13: Line dancing in the mine fields

Best not to hammer the tent pegs too hard now - after 30 years of conflict, Western Sahara remains heavily mined and every year there are several fatal casualties

Although this hasn't stopped our early morning jigs

The tailwinds continued out of Laayoune as we continued south through Western Sahara. Wind is the determining factor for a cyclists' mental well-being and nowhere is this more true than in Western Sahara. With a strong tailwind, pre-dawn risings, and kilos of Moroccan biscuits we can make good progress, covering over 160 km on good days. With a headwind we can barely manage a frustrating and energy sapping 100 km. The first person out of the tent in the starry early morning gives the news as to which direction the wind is choosing to blow today. Fortunately the prevailing wind is a northerly one in this region and on most days we end up sailing pleasantly along through the desert. With the road generally staying close to the Atlantic, a cooler climate prevails than would be the case further inland. Many cold evenings are spent bundled up around our cooking stoves, willing on pots of camel and goat stews, before diving into the warmth of our tents and sleeping bags.

Sand streams

Sometimes it is remarked to us, generally by passing travelers in their four wheel drives, that the coastal road through Western Sahara and Mauritania is a long and boring route through a barren, featureless landscape. However, none of us have felt this way about the journey. While the early risings, long hours in the saddle, and the evening chores of building our houses and cooking food, take their toll, there has rarely been, if ever, a dull moment traveling through Western Sahara.

A fishing village between Boujdor and Dakhla

Distances between supplies and villages have been up to 160 km, the equivalent of Belfast to Dublin with not even a building in between. And then... you arrive at a petrol station (with no petrol) that is only stocking bottled water and another variety of tinned fish.

"How far to the next station?".

"120 kilometres".

"I'll have six tins of sardines, ten loaves of bread, and ten litres of water please".

Camel for dinner

We normally manage to be quite inventive with the ingredients from small village stalls and petrol stations, although our diet is heavily subsidised by the seemingly endless varieties of 1 dirham biscuits. Camel, goat, and lamb is taken for the pot where the meat looks fresh, although it's often best not to pay too much attention to the butcher's chopping block as wields his cleaver through the air and splits another camel in half. The meat is kept cool in a water-soaked sock that dangles off Daren's rear rack. Motorists have bestowed gifts of olive oil, bread, and whiskey when they met us.

Three days out from Laayoune and Sven rolled in with his heavily laden bicycle and trailer, to a petrol station where we were savouring the shade and some cool drinks. Sven left Germany eleven months ago and had been trying to catch up with us over the past week as he was told of our pedal-powered convoy at police checkpoints and by passing motorists.

Encounters with locals have normally been limited to those who have come from Morocco to live here, encouraged by a government offering tax breaks and subsidised food. Along the road, newly built villages stand uninhabited, waiting for more people from the north to arrive. Police and military checkpoints have also continued, along with a preoccupation about our jobs. They are friendly encounters, however, with the state's apparatus for maintaining tight control on the territory.

Nearing the Mauritanian border, the traffic thins out and military jeeps and camoflaged oil tankers predominate, rushing between Dakhla and military bases along the heavily fortified border. We stop to rest up at a hotel, 85 km before the border. After a week of living in the sand, everything needs washing and de-sanding. The shower basin looks like a small sand pit after we've all finished hosing ourselves down. Clothes, bodies, and cooking pots greatly appreciate the first splashings of soapy water in a week. Unfortunately Daren injures his foot in a fall during the dark, the evening before we were due to depart to cross the Mauritanian border, and we have to leave our bikes at the hotel whilst we hitch 300 km back up the coast to Dakhla, where the nearest hospital and pharmacy are located, and where this posting is coming from. The good news is that he has been given the all clear and loaded up with anti-inflamatories and painkillers, we'll head back down to the bikes in a day or two before continuing on.

Nearing the end of another day

Dakhla, Western Sahara

Trip distance: 7430 km

12: Tailwinds through Africa's last colony

Where desert meets the ocean

It wasn't hard to recognise Daren and Tatjana and their loaded bikes in Tan Tan Plage, despite having only conversed over emails prior to that point. They had been camping out for the past few nights and were looking forward to getting some of the sand out of their clothes, albeit only temporarily. We retreated to the campsite for the evening and after they had washed up and scrubbed down we discussed the journey ahead. After getting supplies in town the next morning, we were back on the road south.

A fisherman's hut

It's a good feeling having company again. Now, pedaling along, we can chat or just let distances emerge between us as we pedal southwards, pushed on by cooperative tailwinds. Daren and Tatjana are exceedingly modest when discussing their two-year, around the world bicycle trip that they have planned across Africa, South America, Australia, and Asia.

Our first 10 km riding together, however, had us all nervous about the 1600 km trek to the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott. An exceedingly stiff cross wind from the interior had scooped up the fine sand and we were riding through a fog of sand, occasionally getting blasted off the road by both wind and passing trucks. This unhappy state of affairs retreated, however, and we were soon breezing along the escarpment above the Atlantic coast. Similarly our first night camping together, in small dunes just off the road, didn't bode well initially. With the sun having just set, our chosen site was apparently also the preferred home of mosquitoes and we were all gorged on before we could get the tents up and the fire going. Blood spatters from the swatted parasites now added to the other grime. Soon they retreated too, however, and the almost full moon magically lit up the surrounding dunes as we sat around the fire.

The following day we were back on the coast, passing the fishermen's huts perched atop the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic. We had debated about the need to venture 4 km off the road to Tarfaya for supplies, but the lack of a shop beforehand decided the issue for us.

Tarfaya appeared as a dusty, small town at the edge of the known world. We stopped at the first shop we came too and went in to get water, bread and various snacks for lunch. Twice I refused a young teenage boy's demand for a dirham. Leaving the shop, Daren paused to take a photo of the town's dusty and deserted street. I too reached for my camera, but instead I found a gaping hole in my camera bag. A rush of anxiety as I mentally retraced my last steps and I quickly realised, with a sickening feeling, that it must have been lifted out of the bag whilst we were in the shop. None of us could believe it. The town appeared so quiet, so calm and uninterested in us. My poor communication with the shop owner made the initial discussion sound more like an accusation than a query. Gradually more passersby became interested and then the tide turned. A young and frightened looking boy on a bike had spotted another boy dipping his hand into my handlebar bag. After some more moments I was assured that my camera would arrive momentarily. Nobody wanted to involve the police, which was fine by me too.

Approximately three quarters of an hour passed since we'd stopped at the shop and my camera was returned by the same boy who had been asking me for a dirham. He scarpered off before being lynched by the dismayed crowd that had now gathered. The event over, everyone dispersed and after thanking those who had helped recover my camera we rode out of Tarfaya. We didn't look back. With a happy ending, and yet another demonstration of the power of using local community networks to resolve issues such as these (this is not the first boomerang camera incident I've had, see a previous post about South Africa), it was also a timely lesson in not being too casual about leaving bikes and gear unattended.

Sunrise over the tents, our first morning in Western Sahara

After another beautiful camping spot, overlooking the Tah depression, we rode the remaining 80 km into Laayoune yesterday morning. The capital of Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara, Laayoune is dominated by soliders, police, and white, UN labeled Landcrusiers - all testament to the unresolved conflict between the Moroccan government and the Sahrawi people, that has persisted for the past three decades. The sandy territory has been dubbed by some as 'Africa's last colony'. For southbound cyclists, Laayoune also represents a chance to stock up on essentials before continuing on.

Daren and Tatjana scout for local football talent in Laayoune

Laayoune, Western Sahara
Trip distance: 6680 km

Want to find out more about Western Sahara? Here's some good bedtime reading...

For a general introduction see the wikipedia article.

The International Crisis Group have a couple of very readable reports published in mid 2007 that examine the development of the conflict and also try to identify potential solutions to the current stalemate.

There are a number of pro-self-determination blogs on the Western Sahara issue, including: Western Sahara info - http://w-sahara.blogspot.com/

Swiss-based ARSO - http://www.arso.org/index.htm

Western Sahara Resource Watch - http://www.wsrw.org/

And two US-based bloggers...

Sahara Watch - http://sahara-watch.blogspot.com/

One hump or two? - http://onehumportwo.blogspot.com/

For something from a Moroccan perspective try...

http://www.westernsaharaonline.net/ or http://polisario-confidential.org/

11: Follow that swallow

As I rode out of Tafraoute after a six day sojourn, there was a sprinkling of snow on the mountain tops of the Anti Atlas. It was definitely time to continue the migration south and escape the tentacles of the northern hemisphere's winter months. As I dropped southwards out of the mountains, I passed through one village where a little boy made the customary plea for a pencil. Muttering "no" as I pedaled on, I thought I heard him say something else. Turning around to look at the kid, with his school bag on his back, he was holding out his half eaten bread roll towards me and saying, "Tiens", or "take", with a big, innocent smile on his face. I wanted to give him every pencil and pen I had on me. I wanted to run over and hug him for restoring my faith in small Moroccan children. Instead I stuttered out a "non, merci". Shouting a thank you in Arabic for good measure, and waving unsteadily, I pedaled on elated.

The temperature climbed steadily as I emerged from the mountains and joined the N1 south at Bouizakarne. The strip of asphalt runs all the way through to Nouakchott, capital of Mauritania, and represents one of a limited number of possibilities for crossing on a sealed road from North Africa into sub Saharan Africa. As the principal road south into Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara, the road is predictably heavy with goods and passengers being brought north and south. With only enough room for two trucks to pass each other, I had to settle for riding on the dirt shoulder at times. This unpleasant state of affairs was initially compensated by the friendly waves and hoots of the passing truck drivers, although fatigue had set in and this unwanted attention became somewhat tiresome, merely adding further cacophony to the dust and diesel fumes.

Guelmim. I'm sitting outside a cafe, drinking tea, when a camel runs straight through the red light of the town's main intersection and on down the road. Described by my photocopied guidebook as a 'small, dusty town with little to offer the passerby', it feels like Las Vegas to me after the journey through Morocco's southern interior. Pizza, smoothie-type drinks made from avocado - fantastic, and a supermarket stocking peanut butter, and, wait for it - porridge oats! Although despite my apparent enthusiasm for the latter I indulge less and less these days.

I spotted Olly and deduced that he was the owner of the GB-registered motorbike parked in the lobby of the hotel. Hailing from Bristol, Olly was also enroute to West Africa and over a late night tea and an early morning breakfast we swap stories and information about the road behind and the road ahead, his a slightly more condensed and speedier version than mine. I receive word that my two potential riding partners for the journey south will be a few days in arriving. As I watch Olly loading his bike, I spot two cyclists replete with touring panniers, pull up at the end of the street. I say hello and ask them where they are heading? The young Swiss couple tell me they are headed to the ruins of the nearby old French military fort, Fort Bou Jerif. A scene reminiscent of Stanley's encounter with Dr. Livingstone follows. Overhearing that I'm Irish, they ask if my name is Julian Bloomer. It transpires that they had met Jean and Patrick in Marrakech (two French travelers I had met a couple of weeks back in Merzouga) and the guys had told them about meeting me. It's a small world. The other day I received a reply to an email I had sent to Daniel Harmen, an English cyclist currently in Guinea, and he said he had met some people recently who told him that there was Irishman coming down from Morocco on his bike. It could be another Irishman, but then again. As I say, it's a remarkably small world, even if you're on a bicycle.

Olly heading for Western Sahara

I make a pleasant day trip from Guelmim to the ruins of Fort Bou Jerif, on an unloaded and sprightly Rocinante. There's a campsite beside the fort, a popular stopover for those heading south apparently. I chat to a Dutch couple and a South African couple who are heading to the DRC and South Africa respectively in well-equipped overland vehicles. There is music, laptops and Bovril. It's all so tempting and looks like fun. I leave before I get overcome with emotion. Nick, an English motorcyclist, passes me by on the way back to Guelmim. He's heading back home after several weeks touring Europe and Morocco. He likes the idea of cycling. I like the idea of his motorbike. The grass is always greener on the other side.

Fort Bou Jerif

To anticipate the trucks I buy a rear view mirror from a bicycle shop in Guelmim. Its meant for a motorbike and is a lot larger than I would have wished for, but it will do the job. Perhaps I'll get an engine next.

Life in the desert

On the road to Tan Tan. It seems less busy than the other day. I'm happy to wave to honking truckers today. The new mirror is fantastic. I can anticipate when I need to be close to the verge and when I can relax and move towards the centre of the road. Hard to believe how cold it was in Tafraoute a few days ago. It's hot again. I pull into one of the only settlements along the route just after midday. I have my own sandwiches so I just take a coke, happy to be out of the sun for a bit. Oil and coke seem to be the main products heading south. Two bloodied goats heads eyeball me from a nearby table. Presumably they are to demonstrate the freshnesh of the carcass on offer to customers. The flies are horrendous. Everywhere. I have to keep the lid on the bottle and take quick gulps whilst avoiding drinking a fly too. The only other customers, a group of truckers, tuck into their goat tagine, encouraging me to join them. I decline politely, and head back outside where it's about Gas mark 5.

A long way from home...

Twenty kilometers before Tan Tan I'm waved through a police checkpoint. Five dogs follow me in hot pursuit but soon give up the chase. They seem to have much less resolve than their mountain cousins. Outside Tan Tan I pass the first police checkpoint where all the details from my passport are noted. This becomes increasingly common the closer one gets to Western Sahara. The officer in charge of the biro looks at my bicycle, and then at me. "You are on a bicycle?", he says, studying the column for 'type of vehicle' in his ledger. I nod and smile to affirm that I am indeed sitting on a bicycle. We exchange jokes, with neither of us understanding the other, and then he waves me on into town.

Tan Tan isn't Guelmim, but it's not a bad spot. A collonaded main street bears testimony to the town's history as part of Spanish-Morocco. There's a hustle and bustle along the street. I'm in a €5 per night establishment, with a balcony overlooking the main bus park. Tomorrow morning should be a treat. Still, the owner is friendly and the shower is hot. I change into civvies and go to find food, water, and the internet while the muezzin calls the devout to prayer.

Tan Tan, Morocco

Trip distance: 6355 km

10: Slowing down in the Anti Atlas

"People travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the kind of people they ignore at home" - Dagobert D. Runes

"May all your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you" - Edward Abbey

"The journey is the destination." - Dan Eldon

Plenty of time for accepting kind offers to sit and drink a tea lately...

There's a couple of thought provoking travel quotes to ponder on this wet and chilly Saturday evening in the Anti-Atlas mountains. While the pace of movement has slowed down to a virtual crawl over the past week, the bonus has been that there is plenty of time to accept invitations for tea, and to enjoy some time off Rocinante in the hills around Tafraoute. There's a lot to be said for the idea that the slower you travel the more you appreciate it. Rather than take a more direct route from Tata towards the main (only) road south through Western Sahara to Mauritania, I chose to employ one last diversionary tactic and make a last visit to the temperate climes of the Anti Atlas. Well as I sit typing, wrapped up in almost every item of clothing in my wardrobe, it's a bit more temperate than I would have wished for.

Leaving Tata I headed northeast to Igherm, stopping overnight enroute at the oasis village of Tagmoute. Invitations for tea have abounded of late and I reckon that if I were to accept each one I'd be hard put to make more than about five kilometers per day, but I had lots of conversations with people in the villages enroute. Many of the people I've met have spent significant parts of their working lives in Europe, usually in France, and have retired home to Morocco. For many of the migrants, while working abroad provided an income that would have been unattainable at home, it has also meant an often painful separation from their families for many years. Pondering on this hardship the other day, after a brief chat with a man who had spent 28 years working in France whilst his family remained in a village near Tagmoute, I approached the top of what had been the first serious climb in the past couple of weeks since crossing the Middle Atlas. A movement on the treeless hillside brought me back to the present and soon I had made a conscious connnection between the blur and the savage barking that I had subsequently begun to hear. I realised then that I was probably experiencing my third "Encounter With A Ferocious Dog" in Morocco.

Moments before the battle...

When one is climbing an incline of more than 8% on a loaded touring bicycle, with the additional ballast of 4 litres of water - just to make sure the odds are truly stacked against you - the appearance of a rabid-looking, salivating hound who probably hasn't eaten since the last cyclist passed this way, certainly brings out a feeling of vulnerability. If this was a wildlife programme, I was like that aging buffalo that couldn't keep up with the rest of the herd when the lions broke from their hiding. It was merely a case of chasing down the prey. Only I didn't even have a herd. The last and only car on the road had passed by well over an hour previously. Cycling appeared only to provoke matters as Jaws decided which juicy-looking calf he'd sample first. I remembered the three options that I had been rehearsing for such occasions, all of which seemed truly pathetic in the face of this frothy-mouthed canine. The most humane approach, and therefore least effective, would be to spray water from my bottle in the dog's eyes when he came close enough. The second was to wield my pump at the dog and give him a wallop if he tried to move in for the kill. The final option was to pretend I was taking a penalty kick for Ireland that would bring us to South Africa in 2010, with the dog's head being the ball.

I settled on trying the middle option first. As I was unhooking my pump from the bike frame, as if it were a double-barrel shotgun, I realised that what I had presumed to be the echo of the dog's barking was actually a fellow bloodthirsty hound who had come over the mountain to see what all the fuss was about. Delighted at the prospect of sharing the corpse of a tender and succulent cyclist, the slightly healtier looking new arrival performed a flanking manoeuver. Wielding my pump as if it were a lightsaber from Star Wars, I felt ridiculosly ill-equipped to fend off the beasts, and I began to estimate how long I could hold out for. Just as I was trying to assess the feasibility of taking two penalties for Ireland simultaneously, my guardian angel appeared over the brow of a hill. The woman, who was covered in a red shawl, hissed a couple of barely audible retorts to the dogs and within a couple of seconds they had assumed disinterested positions, overlooking their flock of goats, casually gazing over in my direction as an old man might sit and watch young children playing. I said hello and thanked the woman in my best Berber and she looked at me as she walked over to the dogs, but failed to acknowledge my greeting or gratitude. I waved and smiled gratefully, thinking that body language might be a more effective means of expressing my appreciation, but still no acknowledgement of a presence other than a look that seemed to suggest everything was my fault. Finally, fearing that the lady could well change her mind and release the hounds on me once again, I jumped back on the bike and headed all too slowly on up the hill.

Overlooking Aday village and Tafraoute in the distance in the Anti Atlas

Tafraoute, Morocco

Trip distance: 5975 km

9: Lazy days in Tata

Since the last entry in Agdz I rode across to Tata, via Foum Zguid, an exquisite journey through a stark and desolate landscape. In the 270 km between Agdz and Tata I can almost count on two hands the number of settlements that I passed. Since I have yet to erect my tent in Morocco and have become accustomed to staying in affordable hotels, I tend to try and make a town each evening and find a place to sleep there. So after a long day down to Foum Zguid I ended up in Hotel Bani. The lobby of the hotel appeared to double as a motorcycle repair shop and after checking on a couple of the rooms I settled on one just off the repair shop floor, where I could wheel my bike into without unloading it. After throwing the remnants of a now petrified loaf of bread into a bin in the repair shop I dusted down the rickety metal table and plastic chair. A closer inspection of the bedcovers led me to suspect that it was not common practice to change the covers between the departure and arrival of occupants so I decided it would be prudent to camp on the bare concrete floor with my new and untried air mattress that I had bought in Spain. After a hearty dinner of yet another tagine and yet more bread in a nearby cafe, I retired to my concrete floor, tired from the day's exertions and eager to get an early start on the road to Tata the following morning. I had a restless night on the floor, however, and despite the comfort of my mattress, I found myself waking up in pools of sweat and wringing my new travel pillow dry.

I had been having some kind of pleasurable dream when I came to in the darkness of the cell. I checked my recently purchased, made-very-definitely-in-China alarm clock and saw that it was just after 5am. I wasn't sure why I'd woken up, and then it started again. A loudspeaker on a pole outside my room was piping in the Koranic verses that were being chanted by a sombre sounding gentleman in the nearby mosque. I pulled up the hood of my sleeping bag over my head and faded in and out of consciousness whilst the chanting continued for a further hour. Moments after the chanting stopped, the shrill alarm of my new clock told me that it was time to knock back more vanilla-flavoured yoghurts, and a loaf stuffed with banana and peanut butter and get back on the bike.

Early morning and late afternoon is my favourite time for being on the bike. Not only is the temperature generally more agreeable, but the long shadows cast by the light give the landscape more depth and contrast than the blinding light of the midday hours. Riding east towards Tata, there was a pleasant chill in the air and an even more welcome tailwind that carried me along the first straight 40 km very enjoyably. Such was the tailwind that I had begun to plot the day ahead and review my estimated time of arrival in Tata. Then, mysteriously the road seemed to get stickier and the bike heavier and I realised that I had passed an invisible line and that I now had a stiff headwind to contend with for the remaining 100 km to Tata. In Tissint, I found the only cafe of the trip and ordered my mid-morning staple of an omlette, bread and a coke, instead of the regular mint tea. Deciding on food and drink is really just a question of deciding how you like your sugar.

The dust clouds blown up by gusts of wind forced me to take shelter inside the cafe and I sat content to be out of the sun whilst groups of school boys studiously examined every detail of my bicycle, the younger ones being particularly impressed with Tiger. After ordering the food the owner-chef-waiter of the cafe set about visiting the various stalls in the vicinity, gathering up supplies to put the meal together. After a long spell in the latrine he emerged and with a worringly short and soapless rinse of his hands under a tap in the corner of the room, he set about preparing the food. Having just recovered from a week's worth of olympic sprints to the nearest toilet, hole or bush, I was sensitive on this particular issue, but I enjoyed my omlette and wonderfully fresh, still warm bread and headed back into the white light. A jolly police officer waved me through the checkpoint in the middle of town.

The ride to Tata continued into ever strengthening headwind. Despite the road's orientation varying from southeast to northeast and back to east, the wind appeared to be a constant headwind. Gusts of fine sand easily passed my wraparound sunglasses and stripped another layer of skin off my lips. I deemed the occasion a suitable time for my recently acquired headscarf and I have found the long strip of blue cloth to work admirably well at keeping me cool and covered up from the elements. In addition, and this idea is still in experimentation phase, but I believe wee terrorists are less inclined to pester me when I have my head covered. The combination of cycling gear and head-dress also provides endless delight and photo opportunities for the now dwindling number of tourists passing by.

With 20 km to go to Tata I had to stop by the roadside and dig into the remaining reserves of chocolate, water, and bread to stave off the shaky leg syndrome that I could feel coming on. Moments later, out of the apparent uninhabited wilderness, a fellow and his five donkeys were making a beeline for me. "Unbloody believeable", I groaned outloud. Expecting a demand of some sort I braced myself for the encounter. Rashid introduced himself, however, with a shake of my hand followed by the typical touch of your heart and outlined the journey he was making on foot from Rich to Assa. If you plot this on a map of Morocco this is approximately 1000 km of foot plodding. An incredible journey, which despite my non-existent Arabic and his virtually non-existent French, I determined would take him approximately five to six weeks at the pace he was currently traveling at. I handed him a half litre of water and the remaining half loaf of bread, which he ate hungrily, before thanking me and heading on his way. I headed on towards Tata, with renewed enthusiasm at the prospect of a shower, another tagine, and thankful that I had Rocinante rather than five donkeys to travel with.

According to wikipedia, Tata has a population of 40,000 people. I would have thought more like 400, but regardless of the population, Tata is proving to be a pleasant break from the road. I have found peanut butter that is sold in 2 litre paint tins, very useful for the weight-conscious cyclist. I've been invited to a splendid collective meal of camel tagine, which I had initially taken for mutton, accompanied with fresh, creamy goats milk, and I've drunk mint tea by the pint, whilst watching the world go by. There is even reasonably priced beer available, but the bar isn't all that inspiring, and like the couple of others I've poked my head into in Morocco, feels to me like a dirty, little secret, hidden as always behind covered windows and occupied by those whose main intent appears unfortunately to be reaching the bottom of the next bottle.

Anyhow, having settled into the joys of cycling through Morocco, life, and camel steak, tastes good.

Tata, Morocco

Trip distance: 5790 km

8: "Trust in Allah, but tie up your camel"

A modern day tourist caravan winds its way through the dunes at Erg Chebbi

I thought I might expand on last week's rather pessimistic entry and elaborate further on my thoughts about children and cycling in Morocco. A question that I always find interesting is how is it that two people can visit the same place and then come away with vastly different experiences? While the postive or negative events that the traveler experiences in these places undoubtedly are vital in their perception of the place, I think how the traveler feels internally and how they view their experiences that shapes so much of their accounts.

I've had plenty of time in the saddle over the past few days to ruminate further on why children here see a cycling European as a likely source of sweets, pencils and dirhams. I've also met several cyclists at this stage and one of the first topics of conversation was the children we've encountered. Like a scene from a Mad Max film, I've been cycling across an apparently barren, rocky plain, when suddenly I see a group of children who had been playing contentedly, or keeping on eye on a herd of goats, jump up and run at a angle that is timed to intercept me further along the road. Yells for water, sweets, and more rarely my bicycle, fill the air, as the children perform admirably well at bearing down on me. And let's be clear, we're not just talking about the poor kids here, but also children who are obviously well-dressed and playing in front of houses that are adorned with all the accoutrements of a wealthier household.

The key factor here is that the children never appear to approach Moroccans, no doubt fearing the rebuke that they would receive. So somewhere along the line the children have learned that by pleading to a nisrani they will potentially receive something in return. Four years ago, when my cousin Mark and myself were touring here, we came upon a caravan of Spanish four-wheel drives that were tossing sweets out to children waiting along the roadside of a popular off-road tourist track in the High Atlas. There was no human contact here, instead it was like feeding time at the zoo. A few days ago, I heard a story from someone living in Merzouga about a group of holidaying Europeans who had loaded their vehicles up with clothes and other items and then pulled up in a village near Merzouga, handed the items over to the presumably surprised villagers and driven off. No need was identified. No one consulted. Such indiscriminate giving may momentarily salve the conscience of a visiting European, but it reinforces a stereotype that foreign tourists will just give things if you demand it from them. The dangers are obvious. Children run out, not just in front of bicycles, but also cars, 4x4's, and motorbikes. They may also avoid going to school and wait for passing tourists at the roadside instead.

European perceptions of poverty are not always accurate either and judging the wealth of a household is not always as easy as one might suspect. The other day another traveler related a story of how he was invited into an old man's house in a small village for tea. The front of the house looked tatty and afterwards the traveler offered to pay for the tea. At that point the old man smiled and in his unkempt djellaba, led the traveler over to his garage. Behind the rickety wooden door were the possesions bought with remittances sent home from a son in Europe - a recent model Mercedes and a new motorbike.

While children may just be having fun and seeking something sweet for their teeth, it's also important to recognise that begging replaces what a social welfare system might offer people in other countries. This is particularly important in Muslim societies, where a strong emphasis is placed on acts of charity to those less fortunate. One of my favourite stories is recounted by my friend Charlie about an epsiode from his first travels to Morocco, some years ago now. Charlie was sitting at the front of the fully occupied bus, waiting for it to depart, when an old man clambered up the steps and put out his hands for money. Not wishing to be perceived as the hapless, gullible traveler, Charlie resolutely refused to hand over any of his money. Unperturbed the man moved on down the bus, requesting money from the other passengers. Nearly everyone on the bus gave something to the old man.

Alright, well that's enough on this particular subject for now. As I fear I may have created a bad impression with all this talk of begging and children descending on me, it's also vital to note the huge generousity that I've experienced whilst traveling in Morocco. On previous trips I've landed up at the doors of people close to sunset and been given a bed and dinner with no hesitation. Everywhere I pass through people shout greetings and give good wishes. Tourists in their rental cars and four-wheel drives often wave as they pass by. The other morning I was interviewed and filmed briefly by a Hungarian documentary crew that I had met at a cafe in the middle of the rocky wilderness between Merzouga and the Draa valley. Funny stuff.

Coming up along the River Draa to Agdz, where I'm writing this entry, I realised just how extensive some of the damage from the recent flooding has been in this part of the country. Many roads are only partially cleared of the debris from landslides and from the flash flooding that occured. The size of rocks that could be moved by flowing water alone was truly impressive, not to mention devastating for walls and irrigation works that were in their path. Arriving in Agdz last night, I had to follow a five kilometer detour, along a newly graded piste, as a section of the main bridge into town had been washed away. It seems like a fantastic injustice to live in a land normally so deprived of rain, only to receive too much, too quickly, and have to start cultivating and building all over again.

Agdz, Morocco

Trip distance: 5514 km

7: Rainy days on the edge of the desert

Heavy flooding on the way south

Crossing over to Tangiers, I cleared the remarkably hassle-free passport control and customs and headed down the Atlantic coast to Rabat, a two and a half day journey along a surprisingly barren stretch of coastline. After collecting my Mauritanian visa in Rabat and enjoying a couple of evenings in the city with a group of people met through couchsurfing, I continued inland via Meknes towards the Middle Atlas mountain range. My intention had been to cross over some of the high mountain passes that lead into the Todra and Dades gorges but early rain and snowfalls haven't cooperated with my plans and instead I found that just riding along the sealed roads was a challenging enough. Even some of the main sealed roads have been cut here in the south and I'm trying to find out which route I can take back towards the Atlantic now, as I met Gerhard, a German cyclist yesterday, who had found himself cut off and roads closed with the runoff from the sodden mountains reaching into the normally dry desert region around Rissani and Merzouga.

Earlier today I was a couple of mouse clicks away from booking a flight back to Dublin. Adjusting to riding alone in Morocco has been harder than I would have imagined. The transition from an 'invisible' cyclist in the ride down through Europe, to being a very obvious outsider hasn't been a smooth one and I have found the demands of many people, particularly those under ten years of age, for sweets, money, my bicycle, and sunglasses quite a strain. Of course, it's not the first time I've been in such situations, but you are an easy target on a bicycle. While other tourists prefer air-conditioned buses, four-wheel drive vehicles, or fast motorbikes, and can therefore be more selective in what and who they choose to interact with, the cyclist has no such luxury. And, of course, this is the beauty of cycling too, that you have this proximity, that you break down barriers and are able to engage with people more readily. So I'm taking a day off to read up on how the global economy is descending into freefall and to sit back and take in a place for a day or two before packing my bags and riding on.

I've posted some photos too, just click on the link to the slideshow. I realise they are mostly of landscape rather than people. I'll try and work on that.

P.S. The above was written on a grim day in the desert. I just bought a headscarf from a group of guys that I've been hanging out with here in Erfoud for the past couple of days and they have convinced me that rather than cooking my head it will keep me cool. Inshallah. All is rosy once again.

Bislama.

Erfoud, Morocco

Trip distance: 5143 km

6: On the banks of Fortress Europe

Looking across the Strait of Gibraltar towards Morocco

"You're looking a bit thin", my mother announced with slight disapproval, several sentences into our first conversation in several weeks last night. There was a short pause, followed by, "So you're going to Africa then?"

Despite several enriching visits to various regions of the continent over the past four decades, her voice retains the fears of a generation that has been bombarded by a consistently negative image of the African continent. The very name inspiring images of excrutiating poverty, 'tribal' violence, and life-threatening diseases. While in some parts such factors do have a devastating impact on many people's lives, rarely are the deeper historical root causes of these factors analysed sufficiently well, or presented clearly by the Western media. Furthermore, rare is the positive image of Africa that is presented to us. Debates about whether external factors (the legacy of colonialism, for example, or the role of Western-biased trade agreements) or internal factors (in the form of corruption, or bad governance, for example) have more influence over the other in shaping the continent's contining social, political, and economic woes remain controversial. However, behind these larger issues is a continent, countries, and peoples that, just like any other, are living their lives. As a traveler, I often think, you are arguably less susceptible to problems in many parts of Africa than in many parts of western Europe or north America, particularly when traveling in rural areas. At this point in any discussion I usually throw in my story about the three cameras that were taken whilst I and a couple of friends were swimming along the Wild Coast in South Africa a couple of years ago, only to be returned several days later after the intervention of the community leaders and the local traditional healer. I try to imagine how the same situation would play out in other settings and I doubt I'd still be taking pictures with the camera.

My cousin Mark joined me from Colorado for the last two weeks of the European leg, from Lisbon over to southern Spain. We crossed the arid landscapes of southern Portugal and Andalucia, stopping off at a number of cities enroute, including Sevilla and Cadiz, catching a famous biennial flamenco festival in the former. A number of factors led to a decision to change my crossing point from Malaga to Tarifa, where rather than crossing over to the Spanish enclave of Melilla, I'll now cross to Tangier. The principal reason for the change of plan is to allow me to pass through Morocco's capital, Rabat, to collect a visa for Mauritania, as there are currently mixed reports about being able to get a visa at the border. And if you look at a map of the region, you really don't want to be told you have to go back to Rabat for a visa. So having gotten my wheels trued, bought enough spares to build an additional bicycle, and been presented with a proper pair of new cycling shoes from Mark, as well as stocking enough peanut butter to run a small plane, I'm ready for tomorrow morning's 35-minute high-speed ferry crossing to Tangier and the next leg of the journey.

Hasta Luego!

Tarifa, Spain

Trip distance: 4331 km

5: Is it safe to eat this many cakes?

Initially I was very impressed with my new cycling partner's grasp of the Spanish language. Following a very pleasant final night in Santander with couchsurfing hosts, Belen and Manuel, Kirsty had demonstrated her proficiency in Spanish admirably well I thought. Having spent only three weeks in Cuba learning Spanish whilst cycling around the island, Kirsty now seemed sufficently qualified to lead me further along some Spanish roads and bring a hopeful ray of light to what remains for me, a linguistic desert. As the days wore on, however, I realised that key aspects of my daily routine had been completely overlooked in Kirsty's linguistic training and were simply beyond the scope of her Latin American Spanish phrasebook. At mealtimes it sufficed to establish that the meal I wanted had to have meat in it, after that it was a case of eagerly waiting to see what exactly I had ordered. Normally this wasn't much of a problem and a fried slice of some animal would duly arrive, but on one occasion in a little village called San Antolin, matters reached a head. Having spent the previous four days traversing the mightily impressive Cordillera Cantabrica and having been almost simultaneously frozen, soaked, and toasted, I was ready for some filling food. We found the only eatery that we had passed in the previous 50 km of Asturian wilderness and I sat down to a dinner of what turned out to be pig knuckle fat. With Kirsty unable to eat her own food due to her hysterical laughter, I tenderly sild my way through two of the knuckles before pushing my plate aside in a rare moment of gastronomic defeat.

Our slightly inland route westwards across northern Spain was quite spectacular, bringing us up, down, and along beautiful mountain valleys, and on occasion, past what must be some of the largest open-cast coal mines in Europe. My standard of living increased dramatically as 1-star hostals became the norm, although we'd probably have ended up as frozen corpses on a couple of occasions had we been testing the limits of our lightweight sleeping bags inside our tents. Santiago de Compostela marked the end of Kirsty's cycling foray, and she began the return pilgrimmage to Edinburgh by train and boat, while I continued south to Portugal.

In the six days it took to ride down the Portuguese coast to Lisbon, one of the stops I made was in the northern city of Porto. I was staying in a hostel there one night, having locked the door to the dormitory since it was after midnight and I had presumed that no one else was going to be turning up. I'd just fallen asleep when there was banging on the door. Bruno was from a small town on the opposite side of the country, near the Spanish border, and he entered the room with gusto, turning on lights, appearing in no way apologetic to have roused me from my much needed beauty sleep, and he proceeded into a one-way conversation at full throttle. He immediately started to warn me of the dangers that the unwary visitor faced in Porto and advised me to leave nothing on display as only last night had he had a pair of shorts and a t-shirt stolen. I cast my eye dubiously over my own scattered belongings and thought it highly unlikely that some drug crazed FC Porto fan was going to run away with my Borat-style padded lycra shorts. "One can only hope" I muttered, trying to feign tiredness and irritation at having been woken up so abruptly. Despite my attempted indifference, Bruno's life story unravelled before me - his exchange year in Poland, finding work in Portugal as a fledgling civil engineer, his country town, and his father's recurring nightmares. When he mentioned that the source of the nightmares was as a result of his father's experiences as a soldier in the Portuguese colonial army in Guinea Bissau, I became more engaged. One of the last imperial powers to release its African colonies (present day Mozambique, Angola, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Guinea Bissau), I was interested to hear a Portuguese perspective on their colonial adventure. Independence for the colonies only occured after Portugal's own liberation from the dictatorship of Salazar in the early 1970s. Bruno hoped to work in Angola in a year or two as a civil engineer, but he had clearly inherited a depressing and skewed historical perspective. Regarded by many as one of the more brutal and destructive imperial powers, particularly in the period just prior to their departure, Bruno had apparently absorbed the colonial baggage as he said that the collapse and failure of the infrastracture and newly independent nations was clear evidence that the Africans did not know how to govern or main the infrastructure in their countries. Too tired to argue the point, I rolled over and went back to sleep.

I'll end this monologue with one other thought that has occured on the couple of hundred odd hours that I've been spending on my saddle over the past couple of months. Traveling by foot or on a bicycle or other such means, can help you appreciate how people can treat or view others based on first appearance. I remember passing through the industrial outskirts of Orleans several weeks back, when I saw a group of children from a nearby caravan encampment washing their clothes at a fire hydrant. The image resonated with me at the time, realising that what I regarded as the daily burden of washing my clothes by hand, if a suitable place can be found, was for these kids an everyday event. Another somewhat insightful moment occured when I was collapsing off the bike in the afternoon heat of a small coastal village in Portugal a couple of days ago. I was obviously looking the worse for wear, smeared with sweat, salt stains, and a congealed layer of sun screen, diesel fumes, and dust. I approached a passerby and in my best concoction of Portuguese, Spanish, French, and English, asked him for directions to the bread store. The man took one look at me and shaking his head and wagging his finger at me, walked resolutely on down the street. How many times I've seen similar jestures to others, yet although I was able to laugh it off, it was also a very disturbing sensation to be scorned in such a way. Of course, I can only relate on an extremely superficial level to others who experience such moments on a daily basis, but perhaps it's one good reason to get down and dirty on a bicycle.

Lisboa, Portugal

Trip distance: 3545 km

4: The never-ending hunt for porridge oats

Well I hadn´t intended to be providing weekly updates, I thought perhaps I might have done it by country instead, but at the speed I´m moving at people would probably forget the blog address in the interim. I also have an hour to kill before my Scottish cycling partner for the coming fortnight, Kirsty, arrives in on the ferry from Plymouth. I´ve got Rocinante tied up outside, but within view, here in downtown Santander where I´ve been taking some time off the bike for the past few days. Having had some pre-arranged dates made with friends for meeting up in Santander, I had several days to make the 250 km journey from San Sebastian to Santander and so I could take my time. This was fortunate as the hills themselves would have forced me to take a slower pace along this mountainous coast, but I would probably have been frustrated if I had tried to push a quicker pace. The exertion required to bring myself and the bike to the top of the hills was more than compensated for, however, by the spectacular coastline. The towns and villages in between held less appeal, especially those which have been blessed or cursed, depending on your point of view, with a fine beach. Such a feature ensures that your town will be inundated with those seeking to worship the sun-gods and will ensure your town´s urban arteries will be clogged with the daily migration from the town to the beach. The northern coastal resorts tend to attract an overwhelmingly Spanish clientele, probably driven away by the high cost of the more developed Spanish resorts along the Mediterreranean. The roads between these seasonal resorts offered sanctuary, however, and were for the most part surprisingly quiet and bereft of traffic.

Guernica is today a somewhat drab collection of modern architecture, but the town holds a very special place in the heart of many Basques. Not only was this the site where Basque elders held court in the past under an oak tree, the remains of which stand outside the present Basque parliament buildings, but it was also where Hitler´s airforce bombed the town in 1937. The facists, under General Franco, wished to destory the bridge in the town centre that provided a vital supply route for the Reds during the Spanish civil war and so they orchestrated the bombing and requested the Germans, eager to test their military equipment, as well as support Franco, to destroy the bridge. Carried out during the busy Monday afternoon market, however, not only was the bridge destroyed but so was most of the town and a total of over 2000 fatalities. This was the event that later inspired Picasso´s depiction of the bombing, now kept in Madrid.

One thing that I hadn´t understood whilst I was traveling through Euskadi was how, if the region had been so repressed by Franco, had the economy been so well developed and how northern cities, such as Bilbao, had been at the forefront of industrialisation in the mid twentieth century. A fellow I met in Santander, however, explained how Franco´s policy had actually been to develop and industrialise the Basque region to such an extent that it would be brought into the fold of Spain. This was also achieved by a type of latter day settler colony and by encouraging workers from other regions in Spain to migrate to these northern industrial areas to work and live and ultimately to breed out Basques from their own region. A very simplistic assessment of the situation, of course, and still just reflections from an ignorant passerby, but its certainly an interesting place to spend some time.

Thirty kilometres from Bilbao I crossed into Cantabria and left the Basque flags and language behind. While Santander doesn´t get much of a rating in the dog-eared photocopy I have of an out-of-date travel guide, I have really enjoyed my last few days in the city, catching up with some friends and spending time getting to know a place a little better and finally managing my first swim in the Atlantic since leaving Ireland. Destroyed by a fire in 1941, the city does at first seem to lack the old worldiness that has usually been present in the centre of cities that I´ve been passing through, but for me there is a relaxed and unpretentious charm to the city, boasted no doubt by the fact that I´ve found my first bag of porridge oats since central France.

Hasta luego!

Santander, Spain

Trip distance: 2285 km