Our bikes and our gear

For those interested, here´s some info about the bikes we chose for this adventure and some of the gear we packed along to make it possible.  Keep in mind that we're total newbs at this so we did a lot of guessing (though a lot of reseach too!) to make this happen.

The bike:

We went for Novara Safari´s from REI in the States.  For just $850, their a really good deal.  They're essentially stock with four main exceptions.  We swapped out the Deore (26-36-48) crankset and replaced it with a better quality LX (22-32-44) crankset to give us much lower gearing for the hills.  We also swapped out the Continental tires for a set of bigger and more puncture resistant Schwalbe Marathons (700x42).  The aluminum rack that came with the bike wasn´t strong enough for our needs, so we swapped in an Axiom Journey stainless steel rack which has a carrying capacity of 80kg.  On the front we went with a Tubus Ergo rack.  The final swap was the saddle.  We swapped in, for me, a Brooks B-17 leather saddle and for Elaine a Brooks B-68 Imperial.  Brooks saddles are renouned for being the best long distance touring saddle available.  At 3000km we've regreased the headsets and rebuilt my rear hub (it kept loosening itself but seems to be fixed now).

The Novara Safari... note the 5 bottle cages and the cool trekking handlebars.  Sorry i had the white balance  on the camera set on 'incandecent bulb' for these photos so they're a bit blue..

For Panniers we went for cheap.  We´re not sure if we´ll regret this, but we went with MEC Expedition panniers.  They appear durable, but aren´t water proof.  Also, were not sure if the lidded design is the way to go, a roller top would be mor convenient, particularly on the front.  Time will tell.  As of 3000kms, they're holding up well.

Other than the bikes and panniers, the next most important thing aith us is our repair kit.  We stocked it as follows:

Multitool, Mini Ratchet, 2 cone wrenches, letherman skeletool, 30 patches, 2 tubes of glue, tire levers, sandpaper (for deglazing brakepads), sidewall patches, spare brake and shifter cables, spare bolts for various parts (the novaras use the same bolt on 80 percent of the parts... very covenient), 2 full sets of brake pads, oil, grease, brooks saddle tool, locktite (for rack bolts in particular), presta/shreadder valve adapter, spare skewer bolts (we had them so we brought em), pump, 6 spare tubes (our tube size is unavailable in africa), 2 spare tires, extra pannier clips and screws, a pile of zip ties, emergency spoke repair, stein tool (see photo), 10 spare spokes, a spare chain, duct tape, electrical tape, hockey tape, seam grip, crazy glue, scissors, needle w/ thread (for clothes and heavy hemp thread for panniers), safety pins, tent fabric and buttons.

Kevlar emergency spoke repair.  You can quickly repair a broken spoke without taking off your wheel.  Good for fixes in awkward places like sketchy town centers where you attract a lot of curiosity..

Stein Tool for cassette (rear gears) removal.  Install it between the  frame and the cassette, pedal forward and using the  bike dropout as resistance, it unlocks the cassette.  Much lighter and easier than the conventional way..

The whole lot in a tupperware that doubles as a parts washer

Other gear:

Ipod, usb chargable mini speaker (for long hills, low motivation days and thousands of miles of desert), solar pannel, AA battery charger, USB camera charger (indispensable), cell phone, SD to USB adapter, portable hard drive.

AA battery solar charger.  Ties onto my sleeping pad.  It keeps everything i have powered when i go a while without a computer or wall plug.  

The Camera battery USB clip.  I looked everywhere for this thing and found it only exists at MEC bundle with the AA charger on the left.   The clip allows me to charge my camera battery with AA batteries charged by the solar panel.  I can also charge the battery pack and the clip with a compter USB port

Mange Elaine! Mange MANGE!!

Now imagine this scene:  Were sitting on the floor around a table.  On the table is a giant lamb and vegetable Tagine (see photo), and seated with us are four Morrocan women and two kids (one with serious ADD).  Food is splattered across the table and Elaine has a mouth full of lamb, a piece of bread in hand with half a potato on in and a totally confused look on her face as our host says "eat Elaine! Eat EAT!" and passes her another chunk of bread the size of her head.  This comical situation began with the purchase of a Sprite.

The day before had started in a freshly sprouting wheat field.  A farmer had offered us a small corner of his property to put our tent for the night.  They knew nothing of English or French, we knew next to nothing of Arabic.  The message was picked up when they noticed us poking around an empty field behind some trees at sunset and confirmed with our few words of Arabic "Ano nez kaiton.." (I sleep tent..).  We headed off at sunrise, rolled into the town of Oued Zem, had a coffee with an omelette, olives, cheese and bread (18 dirhams or 3 dollars) and rode off towards Marrakesh which was another three days down the road.  The road crossed barren lands as it decended slowly down to the river at the base of the Atlas Mountains.  We cruised along at 25km\hr and covered 118 kilometers before pulling in to a village called Oulad Ayed.  Not really feeling like 15 kilometers of switchbacks, we stopped at a small shop, bought a couple Sprites and inquired about local hotels.  "Ahhh oui il y a beacoup!"  There are many he said... just not here, they're all up and over the mountain.  We explained our situation, and he suggested we should try asking the guard at the parking lot in the small gated community across the road.  He might let us put up a tent in the parking lot.  So we wandered over, found the guard and sure enough, he provided us with a nice covered parking stall for the night. 

Our wheat field tent site

With an audience of older men we set up our small tent, hung a light off the stall roof and set up the stove.  The men were amazed...this was obviously not our first time sleeping in a parking lot.  The men wandered off in search of ciggarettes, we cooked and ate a couscous dinner and prepared to get some shut eye.  Then one of the men reappeared.  "Ramasser tes chose, et viens avec moi."  Pick up your stuff and come with me.  We didn't argue, we were either being moved to a better spot or into a house.  He took us to his home, dragged the bikes into the courtyard and introduced us to his three daughters, his wife and his two nephews (8 and 9).  From there there was only one thing on everyones mind... feed them.

Now we had actually eaten already.  We had a good feed of couscous and vegetables and really weren't hungry.  They asked if we wanted to eat something, we said no were not hungry and out came a massive omelette (at least six eggs) full of chunks of lamb and the only utensil to eat it with was bread used as a scoop.  It was delicious, but we were totally stuffed trying to squeeze it all in while the family would say "Mange Steve Mange Elaine....mange!"  When we finally got every last bit in, they offered us some Moroccan soup.  "Non, je suis plein merci."  Out came bowls of tasty and hearty soup and again, we found space for it with the family encouraging us the whole time.  We sat up late that night, our stomachs slowly grinding away the mass of food we'd eaten, chatting with the family about theives on the road; Moroccan weddings (they would dress Elaine up if we stayed long enough) and the ADD 9 year old who was trying constantly trying to either have me take him with us or trying to extort money out of me.  We went to bed after being informed that breakfast was obligatory.

The tagine...open and closed....and sideways..

The next day was more than a bit chaotic.  The two boys had become comfortable with us and Elaine had become the center of attention for the women.  She went to the bathroom and when she stepped out there were three women standing there asking if she needed anything.  They brought us bread and tea and began creating a tagine for 'breakfast'.  It would take until the early afternoon to get into it and until then it was "Elaine vien vien Elaine".  All the while I was doing my best to keep the boys from sitting on our bikes, going through our panniers and trying to get dirhams out of me.  When the tagine was finally ready, everyone dove into it with chunks of bread, the ADD kid threw a temper tantrum and Elaine was fed about double what she can normally stomach.  It was another great experience in Morocco.  Usually we only meet the men in the family as not many older women speak French.  Here we got to hang out with four french speaking women who were delighted to take care of a couple travellers.  It was tough to leave.... they wanted us to stay the rest of the week..

The road  to Marrakesh

Le Fete des Moutons and Mauritanian Bureaucracy

Ever since we got to Morocco, we've been seeing sheep.  Day one, we watched a bus  pull up, a man get off and open up the baggage compartment to pull out 3 sheep.  "Tu veut un mouton?" he yelled over  to us.  We laughed and waved back.... no thanks, we're good on the sheep.

Day two,  I  was waiting with the  bikes outside a store and a woman walked up and said something to me in Arabic.  As I looked  at her blankly, a passerby intervened, said something to her, then turned to me as she walked away; "she wanted to know if they sold sheep in  there".  Ah, of course.  The fact that she was looking for a sheep seemed much less strange then her decision to ask me about it!

A few more days on the road brought more sheep encounters, most of them very comical scenes involving sheep strapped sideways on top of cars and people dodging traffic while carrying bleeting sheep cradled in their arms like babies. Finally, someone explained it to us... Eid al-Adha, "le fete des moutons", was coming up next monday, just a week away.  It's an important religious holiday celebrated by Muslims all over the world, part of which involves the man of each family sacrificing a sheep.  Suddenly the scenes from the past week made sense!  We noted the date and figured we'd better stock up on supplies sunday night, as no stores would be open on Monday.


We arrived in Meknes the next day, planning to have a day or two of rest before biking to Rabat.  We hadn't ever wanted to go to Rabat- both being a big city and completely out of the way-but needed to visit the Mauritanian Embassy to get entry visas for the next leg of the trip.  It wasn't until Wednesday that we realized our bad timing...  With two days to cycle to Rabat, the Embassy closed for the weekend plus Eid, we wouldn't be able to get the application in until at least the following tuesday! With the minimum 48 hour wait to get the visas after applying, we were now going to be stuck in Rabat almost a week longer than we'd wanted.   


So the next morning we left the bikes in Meknes and hopped the train to Rabat, documents in tow, to try to speed up the process. We arrived at the Embassy an hour early and there were already 4 other visa hopefuls in line.  We all hung out on the sidewalk and chatted until someone opened the door, shoved some application papers out at us, and slammed it shut again. Good thing we brought our own pens...


After about 20 minutes spent trying to decipher the forms and translate the french for the Brits in line with us, we noticed that the door was open again and a mob had started to form around it. Apparently strange things like line-ups don't really exist in Morocco... you just join the mob until you see an opening and take it!  Acting like a polite Canadian will  get you nowhere.


We finally pushed our way through the door to a little hole in the wall about the size of a tennis ball, with a slot underneath it. I could see hands shuffling papers but not the person they were attached to.  The conversation  went something like this (in french of course):

Embassy Official to Steve:  "Passeporte!!  Application!!  Photos!!"
        -Steve slides his documents through the slot

"340 Dirhams!!"
        -Steve  slides the  money through the slot

Embassy Official, noticing a second person standing in front of his little hole: "Vous!! Passeporte!!  Appplication!! Photos!!"  
        - I slide my papers through the slot

"340 Dirhams!!" 
        -I slide my money through the slot

"340 Dirhams each! Each! Each!!"


Steve to Official: "Mais monsieur... I already gave you my money; it's right there, on your desk"


" Each!! EACH!!"


"Mais monsieur..." 


He finally realizes that he does, in fact, have both our fees. A flurry of papers and stamping ensue.


Official:  "15hr tomorrow to pickup"


Us, not believing the good luck of actually being able to get the visas back before the weekend: "Mais monsieur.. the sign beside us says you're closed at 12hr tomorrow... are you sure?"


"15hr!! 15HR!!!!! 15HR tomorrow!!!!"


Ok ok, fine.  We take the slip of paper he shoves at us and run for it before he can yell at us more.  Of course, when we return the next day, the Embassy is closed until Wednesday morning for Eid.  Well, at least we got the applications in...


We spent the next few days hiding in Meknes from torrential downpours that threatened to collapse the roof of the hotel-no exaggeration- the housekeeper was actually squeegee-ing the floor of the lobby where the rain was leaking in.  Even if we had our passports, we wouldn't have been going anywhere.  We hung around the hotel, drank tea, and watched the excitement for le fete des moutons build around us.  We even met one guy who had been keeping a sheep in his living room for 3 months! They were much less expensive 3 months ago, he told us.


The Sunday before Eid, there was a noticible energy to the air-the entire country was buzzing with excitement.  Trucks were pulling up outside the hotel and emptying sheep into the street, men were dragging them off  by the horns.  The sheep seemed to know what was coming-we watched as they dug their hooves in and refused to move, making their buyers work every step of the way to get them home.   Everyone we met was telling us about their sheep and about what tomorrow would entail.

On Monday, the day of Eid, we took advantage of the newly clear skies to start the ride to Rabat.  As we passed through towns the celebrations were spilling out onto the road as people were leaving the mosques to go home.  Everyone was dressed in their finest, laughing and waving as we rode by.  We didn't get to witness any actual sacrificing, but throughout the day we saw multiple sheep bodies hanging up in yards and began to smell the cooking fires, and later the cooking meat!


We did get to partake in some belated festivities though.  The next morning a man named Said found us packing up our tent in the forest near his house and invited us back for breakfast.  There was no reason not to, so we followed him back to his house where we met one of the happiest families I have ever seen.  We sat in the sun in his yard and enjoyed sheep kebabs and bread cooked over charcoal from his fire pit.  I never pictured myself enjoying eating sheep heart, but it was so delicious it was hard to say no. In addition to the tasty food, the welcoming atmosphere created by Said, his wife, and 2 kids made for the nicest breakfast I could possibly imagine.  It was hard to leave.... though we had passports to pick up, so eventually we tore ourselves away and got back on the road to Rabat.

Post-Eid breakfast with sheep kebabs

As annoying as the Embassy had been the previous week, we were pleasantly surprised to actually get our passports back on Wednesday, complete with visas!  No longer chained to Rabat,  we started heading south  to Marrakech.  The next 5 days involved lots of pedalling, lots of sheep meat,  and everyone we met saying "too bad we didn't meet you a week ago, you could have spent Eid with us!" Once again, Moroccan hospitality is taking very good care of us on this adventure...  though I'll admit, I'm getting a little sick of eating sheep!

Steve and the bikes in Rabat

The Spanish Roundup

Spain by the numbers:

Kilometers cycled:  1460
Days in Spain: 28
Averge km per day: 52
Days with less than 15km cycled: 2
Most Km in one day: 110
Top Speed: 79.46km\hr
Days in Hostels:  4
Days camped: 24
Number of nights Steve regretted not bringing a warmer sleeping bag: 24
Vacation homes used: 1 (no one home, slept on their beach front porch)
Km Steve required to figure out his gripshift:  1460 and counting
Km before Steve broke his camera: 1380
Ounces of SPF 50 used: 8
Number of sunburns: 0!
Number of flat tires: 2 (1 each)
Number of crashes: 1 (Elaine, standing still with both feet on the ground, toppled into a ditch)
Number of free beds offered: 1
Days of rain: 4
Run ins with the Guardia Civil: 2
Times they had a valid reason to hassle us: 1 (no bikes on the autovia!)
Kms ridden before disobeying and getting back on the autovia: 2
Number of bull slaughters witnessed at the torro: 2
Number of slaughters walked out on: 1
Number of times we'll see another torro: 0 (awful display of human cruelty and cowardice)
Days we cooked pasta for dinner: 21
Days we ate chips and beer for dinner: 4
Number of Unesco sites visited: 2 (alhambra and valencia)

In Gibraltar with the Jabel mountains of Morocco behind us

Ano Nez Fuel Kaiton Fualah Frrrrrraba

I Sleep In A Tent On The Ground.  That simple Arabic sentence  pretty much sums up our living arrangement here in Morocco and, should I actually pronounce all the words properly, will get a chuckle out of just about anyone.  We've had five nights here so far and three of them were spent in a tent.  Each night we have the same worries:  food, water, security.  Security is highly subjective, different for every person, in every place you go.

Safe drinking water from the communal tap

Our first night; we went for stealth, 'cacher dans le bois' (hiding in the woods).  The second night; we ran into trouble.  We were following a narrow road through the mountains, steep slopes on one side, and a river on the other.  The sun was setting and there was nowhere to go.  We could see there were some flat spots near the river, though access was hard and we'd be totally visible from the road.  We don't expect anyone to try to rob us in the night, but it's unnerving to have your tent lit up every two minutes.  It's always more relaxing when you know you won't be seen by many.  As it grew dark, we began seriously poking around the bushes by the river, checking the gate at an abandoned, locked, compound, all the while being watched by a silhouette 50 meters above the road near some sort of factory.  With nowhere else to go, we headed his way, pushing our bikes up the steep access road.  At the top of the hill, a man around our age was already waiting for us.  He smiled, said something in Arabic, saw our confusion, tried Spanish, saw a glimmer of understanding, tried French, and saw the comprehension light up our eyes.  'Vous voulez quelque chose?' (do you want something?).  We sure did, we needed a place to sleep.  Kareem (as we later found out) seemed to know all along just what we were looking for, a place for, in his words, our 'pueblo'.  So using his basic mix of French and Spanish, he managed to convey to us that he knew just the spot.  He led us down to the river, showed us an easy access we'd missed and pointed to his eyes and then up to the hill he'd been watching us from.  He would watch over us through the night and make sure we are safe.  'ahhhh oui....'  ummmmm....yeeeah.  Ok.  With no better options available, we put our faith in Kareem.  He headed back up to his post, a chair on the hillside about a 100 meters away while the passing cars lit the surroundings between him and us.   We made dinner and attempted to get comfortable with our situation, a feat made far more easy after Kareem came down to visit us.  He began by moving our tent to a spot more 'cacher', then sat with us for a chat.  He's the night watchman for a mineral water company (L'eau Mineral de Chefchaouen).  He and two others sit up all night to watch the grounds for 300 Dirhams a week each, about 35 Canadian dollars.  With this he's raising two kids with his wife in a small house 3km away.  He sat up with us for nearly 4 hours, teaching us Arabic while we helped his French and we laughed as we all did charades to help understand each other.  He even left at one point, climbing the big hill to the factory, to fetch us a glass of deliciously minty Moroccan tea.  We slept soundly that  night, knowing there were three pairs of eyes ensuring we'd be safe. 

Our third night camping in Morocco was similar.  This time we were on the prairie, no hiding spots to be found and exhausted from pedaling 83km that day.  We began considering our three options; getting a hotel, tenting in plain sight or finding someone to help us out.  The next town was 15kms away, at the top of a huge hill and there's no guarantee there'll even be a hotel there.  Being in plain sight on the plains wasn't very appealing which left us at, finding someone to help.  So we started to look around, and on a feeling, we start pedaling towards a small group of houses, huddled under the only trees to be seen.  I suppose there was something behind our 'feeling'.  There's something about a well kept property.  When someone takes the time to plant trees and flowers you automatically feel more comfortable because you know that this person cares about more than just themselves (and has the means to do so).  We nervously cycled down the dirty farm road towards the cluster of houses.  We rolled up to a small property, and cautiously looked in the gate.  A man gave a surprised look, and walked towards us 'vous voulez quelque chose?'.  I replied with studdery nervous French that we really needed a safe place to sleep in our tent, anywhere would do, for just one night.  Without hesitation he told us we can put it anywhere we want and not to be afraid here, it's as safe as can be, anywhere.  His name is Hakkim, and the evening followed again with delicious tea, some noodles and great conversation from food to politics.  Hakkim had been to Europe, he went to South East Asia and he'd been all over West Africa including eight years spent in the Ivory Coast.  He filled our heads with advice and told us many things such as that the best educated Africans are in Senegal and, of all places, Sudan.  Again, we slept very soundly that night.

We've only been here for six days, but Morocco has already made us family.  Travelling by bike, everyone can say hello, and ask us how we are...and everyone does 'Bonjour, ca va?'.  We move quick enough to out run the kids who want pens 'Donné moi stylo!' (the state does supply pens to students, so if they go to school they have a pen, if they don't go to school they have no use for one and yes, school is available to everyone), yet slow enough to allow us to interact with everyone.  We'll be here for at least another month, with many more nights where we'll find ourselves at the mercy of Moroccan hospitality.

Buying olives in Meknes

Riding from the rain in Spain (it's a pain!)

To anyone planning a cycle tour, ever: If it rains just one day of your tour, you will wish you spent the extra money on waterproof panniers. Especially if you are camping.

We rode for about 3 weeks without even seeing a cloud in the sky. Steve even started saying things like "y'know, a little rain might be nice" as we slathered on the sunscreen and sweated onwards. The first indication of a weather change came one night a couple of days ride out of Granada, as we set up camp in the mountains just outside of Riogordo. We watched the clouds pouring over top of the limestone peaks like water from a bucket, the alpine climbers inside of us screaming "run!". All the panniers got pulled off the bikes and stuffed inside the tent, making for a very cozy night inside our superlight shelter. But in the morning, though the clouds kept threatening, no rain came!

We pushed onwards, thinking we had outridden the storm, and had a nice dry night outside of El Chorro after having a beer in the local climbers bar. The next morning, we rode less than 3km before the skies opened up. And I mean completely opened up! It was like standing under a high pressure shower, the thunder and lightning rolling together into one big rumbly flash. Luckily, we found a section of cave overhanging the road with just enough ditch to house two bikes and us, just in time to stay dry.

The hiding cave, just before the skies opened completely

For the next 3 hours we huddled in that ditch, waiting to see if it would at least lighten up enough for us to make a move. Cars zoomed by, most waving at us sympathetically, one even stopping to offer us a poncho! It eventually became clear that this storm wasn't going anywhere, and we were getting cold, so out came the giant grey garbage-bag-like square ponchos that serve as our emergency rain gear. They definitely aren't the most "streamlined" fit! I really wish I had a picture of us two billowy poncho ghosts on wheels riding into the storm, but it was much too miserable to take my camera out. The ride into the next town was also pretty miserable as I tried not to think about how wet my everything was getting.

It seems like the next week was spent running (or rolling) from the rain. One night in Ronda it poured for a solid 15 hours, keeping us huddled in the tent until after noon. Every day we would ride towards the section of blue sky up ahead, only to be rained on by the darkness above us. On our last night in Spain, we slept on a hillside near the port of Algeciras and didn't even try to keep things dry when it started raining-we just went to sleep in the mud and let it rain on all our clothes and gear. I had hit the point of not caring. We'll dry out in Africa, right?

The view of the port from our hillside in Algeciras

Well, 6 days later, and after more rain near Tetouan; we're finally dry. And I only had to throw away one tank top that had molded beyond saving. Not much of a loss considering Morocco is no place for tank tops... but I'll write more about that later. For now, we've finally outridden the rain, dried out the panniers, and are back to roasting in the hot Moroccan sun.

A stormy night in the mountains outside of Ronda