Morocco Journal — Evan Christenson

I fell in love with Morocco

I fell so deeply in love with a constricted, mostly forgotten country trundling through it’s small towns and dirty markets looking intently for something. I was looking for a spot of casual fun over Spring Break. But what I found was something else entirely.

The story begins a couple days prior in Lisbon, but that’s not the story I want to tell. I entered Morocco alone after a rough fight and messy split from my travel partner. We rolled out of Lisbon 4 days prior, and after 600 difficult miles I stumbled through rough translations onto a cargo ship sized ferry to Africa alone, hungover and apprehensive.

The winds were powerful the day before. They ripped through the canyons we rode through blowing branches across the road and holding us to a standstill. The winds would do the same to the ferries- they were kept in port for the day- and with little evidence for letting up I began looking for flights across the Straits of Gibraltar. I woke early pleading with God to let me cross, frantic to get to Morocco. Time was running low, and if I wanted to make it to Marrakech I needed this ferry.

Desperate pleading would work- the ferries were let free despite the continued pounding of the wind. And after a groggy 5am roll to the port and a four hour wait later, I’m slumped against a port side window half sleeping and half hiding from the onset of fascinatingly new faces. The ship starts pitching as we leave the cover of the Spanish harbor. I say goodbye to any final semblance of European comfort. From here on there is no familiarity. No friends, no knowledge, no commonality. Heaving side to side, the ship rocks me in and out of dreams of foreign lands into the inevitable realities of one. 4 days and 600 miles already into this trip my body was eager for rest, but the mind and body would remain at odds - the most arduous part of this journey is yet to begin.

The men at customs laugh at me. I’m an American mess fumbling for my passport and carrying far too little to tackle a country on bike. Them waving me through without a question or a search feels like the dares I used to get. “Hey Evan bet you can’t ride up that hill” my step dad would say and watch as I came stumbling back down. The officer holding my passport says the same. “You’re never making it up these mountains and all the way to Marrakech you stupid, ignorant child.” Maybe he’s saying it aloud or maybe it’s me deep in my own thoughts. A begrudging commitment drags me through the post and into Morocco. An unfamiliar flag thrashes in the background. Rows of cars, buses, taxis and RV’s sit idle. I can’t stop thinking I’m in Africa.

The wind is so powerful. It blows heavily off the coast sandblasting my face with the nearby construction. I had two routes roughly planned- one far along the western coast to Casablanca then inland to Marrakech. The other pointing immediately east inland towards the wind, the Rif and later the Atlas mountains. Casablanca has an infamous romance but I dream of the Atlas. It’s high peaks and defiant remoteness resonate deep into my need for reckless adventure. The first one off the ferry, I aim the bike east. We’re gonna push for the Atlas.

The first town I ride into terrifies me. Blurred by terror but sharpened by intent I scan for danger. The faces are so different to those in Spain. They’re dirty, tattered. Kids beg for food on the street. Dying cars litter the streets flooding it with diesel as they struggle into the mountains. I sit protecting my bike at a small cafe and have a moment of despair. What am I doing here? Am I going to die? One of the kids disappears around a corner and I wonder if he’s searching for a Kalashnikov. I’ll reluctantly buy some cookies for them in hopes of a plea bargain and stuff my pockets with Oreos as I scramble out of town. I change into my kit on the side of the highway and clip in for the first time. What awaits I do not know, and at this point, I don’t eagerly await.

Riding straight into the base of the Rif mountains I get thrown around. The wind has gotten worse, and now funneling through the canyons it bullies me with no agenda. I’m at the mercy of God now, and whenever the cover lapses and I find myself exposed, he blows me furiously off the road. Everything I can give I give to fight against it but I find myself blown into the dirt- then on to the ground- and then sliding under guard rails and pinned down. I’m screaming ‘FFFFUUUUUCK YOU’ to the heavens fighting desperately for meters. Push, lean, fight, grit, go. On the ground again- Unclip, drag my body out from under the bike, pull the bike out from under the guard rail and struggle to keep it on the ground while it’s being blown out of my hands. My small bags act as sails as I walk to the next section of cover. I’ll remount and get ~2 minutes to reset riding slowly through the trees as the world goes quiet again. Breathe, settle, focus. The cover breaks as the ocean comes into view again. The howl of the wind sits on the edge of the inevitable. Here we go again.

‘FFFFUUUUUCK YOU’

The rain begins soon afterwards, and the progress is unbelievably slow. I push hard to cover 15km in an hour. But at one point the rains let up, and I ride past a small elementary school. Four young kids run across the playground and stand atop the fences making hearts with their hands at me. My pedalling slows and chest grows heavy- the first three hours in Morocco have been brutal, but it was these four kids that became a desperate beacon of hope shining a light in this miserable storm when I needed it most. Maybe this country will be lovely after all and maybe I’ll find what I’m looking for. Maybe I’ll be ok.

2 miles later a lightning strike 300 feet away almost rocks me off my bike. GO GO GO. SHIT SHIT SHIT.

Or maybe this country won’t be lovely and maybe I’ll die here.

The winds are relentless, and it’s only once I get far inland they begin to forgive my tired legs. It’s here I roll through my first real street market. The lone street is blindingly chaotic with seemingly no organization. People swarm the road so no cars can get through- a man is holding chickens by the legs. Lamb carcasses dangle from a shop. Flies swarm the street vendors peddling dates, nuts and spices and the powerful scents mix with a slurry of new language. I stop and buy a couple chocolate bars and think how out of place my shining Oakleys must look amongst the clay, bricks, and old dirtied cloth. A man at a small market compliments my French and asks if I rode here from France. Merci beaucoup mon ami, mais tu as tres tort.

Hours later I climb into Chefchaouen, a haven for Jews during WWII. Seeking refuge in the mountains, they painted their homes, shops and streets blue to represent purity and heaven. In a time when their people suffered so much, it’s comforting to think that some got out and found refuge and a home in this small gem in Northern Morocco. Today, Chefchaouen is bustling with tourism. After speaking a mix of French/Spanish with rural locals all day I was startled to see Chinese and American tourists walking through the streets with selfie sticks and bulky DSLR’s. They hold maps and walk through trinket markets targeting tourists oblivious to the madness a couple KM’s below. I forget about traditional tourism after being alone on the bike all day. What are you doing here? You rode all the way here too? Some kids beg for money and others offer to help me to my hostel. I’ll give dirham to some of them failing to ride past the guilt. Thinking of you Kipling.

Almost home for the night. There’s a group of 4 boys walking up the main hill in the town. One leads them on a green BMX bike much too small for his gangly limbs. He’s doing wheelies to the burden of the locals he drifts too close to. I ride next to him smiling and count us down, launching a wheelie of my own in tandem. The synchrony is incredible. The boys are yelling and some locals cheer us on and through the focus of controlling a 50 pound bike the world stops. The noise stops. The pain and the soreness and the winds and the cultural divide I’ve drowned in all day stops and for these five blissful seconds all there is in this massive world is a Moroccan boy and I, side by side, laughing in harmony doing wheelies with a smile tearing at the edges of our faces. I pedal too hard and loop out, landing hard on my ass and laughing even harder. I quickly rush to my feet embarrassed but still teeming with joy. I hug the boy. Thank you my friend, I needed that.

I sit alone at dinner listening half heartedly to the nearby conversations. I stumbled into another tourist trap but was too exhausted to search for genuity. The couple sitting on my left from Hong Kong and I chat a little, but I mainly stare blankly into the distance. They scroll on their phones, occasionally showing one another a cell phone photo from the same trip they’ve been stuck on together. The man makes an animation out of photos of his wife jumping in front of a mosque, making a star with her arms and legs. The family of six on my right is travelling here from Napa Valley. They talk about how much fun they had on the dune buggies, and how many likes Julia got on her Instagram photo. The mom complains about her follower count. The dad complains about the children begging for money. “Where can I get some wine around here?” the mom asks.

Walking back to my hostel, a man in a small shop starts yelling at me. “Young man! You look hungry! Come here!” I smell fries. He’s right. I talk with him and his wife and eat a second dinner, with the smell and sizzle of the grill overpowering my already depleted senses. The persistent nerve damage tingles and I stare blankly at the cracking orange wall across. A local man and I begin a long conversation about Chefchaouen, his hometown. He’s seen it change a lot over the years, and although the influx of tourism has brought him opportunity as a tourist guide, he misses how calm it used to be. He complains about the Chinese tourists the most and laughs about how one accidentally hit him with a selfie stick earlier that day. Outside a guy leaves the restaurant I was just at on a moped delivering pizzas. Girls walk by speaking English. What happened to Morocco? Where did all these people come from? I thank the man whose name I couldn’t pronounce, pay my 30 dirham and stumble home for the night.

I dream of wind. Powerful, scary wind.

The owner of my hostel and some friends checking out my bike

A local woman brings my first Moroccan breakfast to my hostel the next morning. Whole wheat bread, olive oil, cheese, oily fried eggs, olives, tea and coffee. Bread and eggs, the early tingle of chamois butter and the slow, painful creak from my knees would become a morning ritual. I was already dosing 800mg of ibuprofen and a mix of CBD cream and questionable Spanish anti-inflammatory spray on my knees but they groan as I lumber to breakfast. Riding for double the time spent sleeping each day was a brutal new sensation, but as I warmed into the first hour, slowing to look back at the sunrise over Chefchaouen, it all began to make sense.

There’s an alarming juxtaposition riding early the second morning. It feels as if this country wants to apologize for the pain she put me through yesterday. As I summit the first long climb of the day, I stop to gather myself. Tailwinds and smooth, easy rolling. Lush hillsides and small mountain springs. I question reality. Children run along the streets to wave and give high-fives. I’m amazed by their excitement and abundance. When do they go to school around here?

I stop at another small market to fill up on chocolate and water. The man (pictured) and I laugh as we negotiate dirham. He offers me a line of hash and shows me how to snort it off your thumb. I ask where the trash is to throw away the water bottle I just emptied. We sit high above a beautiful plateau of the Rif valley. He laughs, trash? You’re looking at it, and motions down the hill to a sea of plastic. The grassy meadow is destroyed. Littered with plastic it’s lost so much natural allure. I’ve never seen such an imposing, wild concentration of it before. I’m gutted. How can they they treat this place so poorly? And laugh while doing so? The infrastructure for proper disposal hasn’t been implemented yet. It’s difficult- We’re high in the Rif, with only one road going in and out. The financial implications are high, and Morocco’s relatively strong economy for Northern Africa is focused on agriculture and developing tourism in its more lucrative cities. Fes, Casablanca, Marrakech have glamour and allure- and their history makes them the cash cows the country is aiming to capitalize on. It’s devastating that an area as lush as Rif valley is left behind. The people are kind, and the roads are beautiful. The R419 flows beautifully with the fluctuation of the land. I ride by small farms, and close to the river. Children play in it and women wash their clothes. Other kids jump onto the road and give high fives as I ride by. “Hola! Bonjour!” Some pick me quick- “American!!” and they point and I wave with a laugh. Is it that easy to tell?

I ride for a couple hours- the roads never slowing in their beauty. I stop in Oued Malha for food again. This market is small, but the density is astounding. The walls are covered in cookies, chips, bars, canned goods. As I roll in a man outside holds a tired and rusty commuter bike. He laughs and motions something along the line of “Do you want to trade?” and I laugh a bit too. But as I return with my cookies, he keeps joking. I play along, “Want to ride it??” Some other townsmen have converged into the market and translate for me. He navigates mounting my tall, loaded bike and takes it up the street. More men come laughing into the market. The group of us are laughing hard as he struggles with the brakes. ‘C’est bien?’ He doesn’t speak Spanish but I’m reaching in hilarious desperation. Three more people take my bike for a spin, riding further and further up the street each time until the fourth man takes it over the hill and out of view.

Ohhhh shit. How am I getting home now? I’d built trust with these people. I treat them with respect and they treat me with the same, but I have a moment of panic. What have I done?

A wave of laughter welcomes him as he crests the hill and I hide my sigh. I’m ashamed of my American naivety. Every child, and every man have been nothing but welcoming into their distant homes. I thank the ones in the market and pull out my camera. The laughter ends and tension rises- no one here likes having their photo taken and I’m met with a glare of cultural deposition. Early into the trip it makes me uneasy and stray away from intimate photography of the people I’m brushing shoulders with. They give in and muster a smile. I thank them all, clasp my hands and bow. Inappropriate, but fun at the time.

And what would turn into a beautiful sunset. Rolling into Fes

This day is long. About 12 hours after I pedalled out of Chefchaouen I rolled into Fes. I could smell the burning of trash miles away. Sputtering, loud motorcycles jockey me for position in traffic, black pumes line the hillside, and for the first time this trip I see women in all black burqas. Cars are flying through intersections, kids are leaning out of buses. Prayer is being played loudly over a passing loudspeaker. Where am I?

The cars begin to slow as people flood the streets and I somehow stumble into a massive street market. Loud EDM music drowns out all senses as vendors stand in the street and in small storefronts. The gradient of goods changes as I roll through the market in its closing hours. Cheap electronics. I <3 NY shirts, knockoff designer clothes. There’s a cart of at least 1,000 bananas. Carts of strawberries and olives and drums and drums and drums of spices I smell from around the corner. Cumin, Paprika, Curry, Beans, Nuts…

I can’t believe all the people. The streets are so flooded I have to walk my bike. I put my rain jacket on and cover my camera trying to seem a little more innocuous. Two local kids lead me to my hostel. Their English surprises me. It’s fluid, easy, well enunciated- I feel like I’m talking with my little brothers. They say their parents are school teachers and have taught them the value of English. When we get to my hostel they ask for money in return. When I give them the rest of my change and some cookies they ask for more. I now see the value your parents see in English.

I share dinner with a German couple in another tourist trap restaurant. The waiter puts a glass of wine in a coke bottle so I can drink it on the street. After all, I’m just another vain tourist appropriating this beautiful culture.

The next morning I catch a fellow bikepacker, my first of the trip. He rides an old mountain bike heavy with gear. His tennis shoes are dirty and aged. This man’s seen miles. We begin chatting- “how long have you been in Fes?” he asks. I laugh, ‘I dunno. 10 hours? You?’

“Eight days!”

‘What have you been doing for eight days in Fes?!’

“I’ve just been smoking hash!”

I laugh even more now and we stop and grab coffee to chat. Deuxième café nous nous s’il vous plaît. A cafe nous nous is a Moroccan specialty, half milk and half espresso. The difference between that and a cappuccino? Nothing really, other than you don’t sound so foreign.

The man's name is Deeter. He’s a 43 year old Belgian with a kind smile, wild stories and an identity crisis. He’s been in Morocco now for four months, (he may still be there now), but during his travels he’s seen the majority of the country. He was riding to his friend’s ecological co-op hostel at the base of the Atlas mountains. We ride for a while, but once the highway turns up towards Ifran, we part ways and I get back on the gas. It’s noon and with 150km remaining to my hostel for the night, I have a tough ride remaining.

The rain begins to fall, and soon falls heavier as I continue to climb. It will stay like that, and my sole rain jacket will offer far too little respite. The hard shivering begins around mile 40. A sign points to a small inn just off the road, La pommeraie d’Ifran. I grab my saddlepack and run in, desperate for a fire. A man sits in the lobby with his son. There’s a fireplace but no fire- but the man welcomes me to stay. I sit, haggard and wet as more people come into the lobby. Two women, three more kids. Two more men. The man that’s been here the whole time walks over with his son. “Excuse me, are you a cyclist? My son here dreams of being a cyclist and wants to meet you.” I’m instantly warmed and shake the boys hand. ‘Good for you buddy, but maybe pick a better sport. Do you see how miserable I look right now?’ The owner of the inn walks in as we’re chatting and introduces himself. After he learns of my situation he offers me a room to stay in. “Would you like some food?” I’m worried about the dwindling sunlight but accept his offer for a piece of fruit.

The entire family sits down for a feast. They’re brought out large platters of vegetables, salads, breads, soups. The server then brings out a platter of fruit for me. Not the single plum I expected, but rather a dozen strawberries, oranges, apples and grapes. He sets it down at the table, “Come join us!” the owner demands. I say I shouldn’t- Water is still dripping off my nose and my chamois would better serve as a floor mop right now, but he presses on. I sit with their family and feast. The father places more and more food on my plate as dishes are brought out. The children and I talk about their new ping pong set, and a suave boy my age comes over to talk about university. He’s studying to be a doctor like his father, and is excited about his recent acceptance into the local medical school.

Ifran is a wealthy city built in the lower Atlas. It has ski resorts and developed architecture. The parks are beautiful and ornate, and the royal guard lines the streets. The University, Al Akhawayn, is a public school and highly celebrated. Luis says he was thinking of going to school in the US because medical schools in Morocco are so competitive. But now that he’s made it in, he figures he’ll stay local. More food is piled onto my plate- We get comfortable in our conversation and laugh along his family. Luis’ gaze is strong, and the small gold chain around his neck contrasts his black turtleneck with the same strength. He asks about my math degree back in the US and we talk about differential equations. They make me cringe even all the way out here. Feels like home...

I play a game of ping pong with the kids, say my thank yous and get on my way. The sun has come out in the meantime, and I’m excited to keep pushing forwards. It’s too early to call it a day I say. “Are you sure? We’ll let you stay for free...”

An hour later and I’m shivering again. The rain will return almost immediately and force me to stay in a dingy apartment in Taourirt. I go to bed early as the rain stops and the sun sets.

A brief pause for dramatic irony.

One of my biggest regrets is taking this on that stupid film camera. Sorry for the low quality

I ride so much these days time loses meaning. It becomes a bucket filling in a hurricane gradually losing linearity and any sense of mortality over time. Hours roll by like seconds. Some seconds roll by like hours. The next day rolls by like molasses in a wind tunnel.

Something something molasses in a wind tunnel

I eat dinner at the McDonalds in Beni Mellal the next night. It’s the first time I’ve seen real affluence. Porsche's, Mercedes, nice Renaults line the parking lot. A security guard watches my bike and I eat a ‘Big Chili’ and a Maltesers McFlurry. The McDonalds is surprisingly nice. The bathrooms are clean and the staff is attentive. Kids play on the playground. Someone is singing with the karaoke machine. People seem genuinely happy here at this McDonald’s. I go and order a second dinner and take it all in. Why are they so much worse in America?

I call my now ex-travel partner and we talk for the first time since our split in Spain. I explain my situation and we laugh about how far our paths have diverged. I explain my conundrum. I’m in Beni Mellal and I have a flight out of Marrakech in two days. The ride straight there would be easy. It’s only 220km on highways. I could easily get it done, find a bike box, buy some trinkets at a market and pat myself on the back for a job well done. But the McDonald’s has a backdrop of 12,000 ft mountains. I’m at the foot of the Atlas staring up and drooling. I could push high in the morning and make it far enough to ride into Marrakech Tuesday night to catch my early Wednesday flight. He says no, don’t do it. My dad says no, don’t do it. Logic says no, don’t do it. I’m far too underprepared and my body is destroyed. But my heart yearns.

The early climb up is everything I ever dream of. Smooth, empty roads. Long, shallow pitches and beautiful overlooks. I climb for two hours until I finally reach the first town. I stop for coffee optimistic of making it the next 160km to my hostel in Demnant. The riding is easy and the Atlas is unbelievable in its magnitude. Huts line the hillside, and the city I left that morning becomes a distant memory. The road switches from asphalt to mud and back again. I grow comfortable with the switches and roll into the next town after some surprisingly slow progress. A boy asks if I’m going to “La Cathedrale” and I laugh. Just because I’m white I’m Catholic?

The road turns to gravel in the town, but I know soon it’ll turn back to asphalt. Or I don’t know. But I trust it.

I endure a rough gravel descent. It turns to rocky doubletrack and I grit my teeth and try to hold the bike straight. I encounter another bike packer who’s on a loaded mountain bike. He starts laughing, and through a thick Nordic accent asks “What are you doing out here!” There’s no time for a chat now though. The sun is going down and this gravel has made progress alarmingly slow. I count on the road being paved around every corner. I really need it to be.

I take a wrong turn and ride through an incredibly remote village wasting more time. The road continues to degrade and my progress is now depressingly slow. I run out of food and water and while descending 40 km out from the next town it happens.

PSSsssSSSSSsssssSSSSSssss.

SHIT.

The sidewall is torn. I try plugging it but it’s blowing sealant like a kid on prom night. I can’t find any tire levers and the bead is too stuck to the rim to thumb it off. I’m deep in the Atlas on a small mountain pass isolated with no food and no water. My bike is no longer working. Panic ensues.

But I feel a fleeting sense of relief. This road is violent and the flat is a convenient excuse to stop. I hike a ways and find some cell service. I think I arrange for a taxi to be sent over but the service is spotty and my French leaves something to be desired. I sprawl my things across the road to stop a car if one ever comes and do the only thing I can do.

My nap is so intense I wake myself up snoring. The wind whips through the trees, goats hike up the mountainside and bleat in the distance and the sun hugs me with all her veracity. Lying on the ground has never felt so good. I’m in a huge pinch, but I’ve never been more comfortable.

A van drives up heading the other way after an hour. It has about 15 people in it with tapestry hanging from the windows and luggage all over the roof. Back to bed.

I awake half an hour later hungry and figure I should at least go try again to pull the tire off. I’m squirming and my thumbs are about to peel off as a large 4x4 sprinter van comes driving up.

God? Is that you?

I walk over and a middle aged German man rolls down the window and scans me for danger. “What language do you speak? English, French, or German?” I laugh a little. It IS you God. Never thought you’d be GERMAN. We agree on English and he sets off on pulling out a motorcycle toolkit from the trunk.

His wife makes me some green tea and a nutella sandwich while their two daughters play in the back of the van. I forget to ask the man’s name, but he shows me detailed maps of the Atlas with several long backcountry routes highlighted. “These are all my trips down here. This is my seventh time, but the first with my family.” He laughs at my lack of equipment while he uses a motorcycle tire lever to pull off the bead. I throw a tube in and he uses his generator to fill it back up. The bike is fixed but we turn to the question of where I’ll ride it. Zaouiat Ahansal is too far of a ride, and I don’t have gear to camp. He offers me a tent at La Cathedrale for the night just as my taxi drives up. Enter my second conundrum…

Glorious hegemony. Thank you my German friend (Film)

The taxi driver speaks no English and no French so the two hour drive is quiet. I point and ‘woahhh!!’ at some of the peaks and he responds with a smile and a thumbs up. We stop at a small hut and a boy runs over to the window to give the driver an old flip phone. He’d already been talking on two others, why does he need a third?

As we drive into Zaouiat Ahansal the community changes. There are children everywhere- They run with sticks beating hoops rolling along the road. One boy struggles to ride rollerblades on the dirt road. Some sit on the side of the hill watching. A mother carries her newborn up towards their small hut where the laundry is hang drying. The coats and pants are dark, heavy and muted. Smoke pours out of their small clay chimney. It’s cold up here.

We pull off the dirt road into a small parking lot. The man I spoke with earlier walks around the corner and shakes my hand. He’s the innkeeper here at Dar Ahansal and shows me through the door. We leave my bike outside, unlocked and in the open. On the phone earlier he assured me the driver was not there to harm me, and now he assures me my bike is safe here. Each time he reminds me of safety I’m startled by how quickly that thought has completely left my mind. Safety had been thrown out the window. I trust these people. Maybe too much.

The hotel is a rustic, genuine affair. Ivy climbs the stone walls reaching for the remnants of oxygen at this altitude. The innkeeper hands me a heavy iron key as I open the door to the courtyard and descend down to my room.

The room opens up to a balcony that will later be smothered by an imposing night sky. A woman hangs clothes to dry 20 feet away. A donkey walks by underneath. Bells ring in the background and some kids run on the hill off to the side. It’s all foreign, but it’s emphatically comforting.

I walk up for dinner. A group of three older French people walk in and we start chatting. They invite me to join them and we eat Tagine and talk late into the night. They laugh hard when I tell them I ate McDonald’s yesterday. One woman reminds me of my mother and we tell deeply intimate stories late into the night.

We are joined by another group of French people. They sit right next to us in the large dining chambre. It’s dark stone walls, dim lights and classic Moroccan decorations bleed intimacy. The intertable conversations are fast- too fast for me to keep up with their loud bursts of laughter and long strings of mumbled French. They slow down and enunciate when speaking to me. I feel like a child, but it helps immensely.

I go to bed with a full stomach and warm heart.

I scramble in the morning to catch the car on its way to Azilal but over breakfast I get engulfed in conversation. One of the French women from the other table last night sits across from me. Her name is Janick, she’s middle-aged and quickly I learn how deep her love for this area goes. The valley we’re in right now has a population of 10,000. Janick begins to describe their conditions.

Some don’t have running water, most don’t have power. There is no doctor, and only one nurse. Some go to school but most don’t. Almost all of these huts house 8-10 people, and many don’t have a legitimate breadwinner. Some people work as shepherds, some do small construction work, but most have no jobs. There is no industry up here and limited opportunity. There are no viable markets and Azilal, the nearest city with shops and a hospital, is a two hour drive away on rocky mountain double track.

Janick leads a charity, Le Groupe des amis du village d'Amezray, dedicated to providing aid to the people of the Atlas. She’s been coming here for fifteen years and has made countless trips delivering clothes, food, diapers, toilet paper, and other necessities. This trip she says her car is full of warm clothing. She estimates they’ve brought about 100,000 articles of clothing over the years. And she does it on her own dime. She pays her way down here, and gives clothing that others have donated.

She seems almost embarrassed admitting all of this, her head ducking as I keep pushing more questions. I’m enthralled by her passion. She talks of the children like they’re from her own blood. “I just love this place. I can’t stop coming back” Her adoration has become obvious since our last cup of coffee. I ask how she got involved with the charity. “My friends started it a long time ago; they were married, but after the husband died the wife really dedicated herself to it. I’ve been with it since.”

The innkeeper reminds me for a second time I need to leave. I scramble and thank Janick again, but I can’t do justice to what that conversation meant. Thank you Janick if you’re reading this- You’re an angel in a world that desperately needs more people like yourself.

Dew drops have collected on my bike from being left out all night. It’s still here, and I expected nothing else.

I’m rocked asleep by the rhythm of the car bobbing through ruts in the road. I awake in Azilal and run to a bank to pay what I owe. I ran out of cash the day prior and couldn’t pay for the driver or the hotel. They let me leave on good faith and I tip them both heavily. Seven hours of driving, an incredible hotel room and a feast for dinner totals around $100 USD. Woah.

It’s my final day on the bike now. I’m sore, groggy, struggling to walk and my knees are screaming with every pedal stroke. They yearn for the finish more than anything else. Only 100 miles left to Marrakech, I’ll have some more coffee and cakes and begin the end.

Finishing this trip was nothing like winning a bike race. Winning races is mostly a binary feeling- Pain then joy. Focus then elation. But slowly rolling into Marrakech was entirely different. The pain fades as I fall deep into thought yet again. What all just happened? Did I really just do all of that?

I dice through traffic in Marrakech. The city is congested and the smog is a brutal juxtaposition from the mountain air I walked through last night. American fast food shops line the streets and I ride by a mall with stores I know from home. Nike, Tommy Hill, Banana Republic- another gross juxtaposition from the markets I rode through pedalling lambs and spices in the Rif.

I get to the Decathlon in Marrakech. They said they have a bike box I can have and I struggle monumentally to put the bike away. Emotionally and physically I fight to box this trip up, engrossed in my inability to say goodbye. My body is so fatigued I can barely push the bike out of the shop and onto the bustling curbside. I smell like shit and the mud from yesterday clings deeply to my kit. My once white jersey is varying shades of brown and yellow and is littered with holes from my camera strap. Well dressed, cleanly people run around the store holding cheap outdoor goods. Hiking shoes, soccer balls, cheap bikes and tents. Their heads are down too focused on their new toy to match my blank gaze. Their enthusiasm for money is astounding. The economy here is healthy and modern. Why have you left your mountains behind?

I get to my hostel too tired to go find food. I fall asleep in my clothes and awake at midnight trembling with cold sweats. I lie on the bathroom floor and puke for hours. The taxi picks me up at 6am and I’m the last one on the plane (A Boeing 737-800).

Death. A fitting ending.

And then I flew home and rode to class the next morning. And now I’m sitting here writing this story still reeling from all that happened. I laid on the couch for two weeks afterwards completely immobile recovering and processing. I’ve been overwhelmed by all I experienced and I still feel like I can’t give this story justice. There were too many people to talk about. The market owners I talked to breaking up the monotony of rolling through farmland. Motorpacing off scooters on the highways. Fixing a scooter in the Rif after two guys crashed it- They handed me their cell phone so I could talk to their friends in English and they pushed me up a hill. The cafe I walked through filled with Moroccan men watching a soccer game. I was so embarrassingly out of place. I sat on the street and chugged a Coke out of sight. Or the kids that ran with me longer than any others in the Rif. There were six boys and one girl, all around 8-10 years old. The girl ran the fastest and the furthest- I was so proud of her. And that leads to the problem of how women are treated out there. I would initially wave at them too, but never got a wave back. Some men glared despisingly at me for looking at their property. Some women would stare as I rode by, some younger girls would wave back and giggle but for the majority, women were second class citizens there. Their social standing is low. Their opportunities are scarce. It’s sad. It’s gross. It’s inappropriate and unwarranted, but ultimately it’s integral to their culture.

And there are so many other stories, faces, senses, feelings that I can’t convey. I’m new to storytelling, and wow is it hard. How to describe just how deep this experience rocked me feels impossible, but here’s my attempt. I hope you enjoyed it. It doesn’t even feel real, but believe me. It all is.