From Midelt to Barrage Hassan Addakhil (75.6 miles)
I woke early and quickly saddled the horse and headed down to main road and retraced my tyre prints to the first petrol station on the left. As expected, this was a foolproof plan as Chris and Matty roll into town at 7am on the dot. The failure in the plan was the fact that, after spending a couple of nailbiting hours watching my bike get "fixed", I forgot to buy breakfast! Doh.
Once a few breakfast dates were consumed we decided to bash on to Zebzate, a town about 20 km ahead, where we hoped to pick up breakfast once the shops opened. Unfortunately, this was one incident where our minutely detailed map let us down...instead of being a town to stock up on food, Zebzate was a collection of shacks and a few goats. With no towns before the start of the High Atlas we just had to tuck into today's lunch which was by now possibly the fourth meal in a row that consisted of sardines, laughing cow and moroccan bread..if it ain't broke don't fix it!
On a stomach of tinned fish and questionable cheese we tackled the high Atlas mountains. A very steep climb was made worse by the crumbling roads and ever more suicidal drivers that shot round the hairpin corners in the middle of the road! There weren't much in the way of towns as we crossed the plateau of the High Atlas but we did stop in what seemed like a ghost town before heading along the massive, wide-bottomed and steep sided valleys that dominate the High Atlas.
After Chris and Matty passed around a corner, following a small collection of houses, I noticed a group of kids bending and picking up stones. After having heard of these cheeky little scamps from other cyclists who have been to Morocco I planned to spoil their daily cyclist stoning. I stopped and pretended to pick up a few stones of my own and started cycling towards them as they all scattered back behind the trees at the side of the road. Donnie 1 - tiny tourist bashers - 0!
Once I turned the corner ahead into another deep valley, the temperature rose quite dramatically and I was happy to see that Matty and Chris had stopped at a gas station just before the town of Rich. Quite what it was Rich in we weren't sure but it certainly did have a few strange characters lurking around the petrol station. Once we got lunch going (no prizes for guessing what we had) a guy woke from under a nearby tree and immediately started pressing Matty for water and smokes. After having cycled the water all the way into the High Atlas, Matty was pretty sure he was going to be the only one drinking it after having given some to a passing driver who asked earlier! The man eventually gave up and sat down for a smoke then dissapeared...only to return a short while later, simply holding a condom and pointing at Matty, who must have been a bit shy and passed on that offer!
Once the heat and the weird guy had both calmed down we started our cycle down the amazing Ziz valley, through the palmeries and olive groves that lined it. Along with palm and olive trees, the Ziz valley is famous for it's figs, which we bought at least a kilogram for one pound at the side of the road! Reaching the bottom of the gorge unfortunately meant a fairly large climb at the end of the day in order to reach the shores of the Hassan Addakhil dam. Here, we layed out the tents for sleeping on top of and had the most amazing wash in the warm waters of the turquoise lake which stretched out beside us. Apart from the odd car travelling along the road above, the only other moving thing near us was a man walking the length of the lake, checking his fishing nets and a whole lot of earwigs! These were the only thing that ruined the night as the sunset over the dam gave way to an amazingly clear night sky. They would give us the odd nip if we moved but they were definitely better news than being nipped by a scorpion.
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