Thursday 25th May - A stroll around Chefchaouen - 0km (trip total 4918 km)

Chefchaouen (pronounced 'shefshewen') is known as the blue city, on account of the blue whitewash applied to many of the buildings. It certainly looks pretty nestled in between the hills.

I went for a walk up a path behind the B&B to get a good long distance view.

And tried an 'arty' shot through the wild flowers - this being a rest day 'n all. 😉

Once I had started I couldn't stop, flowering cactus anyone?

There were lots of nice flowers growing wild ...

even this one!

Further up there was a padlocked door to somewhere .... maybe a portal to another universe?

The path led up the mountain and beyond the 'Spanish Mosque' built in the early 1920's by the Spanish but never used.

So I went over for a closer look.

I then headed down to the town, which is quite popular with tourists - photo with an ostrich anyone?

The town has an old kasbah in the centre ....

.... and walls that rise steeply up the mountainside.

I wonder why they didnt build them at the top of the peak. Surely their defensive capability was somewhat limited by having higher ground immedietely behind them - any invaders would simply have to chuck rocks from the top down in the town. But maybe I am missing something.

One attractive and ungenious featurebof the town is the way they have made use of a mountain stream that runs down the steep valley. At various points they have built channels that divert some of the water for various purposes - in this case through an outdoor laundry where ladies wash clothes & rugs.

I entered the town through a small gate in the walls

.... and progressed steadily down the narrow labyrinth of streets. The bluewash is very distinctive & apparently was first intruduced by the jewish community bu adding indigo to the whitewash to contrast with the traftional green of Islam.

By the afternoon the streets are full of stalls selling rugs, leather goods, piaintings and all manor of items for locals & tourists alike.
In the morning they were just setting up domit was a bit quieter.

I like the way the blue contrasts wuth the natural ochre colour of the stone and pinks of fabrics etc. It is a much photographed city.

Photo opportunities exist at every corner.

The kasbah dates back to 1471 and is a nice quiet retreat from what become very busy streets from mid afternoon.

Here you can see one if the water channels taking some of the stream flow through the town.

.... and here over a little aqueduct to a other area.

A very pleasant town to amble around if you are ever in the area.

Last night in Africa tonight, an early start tomorrow to head for Tangier, get a ferry ticket and head back to Spain.

Wednesday 24th May - From Meknes to Chefchaouen - 208km (trip total 4918 km)

We left the B&B in the southern oustskirts of Meknes and rode through the city to see the walls & gates. The city has an imperial past, the Sultan Moulay Ismail having made it his capital in the 17th century.

It is surrounded by walls, which on the route I took were in two sets, so you rode between them.

With periodic small gates...

.... before reaching Bab Mansour, a huge gate with arches and mosaic tiling.

From there we tracked thorugh the rest of the city, a lot of traffic and out onto the open road....

... and into the pleasant countryside just north of Meknes

We were heading first for the ancient city of Volubilis.

Volubilis is a partly excavated Berber and Roman city, commonly considered as the ancient capital of the kingdom of Mauretania.

It was taken by local tribes around AD 285 but was never retaken by Rome because of its remoteness and indefensibility on the south-western border of the Roman Empire.

The site became the seat of Idris ibn Abdallah, the founder of the Idrisid dynasty and the state of Morocco. By the 11th century however, Volubilis had been abandoned after power transferred to Fes. Much of the local population was moved to the new town of Moulay Idriss Zerhoun, which we the rode through and looked upon from the hill.

From there it was scheduled to be main road all the way to our next stop, which was fine for a while but the hot wind was picking up along with the traffic.

So I diverted down some small roads that headed in roughly the same direction.

Very pleasant local farming area, these ladies were lifting buckets if water from a well and pouring into large bags on the back of the donkey.

Here too was the brown Djellaba again, much in evidence.

We rejoined the main road some time later, by which time the cross wind was even stronger and was making cornering quite scary on occasions ( you lean into a corner and half way round a violent gust whips you upright again - tends to spoil you line somewhat and quite unerving if a truck is cutting the corner in the opposite direction!)

After battling on for an hour, we stopped for a while in the hills, which were starting to look distinctly mediterranean rather than African.....

..... and watched a shepherd herd his goats.

He decided to move them up the hill and across the main road - quite a risky task on a blind bend given the frequency of high speed traffic that kept appearing.

They all made it across safely - just!

One of my readers remarked yesterday on the absence of 'selfies' ... so here you are Griff, enjoy!

I'm currently trying to work out how to change the beard shade to something more like this .... 😉

Then it was a largely uneventful ride to the 'blue city' of chefchaouen - our last stop in Africa.

Having a rest day here before tacking the port back to Spain - so expect some touristy travel shots tomorrow.

Thursday 18th May - The Tizi n'Test pass - 182km (trip total 3818 km)

Today's ride was up and down the Tizi n' Test pass, a 2100m pass completed around 1930 that runs through the high Atlas mountains ultimateley connecting Marakesh with Taroudant.

We had decided not to go to Taroudant (as originally planned) as the temperatures there were now in the 40's and instead spend an extra day in the mountains. So we rode up the pass to the summitt and then back - a very pleasant 5 hour round trip, through some wonderful scenery & challenging roads.

As I said yesterday, I had decided to dedicate todays ride to two SSBB bloodbiker colleagues who have sadly passed way in the past 2 weeks and so rode with them in my mind & added an SSBB sticker to the collection at the summitt cafe in memory of NB & MH.

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves today.