CYCLING TO THE GORGES OF DADES – DAY 8

TROUBLES WITH A STOMACHACHE

This day when we were about start cycling to the Gorges of Dades, Marcelo woke up with a stomachache. He just could not go to the bathroom. We set on hoping that the things will get better. We passed several villages and noticed that the surrounding got changed a lot to a dry but still hilly desert-like countryside. Even the habitants seemed to be different. A group of children on their bikes joined us for about five kilometers. We gave them our spare tube as we knew we did not need them anymore.

A DONKY RIDE

When we left the last village the route started to climb up to the mountains again. We met an old shepherd with two donkeys around. I did not know how but suddenly Marcelo was riding a donkey and shepherd pointing where to go. Seeing this one could think to be crazy as the wind and mountain sun was the perfect combination to make our heads go freak.

LAST DESCENT OF ATLAS

It was a long ascent that day, up&down. The final mountain pass was 2.917 meters high. Behind this point the route went only down….more or less one hundred kilometers. We passed along a great depressions made by water erosion. Spectacular!! It was curious but we were looking forward to finish the descent because it was very demanding. We left the Atlas Mountains and we entered the first village. No more such isolated like the villages up in the mountains. We realized we are back in the civilization. We bought a medicine for Marcelo to get better and found a hostel to stay overnight. Today we were not able to keep cycling to the Gorges of Dades but tomorrow is another day.