Marrakech-Guelmim
14.12.2018
It doesn’t take long time to say goodbye to all the people of Pikala Bikes. Some might have wanted that I would stay longer. But I have to go. The desert is calling me.
Once I leave the city, the mountains of the Atlas come in view. I feel like home as I finally see the snowy peaks and it remembers me on my own home.
On the evening I pitch up my tent next to a gas station and get invited by the owner for dinner. We sit in the café of the station and watch football until I finally go to sleep.
I head off early in the morning. The road is already ascending but it’s still not the pass of Tizi n’ Tichka. But finally I am surrounded by mountains and valleys. The road is sometimes steep and there and whenever a truck is coming I have to drive away from the street. I am glad having my new scarf, as it protects me from all the dust, the trucks make. After a tea break on one o’clock in a small village, the final ascend begins. The road is smooth and it hasn’t too much traffic so I make it before sunset on the top of the pass. The view is great, the street over the pass is just a small band, winding along the mountains, and the snowy covered peak of the one big mountain is slowly becoming clouded.
You might now have the impression that there is a cyclist, sweating, almost out of power almost on the edge of giving up because he has to carry 50 Kilo on his bike up this steep mountains. No. I am smiling, my legs are doing well, I am full of energy and happy. This is simply the life I have chosen for myself. And this is what and where I want to be.
There is a restaurant on the way in which garden I am allowed to camp. It is already cold as I set up the tent. Two dogs roaming around are protecting my tent and in the valley next to the restaurant you can see a herd of sheep grazing.
I stay up late this night, just watching the stars and from time to time making some photos.
The night however is freaking cold. It’s not much above 0 Degrees and I have to force myself out of the tent in the morning. The sun hasn’t showed up yet and on I climb up on a hill nearby. I hope to make some good shots, but the light isn’t perfect. Nevertheless, it is just great to stand here, watch over the mountains and see the sun rising.
Once back on the road, I can’t drive as fast as I want. The Asphalt is horrible and it keeps shaking all my stuff. I lose my water bottle twice. But even worse are the cars and trucks but the worst are travelling buses. They don’t mind to play with your live, just keep going. Brakes? Never heard of them. Too Dangerous? Allah will protect me.
It often doesn’t need much and I wouldn’t have been able to write this text anymore.
But finally the road is good again and I there is lesser traffic. I am in a good mood and take an abbreviation to Ait Ben Haddou. No more Asphalt, just 6km of stony and sandy desert track. I fear of my electronics, because it’s all shaking but finally I find the village. I talk to the merchants of the village, all Berbers with lots of interesting things to talk about. One of the Merchants then invites me to pitch my tent next to his house and offers me shower and a meal. Of course do I take the offer.
Like usual, I take off early in the morning, the road is flat and I finally arrive shortly before Ouarzazate at the Atlas Studios. Many Films with desert have been made here. Prince of Persia, the scorpion King almost all films that play in the desert.
A few hundred meters into the desert, behind the studios, there is still the city of Jerusalem built up. It was used in the Movie Kingdom of Heaven. The Ram and the trebuchet are still standing there. Except a tired guard, there is just nobody. I take the chance and take a lot of photos. I always wanted to be in a movie like this.
In Ouarzazate itself, I am at first trying to find a canister for the water. A merchant, with a blue Djellaba and a black turban helps me with this. Abdelwahid is a Berber and had gone to the desert as a merchant but now, he is just working in the shop where he sells arts, crafted jewellery, carpets and stuff. The camel is now a 4x4 and has changed a lot in the lives of the people in the desert.
He even brings me to a tailor, who cuts and sews some holes in to a bag, so I can put the canister on top of my luggage.
He shows me his shop. I have a lot of time and we keep talking drinking tea and he keeps trying to sell me some of the carpets. But I deny. Too big, too heavy. Nevertheless, he invites me to dinner and after I set up my tent on the campground nearby I come back and we eat a tajine and stay up long after midnight. Just made again a new friend.
The next morning, I am on the campground, preparing, and washing my stuff.
I try to wash my scarf, and my hands turn all blue. Fucking assholes who sold me this stuff in Marrakech. And the Canister loses water as well.
The puncture on the way to Abdel makes the morning shitty enough. But he helps me another time. We change the Canister and he tells me that I always have to put some plastic over the cap, to keep it tight. That’s just so. And he sells me a new scarf. Eight meters long and light blue, the colour of the Touareg. And this time it’s quality. And I sell him my old scarf and the dejellaba and he gives me a better Djellaba. Goddam was I overprized in Marrakech.
We spend the day and evening sitting in front of his store, talking about what men usually talk about when they sit in front of stores and having a good time.
I take on his offer to pitch my tent on the roof of the shop. On the 3rd floor, s steep stair goes up and there is the roof. An open space with white walls, a little room with a carpet on the floor and some clothes lying on it, a stove, and a fridge without a door serves as a cupboard.
We bought some pieces of meat on the market and while I prepare the brochets, he keeps an eye on the shop. I am accompanied by a man, truly looking like a central European but he just speaks Arabic. He is an actual Berber and every time I hear him speaking Berber it irritates me. There are some Berber families that look like this, as they are travelling far they have very mixed blood, so Abdel explains me.
We finally start eating, the stars shine over the roof, the muezzin doing his call, Abdelwahid explains me which stars they use to navigate and it is really like in Ali Baba or Aladdin.
I am Aladdin, Otto is the monkey, Abdel the Djinn and the flying carpet is self-explaining if you see what my friends are smoking.
What a wonderful night. Never before would I have imagined that this could happen to me.
And I don’t even have to sleep on the roof. Me and Abdel lay down on the carpets in the store and it’s is way better to sleep here than on the roof. While Abdel is listening to some Quran-verses I finally fall asleep.
To say goodbye next morning takes a long time. Seems as if Abdel and his friends also don’t want to let me go. And it’s already 2 o’clock until I finally head off.
The next week takes me over the Anti Atlas to Tazenakht and Tafraoute to Guelmim, the door to the desert. I am mostly on an altitude of 1000 to 1800 meters, and as I don’t take the main roads I can see the land as it is. The landscape is stony. Sometimes boring, only a few bushes, acacias but sometimes along the dried out river beds palm trees, green meadows and plantations. And I accidentally drive over the only snake I ever see in Morocco. I ride along some ancient villages, women taking bunches of bushes to their houses, shepherd guarding their sheep and goats. One even jumps over a whole field, just glad to be able to talk to me for five minutes. Even though I can’t understand what he is saying. There are children begging for a pencil: Stylo! Donnez moi une Stylo!
How could I explain to them that I only have a single one for all of the twenty kids?
I finally give my last pen to a child that is walking home from school all alone. I gave it also a mandarin and with this in the hand and a smile on its dirty face, it waves goodbye to me and keeps on going home.
On time as I ride along a river two men on a scooter drive next to me and try to tell me something in Moroccan and with wild gestures. Ok, I shall meet the squirrel at sunset under the palm tree in the house. I understand. Ok I didn’t but I finally figure out that they invite me for lunch in their farm house. We cross a dry river bed and there is a little cottage made out of mud and a generator pumps water from the ground. Good clear water. Perfect after a week without shower and good water.
While one of the three guys prepares the tajine, we keep talking. They understand my high Arabic and so we can talk to each other more or less. We are having a good time. Sitting on the carpet right on the dirt floor and after the meal they show me the photos of their families on their smartphones.
And then they show me a video from Charlie Chaplin on YouTube. In Berber. The one movie where he tries to deliver a piano. I don’t understand much but we laugh together. Chaplin really doesn’t need any words.
Unfortunately I have to deny their offer to stay for the night and after they showed me the surrounding pumpkin fields, I finally hit the road again.
The days are sunny and good temperature but the nights and mornings freezing cold. I am really glad about my new Djellaba, which I use as an additional blanket over my clothes and sleeping bag.
There is no moon and the night sky is clear and full of stars. I have never seen the Milky Way as clear as now and without any disturbing light, it is just wonderful.
Only the wild dogs that keep barking all night are disturbing the moment. But when I am camping wild, far away from every village I can hear the silence. Then I just lay in front of my tent, covered in my Djellaba, looking into the sky and look at the stars. I am right where I want to be at this time, at, this place in this very moment. And I am happy.
