A great day of riding today, despite the tech issues. Plenty of high and low passes crossed, some paved, some unpaved. A fabulous winding valley to finish the ride and Taroudant is a vibrant, busy Moroccan walled town with hardly any tourists!
I was nervous this morning about the whole navigation technology issue. I'd stayed up late last night doing some research on phone apps and finally settled on the OSMAnd app as it can follow a GPX route and I've heard good things about it from mates over the last couple of years.
Back up phone would download the app, the background maps and even the GPX files for this trip, but it won't find the actual position, despite all the settings being turned on, so it won't follow the GPX track. My normal Samsung phone, will do all of the above, but I can't see the screen in bright sunlight and the bag its in. As I broke the phone mount on day 1 in the Picos, I need to source a method of attaching it in a place where I can see the screen, but that still leaves me with the sunlight issue and no back up system.
The Garmin has worked sporadically through the day. When it's on and working, its like normal. When I throttle back, stop or go over any big bumps, the screen either scrolls out to the maximum, (which means I have a purple dot instead of a line to see), or it goes to the home screen. I then have to stop and spend 10 minutes pressing the screen to see what it does or reboot it several times.
Oh well, the riding though was excellent. On leaving Ouarzazate first thing, I headed out on tarmac roads through some back sections of the town. This turned into a winding valley on new tarmac that climbed and dropped over a few passes and past several small hillside villages. Every time I got a view north towards the Atlas, all I could see was snow clouds and the nearby peaks had a dusting of fresh snow on them. This got my attention. After a few miles, I turned off onto a dirt road and climbed past several more villages. I started to see old ice and snow in the shady sections and the clouds seemed to be building. The road was a typical locals road, passing through villages with people out cutting the reeds for bedding, wandering from here to there and generally. This was Berber country. The mountain folk of Morocco.
Their story is one of movement, no one seems to actually know their origins. There are stories they moved from Egypt, but no proof, until they settled across the higher mountain ranges of North Africa. Now they are a large proportion of several countries population, with different dialects, religious ceremonies and traditions. They are fierce fighters, loyal friends and generally hard working. They do not get on too well with the lowland Arabs, but there is a tolerance amongst each. I've been lucky enough to work with a lot of Moroccan Berbers over several years, I have a lot of time for them as people. Travelling back through these mountains is easy for me and relaxed because of that background I guess.
Another section of tarmac wound on through the volcanic hills. At one point, I found a local guy on a scooter, who had an issue, I ended up towing him some 10 miles ish to a town, where he promptly fell over and grazed his hand as we came to a stop. From there, I crossed a small river, followed some tarmac to a rough dirt road and dropped over into another valley, where a goat herd and a village lady helped me find the correct route across a river and back to the next bit of tarmac.
Some more winding road, this time on a section of road being newly built. I took a cheeky ride around the 'building' bit, which got me a bit turned around. Once I'd figured out I'd gone past the turneing to leave the valley, I just had to find it. That turned out to be a washed out track, crossing lots of volcanic slab at angles on a steep descent. Some pretty technical riding.
More tarmac wound on to a sudden left turn up a really zig zagged steep ascent. This crested with a view over the High Atlas, all cloud and snow capped. I crossed another shallow pass and descended to a village, took a wrong turn and to the delight of about 30 kids provided a show of how not to ride a technical rocky section! Once back on the true road, it climbed, crossed over two passes and a plateau section before descending down steeply into a small village. Lots of the old men were in the street, waving me through with big smiles and waves.
The day finished on a 40 ish mile valley ride, descending to the lower plains via a very tortuous and twisty road that provided access for some 20+ villages. It crossed the main river so many times on dodgy fords, I lost count.
Taroudant was the destination of choice. I'd not been there before and knew it to be a busy town full of Moroccans and not many tourists. It is just that. The main walled Kasbah is very old, very big and full of relaxed and smiley people. I got another hotel for the night so I could talk to various people back home, then went out into the hubbub to find food. Some spicy sausages, with chips and salad and finished off with hot fresh bread straight out the oven.
Planning time now I guess. I've decided I'm not too happy with the idea of venturing into the most remote parts of the trip with shite nav tech. So I'm changing the plan and will head back north. If possible, once back in Spain, I'll try to follow the TET track again up to the French border, then follow a part of the French TET through the middle of France and get back home by the end of Feb sometime.
I recognised this was a possibility last night, then took today to play with tech and see how I felt. I'd rather come back when I'm in a better set up position and do the thing right, rather than be crapping my pants all the time worrying about when the electronics are going to leave me stuck. If at all possible, I'd like to tie in a return back up through Algeria too. Time will tell!
