Into the Rif Mountains: Gibraltar-Fez
The ferry to Morocco was quick and uneventful. I'd hoped to be able to stand out on the deck, contemplate my departure from Europe and slowly survey the mountainous contours of the north African coastline, but instead found myself confined to an air-conditioned passenger lounge with hardly enough time to work out how to recline the seat before a tannoy announced the boat's arrival. I wasn't quite yet in Africa proper, having opted at the last minute to take a ferry to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta.
It was a far more relaxed experience than the chaotic scenes I remember when entering this quarter of Africa seven years ago. That time I'd arrived with two friends further west in Tangier, as green-eyed and gullible as myself to what lay behind the friendly offers and invites that greeted us. We spent most of the evening pursued by a man determined to sell us “something special”, or at least drink tea with him in his friend's carpet shop. It set the scene for the remainder of the two week holiday.
This time round I also had two companions, somewhat more initiated to dealing with tourist touts and potential scams. Tim, having recently cycled from England-Australia, had flown out to Gibraltar the previous day to join me for two weeks on the road, whilst Ian, another Englishman, had spent a large part of the last fifteen years travelling by bicycle. I'd met him on the road a week previously and we arranged to catch up again in Algeciras.
Ian described himself as a full-time tourer. Other than lodging in a cheap Bangkok hostel for a few months a year he told me he was using his inheritance to eke out a frugal life pedalling the globe. I say the globe, but in actual fact half of the monumental mileage of 160,000km that he's cycled has been in China. He unfolded a map of the country when we met again, which showed lines criss-crossing almost every province. There was no clear direction, destination or purpose, just a series of connecting loops. He keeps no record of these travels on the Internet, which makes me wonder how many other full-time nomads are out there on the road - unknown veterans of the cycle-touring community?
Ian had no special desire to brag or publicise his own achievements, and when asked whether he planned to stop his outlook was quite simple. As long as he was enjoying life on the road why should he stop. It was hard to argue with.
Yet for someone so experienced with having to simplify his possessions, it was amusing to regard how little attention he paid to the issue of weight. A completely bald and pretty much useless tyre was strapped to the rear rack of his bike, even more unnecessary when touring in Europe, along with a bag carrying enormous quantities of easily purchasable goods such as salt, sugar and coffee. Packing a few extra clothes might have made more sense. His threadbare shirt was falling apart and when subtlety questioned on the subject of body hygiene he made some comment about cleanliness being a western creation.
It was good to have such experienced company as the three of us pedalled into Morocco together, weaving past crowds of pedestrians whose journey across this well-guarded border appeared somewhat more delayed than ours. Immigration officials waved us through, stamps were promptly issued and passports returned with beaming smiles. You don't have to be in Africa long before realising the advantages that a western complexion and passport afford.
A fleet of old white Mercedes taxis lined the first 100m of Moroccan territory, and hopeful calls from money-changers soon faded out of earshot as the smooth asphalt rolled south. Donkey-drawn carts carrying building materials were being overtaken by diesel spewing trucks, their drivers smiling as they sounded horns as a passing greeting. In the distance fields and hillsides looked like they hadn't received rain in months, but a crew of workers were busy keeping roadside verges well-watered and manicured beside a stretch of white-washed holiday villas.
Time on this occasion was important to Tim, who with two weeks to reach Marrakesh wanted to maximise the cycling time available. Tetouan's medina deserved far more exploration than our midday lunch stop, where I quickly lost count of the number of times that “something special” was surreptitiously offered by multi-lingual touts, one of whom held is hands in the air and shouted “too much Paranoia”, when I declined his help to escort us to a café.
We rode on south to the small town of Chefchaouen, climbing gently beside terraces of ripening olive trees and a brown patchwork of harvested fields. Ahead of us rose the jagged peaks of the Rif mountains, home to the largest acreage of that special something in the World. Cannabis production is Morocco's biggest money earner - employing nearly 1 million people, so despite the illegality of what is locally known as kif, production hardly seems likely to stop. It's one of the first things touts offer when entering the scenic narrow lanes of the medina - the bright blue-washed walls a defining feature of the town. My memories of the place from visiting it seven years ago are a little hazy. This time round it was a one night stopover, Tim and I bidding farewell to Ian before continuing deeper into the mountains.
The guidebook offered little in the way of recommendations for visiting the cannabis cultivated area of the Rif mountains, more specifically the town of Ketama, citing it as a “an area beyond the law”. It was a feeling echoed by a local man from Chefchaouen, drawing a finger across his neck as I pointed on the map to our intended destination. The reality however is that any foreigner with a serious interest in buying kif from north Morocco is hardly likely to ride his bicycle here. Despite the occasional over-enthusiastic call from the road-side to stop, there was far more in the way of smiles and waves from local Berber communities as we left the main road in the town of Bab Berret and headed south.
This was the Morocco that we'd both looked forward to seeing; quiet roads, open landscapes, challenging climbs and exhilarating descents. The rural scenes could have been plucked from any decade in the last century. Kif production might be a big employer out here, but it's far less obvious than that of olive harvesting, where groups of people (mostly women) take to the fields during the months of November and December. Groups of children stared incredulously, with tentative waves of uncertainty as we rode past, before turning to giggle or run-off.
I had visions and had read reports that wild camping in Morocco would be difficult, but between villages in the Rif mountains there are plenty of opportunities for peaceful star-lit gazing, the only disturbance being the sound of dogs barking at night. Amongst many other criteria (chance of being found, view from the tent, softness of the ground) an essential measure of a good wild camp-site is one that's free from the nocturnal canine cacophony that unfortunately haunts many human inhabited regions of the planet. They're hard to find in many countries I've cycled in.
Close to the city of Fez we re-joined the highway, which confirmed that red roads on the map are best avoided whenever possible. It's less the suicidal driving standards that bother me as it is the unpleasantness of breathing in a mouth-full of diesel fumes when an overloaded truck overtakes you on a hill.
