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.

Tuesday 23rd May - From Imilchil through the mountains & down to Meknes - 202km (trip total 4710 km)

A lovely ride through the highlands before descending down into the heat & rain.

I had a rather restess night on account of the seemingly constant baying of a local donkey which seemed to be in some sort of distress. I asked H at breakfast if he had been sleepwalking again, but apparently not!

After a rudimentary but pleasant local breakfast (flat bread, honey, pankakes and a hard boiled egg) I was in high spirits setting off on the mountain roads as we were still at 2500m and the air was cool & fresh.

Lake Tislit was nearby so we stopped off for a look see.

And then it was off continuing the journey north across the mountain range. The road surface quickly deteriorated, but was still fun to ride......

..... weaving its way around the peaks.

...... in places needing considerable care.

Every so often we would pass locals going about their daily routine, sometimes near a settlement, sometimes apparenetly in the midfle of nowhere.

We passed thorugh the small mountain town of Aghbala, which was quite busy that day ....

.... with vendors selling their wares ....

Note the gentlemenwearing the blue robe with apointed hat - this is the traditional djellaba, though normally we had seen these in dark brown as we rode through the mountains.

We also caught the tail end of a small market, whic expliaine the various trucks carrying goats we had seen on the road.

The local women were washing berber rugs in the small stram that ran by the road.

Then it was back on the open road into a beautiful section with grasses and other crops - this was a high plateau at about 2000m and very windy.

A young girl riding a horse - mostly we saw donkey's.

... and goats ...

on closer inspection the fields also contained some pretty flowers.

They were in the process of resurfacing the road in this section, with loose gravel which made for some squirmy riding and was causing H some concern on the Honda with sport touring tyres - no mishaps though.

I loved the freshness of this plateau after the heat if the desert and bleakness of the barren heights.

The next village were having a school dports day.

We started to descend towards Meknes, the temperature increasing all the time.

The roads were still pleasant but the heat was getting to us again even though there was the threat of rain in the sky.

It did rain shortly after, very heavily in fact, so no more pictures until arriving at tonights lodging, a pleasant B&B in the residential subhurbs north if Meknes city.

Monday 22nd May - Todra Gorge, up to 2669m & onto Imilchil - 202km (trip total 4710 km)

The morning took us back down the Dades gorge to Boumalne and then east on the main road across the arid desert plain - just as hot as yesterday.

After an hour or so we reached Tinghir from where we would take the local road north into the Todra gorge and continue uo into the mountains.

The towns here always seem to have a good number of people just sitting around, but are otherwise pretty well ordered and friendly places. Once onto the local road we saw the usual collection of donkeys ferrying various items to and fro, with that look of glum resignation they seem to have mastered.

As we entered the gorge proper, the rock faces became near vertical - never seen anyone climbing, but I wiuld imagine its pretty good, if a little warm.

As the gorge reached its narrowest point, mostnof thentraffic stopped and there were a collection of souvenir stalls - this was the turn around point for most tourists.

We however pressed on through the narrow cleft in the rocks

and onto the road that continued down the gorge beyond, which progressively widened as the road began to climb with a satisfying seriesvof twists and turns.

On route I saw this unusual building, which was completely different to anything else seen so far both in design & colour. It seemed unnoccupied and was nowhere near anythimg else, so not sure what it was.

Another hour further on and we had risen to over 2600m - the temperature had dropped noticably and the landscape had become more bleak & forboding.

The highest point of the pass registered as 2669m on my sat nav and was very windy.

The road continued at this height for quite a way, there were some very hardy tribesmen & goats moving around. I also saw mule trains innthe distance being guided by heavily clad berbers.

Periodically we would pass through a small village, the condition of the road would always be worse within the village than before or after - demarkation of funding I assume.

The villages seemd to always have a mix of old once beautiful ruins, modern box houses and a large variety of part finished buildings. There was hardly ever any actual building activity going on, it was as if time had been suspended in that regard.

A common characteristic, as I have found in villages worldwide, was the friendliness of the people - especially the kids who love to run out and wave, or sometimes scarily try to touch you as you ride past.

The wind that had been strongly knocking us about and whipping up dust finally brought some rain - the first proper rain I have experienced in Morocco - it actually became quite cool for a while.

Then by mid afternoon we had reached Imilchil, a small mountain town made famous for hosting the 'Marriage Moussem' each September. This is a festival where up to 30000 berbers gather to trade and also where multiple marriage ceremonies are carried out.

It is a pleasant little town and our lodging for the night a very basic but comfortable & clean pension.

It was quite cool this evening as we are still at around 2500m.

Tomorrow we continue north thorugh the mountain range before descending and heading towards Meknes.