Out of Agadir, on the Anti-Atlas
It was a long day coming down from Agadir, but not a day of riding the bike. It was a day of figuring out how to cross the majestic Anti-Atlas Mountains.
We would later (in our more athletic trips) discover that for a serious cyclist, skipping a mountain is kind of embarrassing. It’s like licking just the cream of a biscuit instead of working your way into the cream, respecting the biscuit-barrier. I’ve heard hardcore cyclists say, “It’s too easy to just ride the less-difficult parts and skip mega challenges.” Well, every cyclist on the road has its own considerations and formula to traverse the paths. Ours was this:
Morocco was only the second trip we had embarked on a tandem, ever. We were raw bike-meat. And we had just 2 weeks in-between our work like to bike as much across Morocco, while taking it easy. So, we said, “We’ll do as much biking we feel like, given the time and physical capacity, without feeling pressurized.” And so, twice in the trip, we took to a 4 wheel ride :-)
So, it was decided we take transport from Agadir to go over the Anti-Atlas and get dropped at the southern end of the mountain range. And we would snap our bike back together and get on the road towards Taroudant.
I didn’t know that evening, June 4 2018, would be the first to introduce me to a kind of human experience that I would hold onto and keep looking for, in all my future travels.
At Agadir, near the bazaar, we went to a taxi, a car park, a transport area in general. We tried to find a means of public transport or shared van that would take up to our destination. But there was none and speaking to a few people we understood that ours was a special requirement (insert an image of two foreigners with a shiny tandem bike asking to be transported) and we would have to engage a private transport. Well, no surprise! After chatting here and there, we found a sincere looking man who was more than happy to process our request. He and his brother (although I didn't find a real resemblance) took our bike pieces and tied it above the car and off we went.
We found the duo to be pleasant and we rode comfortably across, cherishing the Anti-Atlas, while secretly thinking how long would it take to bike this mammoth chunks of rocks.
