision to go to its camping; one hour of cycling from the centre and really expensive for the lone traveller. I added a few mistakes to the bad decision: I decided to wash my clothes (but had to dry them somehow) and find Valentine and Elorri in the city centre, eventually going out with them. It was an amazing evening, discovering Sevilla, eating well and then dancing, something I hadn’t really done since New Year (I will not consider the fruitless and rather silly attempt in Madrid to get a party started in a cocktail lounge as so). But all the stupid decisions came together when I arrived under the rain in the camping rather drunk at four in the morning, discovering all my clothes and other stuff completely wet. I consequently suffered from a pretty bad hangover the next morning, which was not helping to deal with the mess of wet clothes, and organising the departure towards Tarifa. It also stripped me completely of any desire to explore Sevilla further, something I kind of regret now, especially because it turned out the hostels were much cheaper in town.

Although a short stay in Sevilla, I was
able to admire the Plaza de Espagna

I also have to tell a bit about the night going out with the two girls, as at the end I kissed one of the two. Mostly motivated by drunkenness and the general attractiveness of Valentine, we had been dancing closer and closer. As our ways split again when leaving the club, and especially when I sobered up when riding home, I realised that it was not ideal. I felt that when riding before with them I was a fine addition to two very close friends. Having gotten closer, I felt like I was making that friendship maybe more imbalanced. It would definitely have been difficult to travel together. Valentine and I didn’t really feel the need to talk about it a lot, clearly we both had enjoyed our closeness. But I needed energy to thoroughly deal with it and combined with feeling awful from to much alcohol, I thusly decided to travel alone further to the south, feeling like cycling was the only thing I could bring myself to.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that that day was awful. Strong headwind, rain and the empty plain south of Sevilla. The low point was that evening when I wanted to eat somewhere sheltered and tried to ask at different houses I encountered. Unfortunately, many of them were completely surrounded by walls and had no doorbells (and seemed quite desolate), so I ate at the first accessible roof I found, a highway restaurant that seemed closed. Only mid-through cooking my pasta, the lights went on and I realised that without asking, this wet, tired and miserable heap of a man was probably not very welcome on the terrace. Luckily for me, no-one showed up and the owners did not bother to come out. I left silently and camped at the outskirts of a village on a side road. Fortunately, the more I travelled south the next day, the more the landscape gained in beauty. Not being in a state of hungover and some sunny moments helped immensely to regain motivation and cycle into the mountains that lie southeast of Sevilla. Calling my brother Marius, who was travelling too, assisted enormously as well as cleaning my bike chain a bit and so I was again stunned when in the evening I arrived in the heart of the Parque Natural de Los Alcornocales. 

Waking up after a wet night, narrowly escaping another terrible rainstorm and later that day being able to dry the stuff (and a view on the boring plain of the Quadalquivir river)

Lush nature in Los Alcornales

I travelled up a valley that was only used by a huge highway (towards Algeciras) and its maintenance road. Although rainy, it was incredible being again in such splendid nature after Sevilla. The last day went quickly: I took a gravel road, part of another Eurovelo through a sidevally (met a  dutch couple of cyclists) and biked to the coast. On the last stretch before the seaside I met a cyclist from Québec who had been travelling for two months from Mauritania all the way up through Morocco and really recommended me the Anti-Atlas, something I kept in mind. Arriving in Tariffa was kind of underwhelming, an ugly coastal town it seemed. 

Last punctured of the 'tired'
 front tire in Los Alcornales

I had booked my ferry the evening before, but around noon I got the message that it had been cancelled due to the very windy conditions. I had thus time to explore old city and actually Tariffa is kind of cute at its heart. The coast of Morocco is very well visible across the Straight and that was kind of intimidating. The cancelled ferry also gave me time to prepare my stay in Morocco in a better way: I pulled out an important sum of euro’s to exchange them later for Moroccan Dirhams, bought a new front tire (the old second hand one I had saved from my bike shop in Antwerp had been worn out), and read about things to do in Tanger. I ritually drank a last beer that evening and slept in a quiet motocross park outside of town. I must admit that I was quite nervous. Morocco had been the ultimate objective, but I had a consistent feeling of not being prepared at all for discovering it, nor the destinations, nor the cultural differences. I was afraid of the unknown. I talked to a friend about it, but it did not relieve the anxiousness. The next morning I took the ferry to Tanger. It was a bit expensive, but very well organised for travellers with bicycles (with a kind of VIP treatment as I was the only cyclist). Talking to an old Spanish lady that was visiting Tanger for one day and only understanding half of what she said, I felt my fear turning into excitement as the Moroccan coast approached.

The good eye will see the Rif mountains on the horizon, exciting!

To the border of Portugal

Different patterns in my travel emerge. Like on previous travels I use cities or other symbolic stops as my horizons and targets. I often beforehand divide my route into different parts based on them. Madrid was special in the way that it was, when leaving that town, the last big stop and horizon before Morocco. But the latter one is not a specific stop. It is for me mentally a vague big place where I’ll take a ferry to, but nothing more. Maybe Tanger is quite concrete, but no-one is waiting for me there and I haven’t really decided yet what I shall do once arrived. Parallel to the pattern of my cycling/stopping behaviour, is also a sense that it is always a bit hard for me to leave. Especially the day before and the day where I start pushing my pedals again, I often don’t feel very happy or enthusiastic. I remember when I left home and how weird I felt. But the same goes for leaving l’impasse du Mage or Grenoble. But never has it been harder now than leaving Madrid. The week spent with my university friends (even though they are so much more than just our common link of the UGent) and then with Rosa, a good friend of my fathers’, was so nice and comforting. I remembered how thrilling it can be to live in a city: going to bars, good food, museums and exhibitions, meeting people, discovering weird places and thank goodness, cinemas! Safe to say, I wish it could have lasted longer. But this is a bicycle travel, no city trip. And it was difficult to leave, nonetheless. A big fear, or something that I have been taking a lot into account at least, is me losing the motivation to continue. I feel like this time I have been close to that feeling when biking away through Madrid’s suburbs. I was suddenly again confronted with loneliness, that only became clear when I saw my friends on the other side of the street at the youth hostel when arriving in the capital. Throughout the week, I looked back on all those days travelling alone and felt the contrast, how happy I was to be in such nice company. It hit me hard to see them go away to the bus station and came as strongly back when cycling away from Rosa’s apartment. But I knew somewhere that this feeling, numb, aimless and sad, would go away, but I was surprised that for one day and a half, it didn’t. 

Surprise of ripping my bag and the later result of repair

Somehow I was able to handle quite well the first setback of this new part of my travel: ripping my old brown Ortlieb bag to shreds on a sharp bit of a crash barrier. I’ve been checking all of them since that accident and literally not a single shard is to be seen. What a bad luck to crash on the only crash barrier shard of Spain! I secured the different shreds of the bag together with a few safety pins and then biked to the nearest Decathlon thinking to buy a new bag. But not finding any suitable model, I stumbled on some kind of blue-coloured fabric repairing tape. It worked quite well, as can be seen on the picture. It is even supposed to be water repellent, but we’ll see about that. I’m not expecting much rain in the areas I’ll be biking to (just touched the ground to not jinx myself). I handled all this rather indifferently and cycled further, back towards the Guadarrama mountains I had come from the week before.

Looking back, it was a beautiful camping spot

When I woke up the next morning, close to an actually beautiful lake, I was worried to still feel this kind of numbed out. I even started to think about my options for if I decided to return home. But I was close to the Escorial and the Valley of the Fallen, a Fascist/Francoist monument to the victims of the Civil War that used forced labour to get constructed, and also house thousands of remains of rebels, that often got exhumed from their previous resting places without the consent of their family. I knew that somewhere my future self would have wanted to see this places so that already was some sort of motivation. Of course it was a goddamn Monday so the Escorial palace would be closed, but at least I could admire it from the outside. It was truly imposing to see. When I ate my lunch in a park close by, I stumbled on Raul (or rather the other way around), a surfer and world traveler, who lived there. He always spoke with “people on the Way” as he said, beautiful, poetic spanglish, and was very admiring and asked many questions. Somehow this interaction formed a complete switch in my mood. We laughed a bit and I asked him about his travels. It was like stumbling onto a small stream in a desert and then seeing how is slowly grew into a mighty stream. Another thing that helped when leaving El Escorial, was listening to podcasts. With this newfound sense of enjoyment and eagerness to continue, I started cycling to get over the Guadarrama pass and into the direction of Salamanca. Having crossed the mountains, I arrived back into the vast, endless spaces that Spain seems to be so full of. 

I took a road between El Espinar to Avila that was in this valley that was so enormous and empty, with perfectly straight barbed wire fences that almost disappeared in the distance up the valley’s flanks. Then, leaving that valley, came a particular rocky terrain, with huge blocks of granite that stuck out of the ground, the latter having eroded away. Populated with all these holm oak and other arid vegetation, it forms a hostile, impressive and thus beautiful landscape. It is only weird how many of the terrain is private (or at least thoroughly fenced).

Camping between boulders near Avila

With some difficulty I camped in this landscape close to Avila, that I discovered the next morning. The old medieval walls are really impressive, as is the cathedral made of this bloody-meat stone. I was going to Salamanca that day as Rosa had brought me into contact with the son of a friend that lived there. I biked all day through the same rock chaoses, as described before. At some places the rocks made way to tall, old holm oaks sparsely distributed over the dry grass of meadows, simulating what for me resembled to the Savannahs of Africa or South America. Podcasts continued to be a continuous presence and I discovered a format I really like: the “Long Reads” of the Guardian. I like the vast range of topics it brings and just a voice reading this long, well-written articles. Another podcast worth mentioning, “Kunst, Kunst en nog eens Kunst” (unfortunately only in Dutch), is about Flemish artists in the broad sense that in long talks of at least one and a half hour get the time to really go in dept about their lives and art. I appreciate the time they get and also the slightly amateurish (but then also disarming) interview style of the often very well prepared host.

Those podcasts brought me swiftly to the oldest university city of Spain. I got hosted amazingly by Axel, who teleworked as a software developer for an international company. He is passionate about darts and after an excellent home made tortilla we went to a nice bar where we also met one of his childhood friends Adri. Trying out interesting beers and also one round of darts set the mood for a very pleasant stay in Salamanca. Axel, who also studied economics, was very nice to talk to and this even lead to some deep conversations about economic history. The next day I took the time to visit the city that reminded me a lot of Bologna, my Erasmus destination. I combined the picturesque city centre, already quite full of tourists, with a visit to the Ars Domus 2002 museum, that was almost completely empty, but housed some very interesting modern art. Especially the temporary exhibition about contemporary Cuban art was impressive.

Cheeky self-portraits in Salamanca

That evening I joined Axel and Ari for their weekly darts competition, but not before having a delicious tapas diner and trying out some of the local dishes like Jeta (not vegetarian unfortunately). I think I got a bit more appreciation for darts, even as it still kind of affirmed all of it’s clichés of a macho, beer, cafe oriented sport.

Literally empty, finding in the middle
of nowhere this abandoned real
estate project, as if everyone had vanished

The next morning, I left again, eager to explore the northwest of Spain. I again cycled through alternations of this Savannahs and rock chaoses. I also managed to find a Warmshowers host who would accept me in Lisbon, which created a new concrete horizon to my travels. I was surprised to find again empty spaces so close to the border with Portugal. The next day, I crossed the Duero river I already had seen as a big stream near Soria (and now had cut out a deep canyon) and cycled a short time through Portugal, only to come back in Spain after that. Apart from the delicious “pastels de nata” I saw that the small roads were in poor shape and the small villages that lay next to them were in a significantly more precarious state than in Spain. I was slowly leaving the rather flat, undulating plains north of Salamanca behind and arrived in the mountains of the North. 

The Duero river as border between Portugal and Spain, arriving in new hilly terrain and the climb in the Sierra de la Cabrera

This meant again long climbs, which the podcasts helped me overcome. The sierras of Culebra and La Cabrera were the next two big obstacles, both on rather bad roads, but with vast, amazing wildness. Traces of more or less recent forest fires alternated with heathlands that were grazed by cows or sheep and intact pine forests. When cleaning my chain, I noticed that my experiment of not changing the cassette when replacing the chain had given rather poor results. The wear on the new chain had gone much faster. After less than 1000 kilometres it had already been worn down to 75%. I ventured deeper into the Cabrera mountains, having crossed a 18540m pass that I kind of wasn’t used to anymore. But quickly I readapted to cycling through mountains, I had to: the next day I crossed a mountain, part of the Montes de Leon, that took me back to 1950m (still nothing compared to that damn 2400m Andorra pass and I also started out quite high). 

Desolate mountains

The bare flanks, only low shrubs, the curvy valley bassins, rocks, the patches of snow and the resulting desolation were impressive as was the view on the other high mountains. The roads up there were capricious and steep. The grey weather even provided some snowflakes which made me even more disconnect from the busy worlds of Madrid and Salamanca. But I felt strong and curious, determined to tame the heights and the cold wind. After that high climb I arrived in Ponferrada, from where the mountain I had been only an hour before seemed impossibly high and far away. From that city I was determined to follow the Sil river to Ourense, as had been suggested by Miguel, my Warmshower host from Zaragossa. 

Las Medulas

A particular area of interest on the way was Las Medulas, one of the biggest gold mine of the Roman Empire, where 1600 tonnes of the precious material had been mined throughout the antiquity. For that, the Roman engineers used a technique called ruina montium, or the ravaging of the mountains. This was a technique where water was used to erode enormous parts of the mountain flanks through dug out tunnels to expose veins of gold and later to also carry the gold to sluices were it could sink and be collected. The effects of this landscape-changing technique are still visible and together with the reddish earth of the exposed and eroded flanks and extremely old chestnut trees it creates a truly beautiful site that is justly incorporated on the UNESCO list. It is even possible, with some mountain-bike skills, to explore the site by bike and it was certainly a highlight of my journey in Spain. 

Arriving spring and the Sil canyon

Afterwards following the beautiful Sil river through the mountains really enthused me to continue and enjoy the next parts of my travels. It was weird to remember the disinterested feeling when leaving Madrid. The next day showed the full extent of Sil’s beauty, with lush, lichen-covered forest, the same century-old chestnut trees, terrace cultivations and rocky canyons. Another surprising thing was that suddenly a lot of plants were flowering. Spring was arriving and colours came back to the often grey-brown nature. It gave a joyous feeling, as spring should, and made me arrive just in time in Ourense to enjoy for five minutes its thermal hot springs (some of them have a free entrance), before closing time. Just lying in that hot water, aaaah… I stocked up on food in the local Lidl and biked away into the night. The next day I measured my chain again, and it had been completely worn out, which prompted me to buy in the nearest bike shop a new cassette and chain, which I replaced at once. That way, I’m hopefully prepared for Portugal (I’m 30kms from the border) and Morocco, having 2500 worry-free kilometres before me.