{"id":16095,"date":"2017-05-31T19:09:43","date_gmt":"2017-05-31T19:09:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/?p=16095"},"modified":"2017-05-31T19:09:43","modified_gmt":"2017-05-31T19:09:43","slug":"day-218-merzouga-to-taouz-and-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/wordpress\/2017\/05\/day-218-merzouga-to-taouz-and-back\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 218 – Merzouga to Taouz and back"},"content":{"rendered":"

Day 218                                                           22nd February
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34miles (Merzouga to Taouz and back<\/span><\/span>)  Average speed 10 mph Top speed 27 mph<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

A nice quiet day off!!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Up at 6.30 to climb the big dune and watch the sunrise. I wore my fake crocs and what a mistake that was, the sand was freezing. It was a long climb up but I couldn’t quite make it to the top as the sand was sliding from under my feet and from above me, so as I didn’t fancy being buried under freezing sand I made my way back down.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Sunrise over the big dunes<\/p><\/div>\n

It took about 20 minutes to get down into the sun to warm up a bit. Had a coffee to warm up and followed it with a big brekkie of bread, jam and boiled egg sarnie plus several coffees. I do like a buffet brekkie. There I met a woman from Toronto who had just come back from the overnight camp by camel. I did some washing and hung it out to dry and then went in search of the rally camp. On the way I went to a car museum specialising in off road cars. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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US Mule in the car museum<\/p><\/div>\n

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Sport Wrangler Jeep<\/p><\/div>\n

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Off road vehicles at the car museum<\/p><\/div>\n

Then went past the rally start and camp before deciding whether or not to do the 20 mile round trip to the end of the road. I took it on as I didn’t have any panniers but neither did I have cycling shorts as they were all in the wash. A bit uncomfortable and into the wind but quite a bit of downhill, knowing that I had the wind behind me on the way back made it bearable. Once again the sand dunes were beautiful and soon I came to a dry lake which was great fun to ride on. It was just like the salt lakes of world speed record fame but I wasn’t breaking any records.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Record breakers?<\/p><\/div>\n

Just before the town the wind was really fierce and there were lots of lorries shifting sand and rubble which created a massive dustbowl. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Lorries creating a dustbowl<\/p><\/div>\n

When I got to the end the town was closed for the day, deserted except for one market stall. I cycled around but couldn’t even find a shop. Eventually a cafe opened where I had a Sprite and a packet of crisps, the first I had seen in Morocco.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Nothing open in the village of Taouz<\/p><\/div>\n

It seemed like there may have been some in-breeding in this tiny town. On my way out the school gates were open letting the kids home for lunch and there were so many kids for such a small town. On the way back I had the wind pushing me all the way up the hills and flew along hardly without pedalling. I stopped off at the rally to see what all the fuss was about. It was interesting watching everyone tuning up their cars but then I found the info tent with the schedule for the day and the next starters didn’t go for another hour. So I looked in the charity tent at their merchandise, was about to buy a memento when a very officious steward told me to get out and leave the site as no tents were open to the public! I’d be surprised if the charity ever made any money with people like him about. I only wanted to buy some food or a drink to support the cause of African school kids. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Merzouga<\/p><\/div>\n

Back in Merzouga there were no shops to buy a new battery for my speedo or anything else of any value to me but I had a lovely tuna salad. Then the couple I met in Ouarzazarte walked by and I called out so we chatted for about 20 minutes about our respective routes and experiences. Back at the hotel I cleaned the bike and then had the biggest tagine of the trip, followed by a delicious coffee and an early night. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Hotel Tradition 100 dirham<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Day 218                                                           22nd February   34miles (Merzouga to Taouz and back)  Average speed 10 mph Top speed 27 mph A nice quiet day off!! Up at 6.30 to climb the big dune and watch the sunrise. I wore my fake crocs and what a mistake that was, the sand was freezing. It was a long … [Read more…]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[818,817,819],"class_list":["entry","post","publish","author-ermintrude","post-16095","format-standard","category-spc_blog","post_tag-day-218","post_tag-merzouga","post_tag-taouz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16095"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16296,"href":"https:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16095\/revisions\/16296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snailpacecycling.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}