Dec 31, 5pm, Madrid Airport

So I was ready to pay the penalty fee and board the next flight to Colombia but the smiling lady at the kiosk would not let me book it without a return ticket. I squinted down my tablet and negotiated failed attempts to sign into the wifi and then onto making a fake return ticket, by the time I was done the kiosk was closed. OK. Plan B.

The cheapest flight out of Europe was cheaper than the penalty fee, to Florida and then it shouldnt be hard to get to Colombia but the catch was, I need to wait 2 weeks.
I had gotten in touch with a friend in Granada and before I knew it I was on a carpool ride due to arrive at 11pm. We ate 12 grapes for new year like all Spanish people do (although comically, the TV had a count down involving 12 coca cola bottles being opened... I wonder how much money Coca Cola paid for that.....) and on January 1st, it felt to be somewhere on top of a mountain with new friends.

Tatiana and Jesus are doing exactly what I aspire to do: traveling light. They have gone to a lot of places and while my initial plan was to go and walk Camino de Santiago, Jesus showed me photos of the nearby Transandalus Mountain Bike Route. It was a go, over the next day I took his E-bike for a ride (these things are awesome!!!) and stubbornly refreshed weather forecasts for the Gibraltar straight. Packrafting it, in 40+km/h winds would be... a very bad idea...

In the evening they showed me photos of their trip in Morocco, in The Atlas Mountains. OK. Plan G... In 3 hours my friends created a route, I searched some ferries and got info on buses, Jesus agreed to lend me his kona bike and it was a go. Let's go to Africa!

After surprisingly little trouble, I landed in Mellila. The town was full of people, walking, walking only streets and I went toward Morocco.

It is interesting how a simple line can be such a big change, 1euro for a nice sandwich where you pick two types of meat from the shop and then someone cooks it for you and a 7 euro hotel room. I was awoken at 5am by a long line up of people going to Spain, people literally driving onto eachother to get ahead of the line, people walking, it really felt odd being on the other side.

The train folks were against bikes so I went to take the bus, first one ran out of gas but luckily they had a jerry can of it and we made it to a gas station. On the 2nd ride we fought with a car to exit and the car ran over the baggage guy's foot, the driver instead of apologizing yelled back and acted very threateningly. What a different world.

Sadly the 2nd bus ran out of gas again and as bad as it sounds, I just jumped ship, the "onboard" mechanic was poking around the engine and I was not sure if gas was the only problem. Plus, it was a good time to bike with the changing colors.

Ali baba and his friend, who when I told him how cold it is offered to give me his robe.

Another realization was that it is winter here. Like a proper winter. I only had sandals and shorts, I am not sure if this would cut it. On the bright side, I shared Milka chocolate with a man named "Ali Baba" and he told me to wait a little bit for the sunset, so I did. They are selling rocks to tourists and in the winter they are the only stall open. Just below that viewpoint a man was making a fire, it really seemed like he lived here.

I arrived to town at night to look for shoes and after about an hour and a lot of haggling I managed to find a right size for me, later I spent 3
euro on a sweater, gloves and pants for the winter, just as the traveling salesmen (and women) were packing up.

The next day as we drove through snow toward Midelt, I really felt that I was way over my head, this was winter. I had no winter gear. I only had my down sleeping bag, by now barely good for 5C and my friend's extra sleeping bag for extra warmth.

would have been cool to see if Obi-wan kenobi is still hiding on Tatouine but it was too early to go for a detour. Plus many people wear these robes and it would be hard to tell!

I followed a surprisingly well graded road until the actual construction. A man spoke to me in french. The only word that struck out was:
"Niege..." and "no parlez francais"...
SNOW! that's what it was.

Soon I was in mudtown and then the road was gone, I could see some switchbacks in the distance and a fairly graded goat trail took me there.

A shepherd was walking down his sheep and his first reaction was to go and grab some snow and put it in the middle of the road.
He spoke no French.
It was clear.
There will be snow. but on the bright side, I don't need a bikestand anymore!

I continued on, it was about a food deep but fairly soft which made for good pushing. I wondered if the rest of this would be the same? Am I ready to eat snow and carry the bike for days? definitely!

The silver lining today was climbing a random hill just to get a peak at the sun for 5-10minutes. I regretted forgetting a lighter, as a fire would have been great, if not necessary.

kind of a bummer the tent door is broken, i have been posphoning finding some velcro for years!

The night was cold and the next 1km of road in the morning was tough enough for me to consider taking a canyon down to lower elevation.

not the ideal scenario, the soft snow was masking the rocks beneath making it really slippery and risky at times.

That turned to be quite the hike-a-bike but eventually I reached a road.

Soon enough I was on Pavement. "pavement", the washed out road seemed more like a 4x4 adventure track than something people drive, I saw few trucks driving in the river and surprisingly enough I managed to keep my feet dry after over 10 river crossings.

Having spent a lot of time in Colombia, I did not buy any fresh veggies or fruit, all towns, no matter how small in Colombia had fresh produce, I pulled up to an unmarked store to stare at canned foods, crappy chips and cheap candy. My query for tomato was answered with a small can of pasta sauce. I followed the road up as it got colder and colder, a room + breakfast was 5 euro so I took it, anything to beat the cold nights outside. A man came by with his kid and played some Berber songs (many people speak Berber and very few know Arabic or French)

There was once a road in this canyon, maybe 5-10 or 15 years ago, the goat tracks made it unnecessarily bumpy but it was all I needed. A man from a house invited me for breakfast and pointed me to where I came from when I read out of the map the name of the next town. I kept pointing forward with the name of the town and eventually he caved in and nodded.

Far up on the steep walls I could hear and see men chopping wood. What a shame the camera broke in Oman. I caught up to the women walking the donkeys down the road, "road". They seemed in a rush and barely acknowledged my presence but I happily cruised for 5 minutes until they pulled the donkeys over and let me pass.

In the next little town I spot a large army base with tents but after my experience in Oman... maybe not the best idea to go and say hi. However an army of kids follows me out of town. I stop to lube my chain and they all copy me, few minutes later I am out of chain lube!

I continued climbing to what turned out to be a 2600+m pass but for some reason there were donkeys at the top. Odd!

climbing over donkey pass, 2550ish meters

Passing through towns had been rather intimidating, in the absence of adults kids chase me yelling "Monseur, monseur", seemingly asking for food or money and often when I do not stop they throw stones at me. Thus instead of looking forward to each little town I try to ride past before they get wind of me.
(I was later told that Spanish people who go here often bring pens and pencils with them and give them away, so that was probably why I was being chased)

I settled for a "stealth" camping spot right between three villages and although I could only understand "Allah Akbar", the sunset prayer that blasts through the loudspeakrs from three different directions was absolutely magical if not a little scary. Next one is at 5:30am, definitely no need to set up an alarm here.

My fists clenched and grinning under the scarf I made my way to Imichii just as the fruit truck made delivery, I stocked up on veggies and fruit and under the curious graze of a nearby shopowner I ate two tomatoes, a la carte.

not a living soul outside in the cold mornings, a safe time to cross towns without kids. Infact it didn't seem that anybody goes outside until 9-10am here.

I chased sheep and goats out of town and watched women doing laundry in the freezing cold water. I wanted to go down and say hi but a distant wave and a smile was good enough.

The mountains, rugged and inaccessible put everything into perspective and yet there always seemed to be a goat trail or a path meandering into the distance, what a place this would be to explore... during the summer.

Without a destination it was easy to take breaks and appreciate the surroundings, the road was paved but the hooves to tires ratio was definitely high. The odd tractor pulling a trailer full of people passed and no matter where you go, there was always a house, old ruins or a shepherd above you - living in these harsh conditions.

The climb continued and like all roads in Morocco it led to somewhere cold. I stood at the pass watching the sunset as two men looked at me from a trail down below, I had passed a family traveling with their donkeys, something the modern world would see as an adventure and pay thousands of dollars for a guide to do it. These people were just going to get food, or medical or who knows.

Over 1500 vertical meters of descent made me soft, feeble and weak. I negotiated a 12 euro room with dinner and breakfast and A SHOWER! and even felt guilty for doing this. I was served a giant dinner (although I opted not to eat the meat for safety reasons) and for breakfast 3 giant pots of coffee, tea and milk along with fresh bread, eggs, olive oil dip and jam.

As if the mountains were not enough, I entered an enormous canyon. The little road, at times just barely rideable was in a good shape and even... possibly... driveable!

Up another climb I met a woman who spoke English, she was born here but has lived in the UK and around the world. Currently on a project to research the Berber tattoos. I recall meeting an old woman with beautiful tattoos on her face but they are apparently getting less and less used and all the rich history behind them is getting lost. The woman also told me how lucky I am to be a man, she had biked in Morocco once and many people had stopped, honked or followed her.

Later I met a man with a wooden leg, returning from work. I reached out to grab it and ask him where is his shoe before realizing what it was. We laughed and soon we were off on our own ways, going home.

I kept going higher as it got colder and colder until eventually I found a flat spot next to the road sheltered from the wind. Shepherds often cut down branches for their goats and the area was full of them which mean a fire!!! As I ate dinner and lied down by the fire for the next four hours I wondered how funny it would have been if somebody had walked in on me. What would they have though? Sadly there was nobody. Not a car, a dog, a goat or a shepherd.

A cold morning took me up to 2600m again into a nameless plateau and yet never above the nameless shepherds walking their sheep on these hillsides.

if there is a Tetris world championship it needs to be held here. These switchbacks were entirely made out of stacked rocks and it really makes you wonder how it is still standing.

Winter calorie consumption started kicking in and I barely got half full after 9 eggs at a food stop. I stocked on candy as well and gave some to a 5 or 6 year old girl walking some sheep. Why wasn't she at school? Is there a school here? Don't they teach kids not to take candy from strangers? She smiled and went back to her sheep. I have read few signs in French among these remote communities stating that there is some sort of artesanal products and if you ever see one of those you should definitely get it! At the end of the day I had two options: A hike-a-bike of unknown length in the snow or a descend down below, I took the latter and ended up in a small hostel.

The man there spoke a little English and invited me to his house for a great evening. A TV show played about some folks in Alaska that were building their own rafts to float the Yukon river and I recognized few of the characters that I met at the Yukon bridge on the Dalton Highway! (not the guy that tried to scare me in his motor boat but the other folks from the bar - although Yukon Jeremy would have been just the right character for that show!)
The house was simple, a makeshift wood stove, one room for eating, a kitchen in the cold and few sleeping rooms, seemingly built on top of pre-existing structures giving the entire house and village a frankenstein appearance. Perhaps I managed to communicate best with the 3-4 year old who kept jumping around but learned few other things as well. While there is a lot of work in the summer, in winter there isn't much, most young people go to the big towns to work. Yet despite its remoteness it struck me as unusual how many people had cell phones, apparently there is internet as well.

I continued valley riding among grey towns blending in with the rocks, there was no color and no happiness, just a cold, cold world out there.

Eventually I started climbing again and walked together with a man for an hour who seemed very confused at my refusal to take the approaching shuttle.

although he spoke no french he understood that i ran ahead to put the camera and patiently waited for my return so we can continue walking!

I followed a dotted road on the map to an unknown pass and toward a little town, it was clear there hadn't been a car here for a while. So far out that the kids, instead of chasing me scattered up the hillsides like goats but one still tried to hit me with a stone and missed. When the sun was out of sight it got incredibly cold, I pushed on hoping for lower elevation and possibly firewood.

this photo does it no justice but around a corner I looked up to see the massive rocks towering in the sky, you get a little dizzy looking up.

I went on in the fading light and I spoke to a man. He invited me to a house and brought me tea. We piled pillows on the window opening to keep the cold out and piled blankets to keep me warm. I watched him put two giant blobs of sugar into a tiny teapot and that kind of explains why I did not get any sleep that night. We listened a full song by Xavier Rudd (spirit bird) and communicated with sign language.

with the proper winter apetite I completely demolished all of my food supplies, leavingonly few mandarines for the next day

The ride next day was swift over few climbs and before I knew it I was riding by 5 star hotels overlooking the plains.

Everything had been kind of planned on the fly and dipping back into the mountains would be too cold, too much effort and really risking missing another flight. I boarded a bus to Casablanca.

This is the state of public transport in the mountains, the mercedes vans move anything from people, vegetables, food to having green spaces on top and even sheep pens.

We did not run anybody over or run out of gas but the poor driver drove like crazy. He would pull up behind a cyclist and honk until they would go off the road, honking and cutting people over, I felt really bad for him. A job like that would be very, very stressful.

I ran the night bus to Tangier but got off 20km before it to sleep in a field somewhere, while the mountains felt safe, I haven't been able to gauge the security situation in cities and you can't be afraid of what you don't know. Although the only other place I have heard of Tangier was in a Jason Bourne movie... I woke up to the full moon on Friday the 13th and the loud sounds of the morning prayer.

not the best spot but this was the only warm night spent camping.

Riding into Tangier in the morning it was most interesting to see the local taxis, constantly stopping to pick and drop people off - somehow they had it all figured out, who goes where, when to stop, when to get in.

I spent some quality internet time at a coffee shop before I was ready to go.

the Maria Dolores stood calmly in the water until it was ready to leave, the gnarly waters of the Gibraltar straight reassured my decision not to go for the packraft and try to make it across.

5 days left until the return flight but it would be a shame not to go and ride a little bit of Spain, even if I end up getting stuck here for good.