Author: Tim

Morocco spoke to me a bit more than I expected. This is a place I want to come back to and understand more of, but in a way where I can avoid all the annoying “false guides”.

We made the purposeful decision to do our own self-guided tour, and it was the absolute right decision. Rather than be encased in an air conditioned hermetically sealed bus with dozens of other tourists seeing the same things that every tourist sees, we got ourselves happily lost in the Medina; stumbled upon dead end alleys with beautiful flowers, random kitties, and friendly locals; had a whole restaurant to ourselves enjoying live music and a cous cous dish; sipped mint tea from a cafe overlooking the Strait of Gibraltar; people (and traffic) watched on Avenue Pasteur while enjoying the delicious fruit smoothies known as a panache; bought delicious pastries at random in some bakeries by just pointing at things that looked good; wandered around the Kasbah; shopped fresh strawberries and other fruit in the meandering hectic busy streets; practiced my French with various shop keepers; stumbled into a bar for a beer, where the hospitality was honest and welcoming – the bartender bent over backwards trying to understand our request and invited us to enjoy several complimentary appetizers, making us feel like an honored guest; walked along the beach with its new construction going on and with men renting camel and horseback rides on the beach.

Of course, we did get hassled by quite a few of the “false guides”, coming up to us offering friendly advice at first and then demanding money for the advice or their families. Usually a firm “no thank you” in Arabic would do the trick, but one fellow followed us walking for half a mile until Steve finally gave in and gave him the rest of our pocket change (we had no use for the local currency anyway). I feel for the situation of these folks who feel that they have to act dishonestly in order to make a living, but it does leave a small scar on this otherwise beautiful city. We knew this was the trade off for doing a self-guided tour, and it was never so annoying that we regretted that decision.

We are happy to be back in Spain tonight; though everything feels so mundane here by comparison. We’ve made the decision to take 4 days instead of 3 to get to Granada (we were going to train part of it), and camp the next 3 nights, going at a comfortable pace, as we get into more hilly terrain. We’ve both felt too rushed the past week or so, so it will be nice to take some more time to smell the roses.

(Despite how they look, these small fried fish were absolutely delicious! A mild white fish, tender and juicy. Anyone know what they are, precious?)

It was a fucking needle! In the road. Go figure…

Tonight we are in Tarifa, a simple port town who’s main point of existence seems to be the several ferries to Morocco, one of which we will be taking tomorrow. To the west of Tarifa is the Atlantic. To the east is the Mediterranean. From now until we leave Turkey, we will be riding along the Mediterranean.

So that we could ride at a more relaxed pace today, we took the 8:40am train out of Cádiz to the next station down, a 10-minute train ride that saved us an hour of riding on dirt roads, and got us going early.

Because of the recent rain, we chose not to follow the more scenic route our WarmShowers host recommended and instead found a mostly-highway route, though we did choose to make a detour through some cute seaside towns and 1km of hiking trails along the coast in order to see some ancient Roman ruins on the beach.

We stopped for lunch at a touristy but comfortable restaurant on the coast and ordered the paella. We know it’s not an authentic paella, but it was very tasty and much better than the average one from the states. Steve made me eat all the shrimp that had eyes; to be honest they were too much work to shell.

When we started out on the hiking trails, we came around a corner and found a lighthouse overlooking Africa. I have to admit that I took out my phone to figure out what were those mountains across the sea, and I confirmed to my astonishment that it was, in fact, Africa. It was surprising to me that you could see it 40km away! The first time in our lives we’ve laid eyes on that continent.

Since we blew our budget on paella for lunch, we are making dinner at home from grocery store sale items. Lucky for us, we are in Spain, and the jamón curado, ibérico sausage, and manchego cheese were all on sale. A homemade bocadillo that’s 10x better than what you’d get in the US. Yum!!

And tomorrow, to Africa! We are a little nervous about our time in Tangier, Morocco; we chose to do our own self-guided tour, so we’ve learned a few words in Arabic and I’m brushing up on my French. Any suggestions on what to see? Leave a comment or message us! (It’s Tuesday, so some things are closed…)

What a difference a day makes for the weather. Still windy, but much warmer and no rain until after we finished riding.

Before leaving Jerez, we sampled some tocino del cielo, a flan-like dessert invented in Jerez 500 years ago. Yum!

Our WarmShowers host gave us a phenomenal route to Cádiz, with plenty of bike lanes, hard-packed gravel roads with no traffic, and scenic waterfronts. We even shared the route with a local mountainbike race at one point. The route took us by salt flats built by the Romans and on paths by the train tracks.

I wish we had more time to enjoy Cádiz, but we have a pre-paid ticket to Morocco Tuesday so we have to get to Tarifa tomorrow. Really enjoying this cute friendly city and had some great fried seafood, beer, and dessert!

I’m not going to lie. Yesterday was one of those days. I could try to spin it and talk about overcoming obstacles and how discomfort and pain are distinct from the suffering you allow yourself to experience. But the truth is, riding in 48°F downpours with a 20mph headwind just plain sucks.

We warmed up in a small town and made our way to Jerez, where mother nature gave us one last “fuck you” and dumped buckets on us for the last few km.

Our saving grace was our welcoming and much appreciated WarmShowers hosts, Ana and Diego, who completely understood our misery and made us feel right at home and warm, and fed us a traditional Spanish tortilla for dinner (nothing like a Mexican tortilla, by the way!).

Today we are off to Cádiz for the day, hoping the rain stays away!

Based on recommendations from friends and people we’ve met, we decided to take the train up to Cordoba for the day. Unfortunately, given our route plan, it wasn’t realistic to ride there.

The mosque/cathedral was absolutely mind blowing… So glad we took the time to see it! Very scenic city; here are some photos…

A bunch of random pictures from walking around Sevilla today. Did a free walking tour, saw a flamenco performance, and had a nice dinner at an Andalusian restaurant. Really like this city!

We have been so blessed with tailwinds almost every day but today really took the cake!

Our generous WarmShowers host cooked us probably the best fried eggs ever, over-medium and lightly salted from her 10 hens who roam free on many acres of land. It was really sweet of her to ask what we usually had for breakfast and when she heard we hadn’t had our usual fried eggs in weeks, she pulled out a frying pan and whipped some up.

We finished our 100km ride in record time, under 4 hours, thanks to some stiff tailwinds through endless farmland and orange tree groves. Along the way, a friendly bull cheered us along.

It didn’t start raining until after we arrived in Seville, while we started munching on some amazing tapas at a local place our hostel recommended. We tried ibérico ham for the first time in our lives, and I’m not sure I’ll ever appreciate ham again… OMG!

Our pension (a kind of hostel) is super cute, and our room is the last on the open-air hallway on the roof of the place, next to the outdoor lounge area with views of neighboring downtown buildings. We added an extra day stay so that we can take the train out to Cordoba Friday. So two rest days in Seville and Cordoba!

But before we have any fun, we must do our stinky laundry. It’s been over a week…

Tonight we will explore a bit after the rain ends, and tomorrow we find a free tour in the morning and continue wandering afterwards. It is taking us some adjustment for meal times; here in Spain, they typically eat lunch 2-4pm and dinner after 9pm, much later than Portugal!

As we neared the border of Portugal and Spain, it became increasingly difficult to figure out what language I should be butchering. If I greeted someone with “bom dia!” I would get back responses in English, Spanish, German, and sometimes Portuguese. One guy even responded “no falo Português” (I don’t speak Portuguese), which made me LOL.

We followed a lot of the Eco Via to the border of Spain, and it became painful in parts because of the rough roads alternating with highway, but there were some stunning areas riding through small farms and along the coast.

The border crossing was fun; we choose to take the ferry to avoid riding on a major highway bridge that was only built in the 90s. We met an Irish cyclist with his three Spanish cycling mates, who were all very curious about our gear setup. They wanted to know where to get our eyeglass mirrors and had questions about our bags and pedals. They gave us some tips on which roads to ride in Spain as well.

Our route had us on the highway all the way to our WarmShowers host, but we got bored with that and made the dubious decision to try out Google cycling directions, which work in Spain but didn’t work in Portugal. We ended up on a gorgeous quiet road beside a canal for 5km and then 30km of rough unpaved farm roads so that we could get back to the highway. I think my palms may be permanently bruised.

I was surprised how different Spain is from Portugal. I expected a gradual easing into the new country as we neared Spain, but Portugal remained Portugal until our last bifanas at the port, and as soon as you cross the border, the language changes, people’s attitudes change, the traffic patterns are different, the roads are paved with large bricks instead of small paving stones, the brands of coffee and beer are different, the cities sprawl out into the country more, etc… More of a shock than I expected.

Our gracious WarmShowers host tonight is taking care of her family’s runway and aircraft hanger, meanwhile accepting cycling guests and work away volunteers in her spare space. It’s a pretty cool place with solar hot water and electricity and an organic garden that provided us with oranges and vegetables for dinner.

We will leave for Seville tomorrow and have a rest day the next day. We are considering taking a second day day to train to Cordoba… Stay tuned.

Obrigado (Thank You in Portuguese) is one of the few words I have learned to say and quite often in these past two weeks.  Another phrase Tim taught me was Bom Dia which means “good day” and typically used in the morning.  Besides those two sayings, I’ve relied on my smile and blue eyes to get me through my first two weeks in Europe.

Europe so far has been everything I imagined and more from the architecture and history to the pastries and overall food quality.  I believe every day should start with an espresso and Pasteis de Nata….Custard type staple dessert of Portugal that is similar to sugar cream pie.  

Lisbon was amazing with it’s beautiful colors and cobblestone streets, sidewalks, and public squares with fountains and outdoor seating. The tiles around a window or doorway, and sometimes the entire front of the building are stunning.  Every corner we turned reminded me of a stock photo you might see in a picture frame sold in a retail shop in the USA.  We enjoyed a free walking tour in the city and another tour of the Alfama district during our first five days in Portugal.  I’ve been trying to post a picture a day on my Instagram (scubastevecyclist) page that you might’ve seen already, and here are a few more of my favorites from Lisbon.

To get the legs moving before the official tour started we enjoyed a day trip through Belem and then to Sintra where we spotted our first of many jaw dropping castles I can’t wait to see all throughout Europe.  

As soon as we left Lisbon and departed from the ferry we both were smiling from ear to ear and reminded of why we enjoyed the pure joy and sense of freedom from our first tour we did together last summer from Vancouver BC back to San Diego and Tijuana (where there is already a wall).  It’s the excitement of the unknown roads and what lies ahead or around the corner to our next campground, warm showers host, or a cheap hotel.  We’ve enjoyed the countryside of Portugal and all the little towns we pass through to grab a quick and cheap lunch for two which usually consists of a Bifana (simple pork sandwiches) and a beer (mine in Sem Alcool…No Alcohol) for each of us and cost between 6 to 8 euros total.

While pedaling through the countryside I love to moo at the cows, bah at the sheep, and ney at the horses.  I need to learn how to call out at the many goats we’ve seen as well.  Evora was a great stop for our first rest day and to be the warm showers guests and experience the other side of this hospitality network for touring cyclists that we enjoyed being a host of in San Diego.  Our hosts live on a sustainable farm just 20km outside of Evora where we enjoyed being tourist for a day seeing beautiful churches and a chapel full of human bones…..See my picture on Instagram.

I understand Celcius from a little trick that Tim taught me as 0C=30F, 10C-50F, 20C-70F, 30C-90F.  It’s not completely accurate but very close.  My comfort zone is anything above 20 degrees Celsius and if it’s below 15C, I have my arm warmers or wind/rain jacket on while riding.  It’s 14C now in the tent and I have my long underwear on as it’s supposed to dip below 10C overnight.  I may have to reach for my gloves in the middle of the night.  This California boy of 17 years is a little spoiled.  We are just 54km (34 miles) away from Spain and will pedal our way there in the morning and have lunch across the border and be in Seville by Thursday.  

Thanks for all the love, support, and comments on the blog so far.  As we finish our days of pedaling, our CA and West Coast friends are just waking up and our Midwest and East Coast families are thinking about lunch.  

I’ll leave you with a few more of my favorite pictures from the past two weeks as I need to get some sleep for our 110km day tomorrow.  

Carpe Diem

Steve

PS…This sunset photo with our tent was shared on Instagram by the manufacturer Zpacks who makes lightweight adventure​ gear.  Needless to say I was very honored and inspired.