Tangier

April 9, 2024

The end of Ramadan

The overnight train ride was uneventful. We arrived in sunny Tangier right on time at 6:30 am after a pretty good rest. Our first priority was the train station bathroom, since the loo in our train car wasn’t the nicest.

We were driven to our well-located but somewhat rundown lodgings, Hotel Chellah, for early morning check-in, a shower, and breakfast. The hotel provided good flaky flatbread called msemen, a fresh cheese (or maybe labneh?) and hard boiled eggs, among other things. But no fruit or veg. Good thing we had fruit leftover from the train ride. Then we were off at 9 am to start our day.

There are oranges and orange trees everywhere around these parts. Obvious thing I’ve never thought of until today: Tangerines are named after Tangier (spelled Tanger in French).

Before biking, we made a grocery stop at a big modern store the size of a Superstore and bought picnic lunch items for later, including fruit, veg, cheese, and a baguette, plus pimiento-stuffed green olives wrapped in pickled anchovies which were delicious.

Tangier is a big modern port city of 1 million - it's the 'white city' of Morocco. We started our ride near Ibn Batouta Stadium, a soccer venue that is only about 10 years old and will be renovated to seat 80,000 people in time to hose the 2030 World Cup, which will be hosted jointly with Spain and Portugal. Hicham is not confident that Morocco will repeat its great success from the 2022 World Cup when they finished in fourth place. [The namesake of the stadium, Ibn Batouta, was a Tangier-born explorer who travelled widely through Africa, Asia, the Iberian Peninsula and the Middle East in the 1300s.

Almost immediately upon starting our ride, Canadian Anne had our first flat tire. And then in short succession she had a second flat and then a third, within a span of about 3 km. Argh. Repairs were made by the crew each time. Finally she traded bikes with tail guide Youssef and he and Marwan did more research into the problem. Eventually, they found glass in the tire. Problem solved. These turned out to be the only flats of the trip.

Our first cycling stop was at the Cave of Hercules near Cape Spartel on the Mediterranean coast, next to one of the King of Morocco's many palaces. The cave itself is part natural and part man-made, and was been occupied since 6,000 BCE, according to Wikipedia.

We biked the first hills of the trip in perfect temperatures - low 20s, I'd say. It was a great road in a park-like stone pine forest, and I'd say quite an affluent area. We enjoyed lovely ocean views.

Bikes all ready for us in a shopping centre parking lot. That's our support van on the left.

We bought lunch things at a huge supermarket. The spice display was fabulous.

Ibn Batouta Stadium. Watch for it in the 2030 World Cup.

The second flat. It was nice to be riding on a big wide street with hardly any traffic. And the crew had plenty of space to work.

The Cave of Hercules is historically significant, but not terribly interesting to visit.

Cat of the day, hanging out near the Cave of Hercules.

Here we are, right at the Strait of Gibraltar.

We saw our first camels, here just for the tourists, I think.

The view of the Med were spectacular. That’s Spain, across the way.

We ate our picnic lunch in a gorgeous park looking across the Strait of Gibraltar at Tarifa, Spain, only 14 km away. Tarifa is known for being super windy. I'm glad we weren't experiencing big winds today.

We ended our cycling day with an easy final few km downhill to finish at the Tangier waterfront.

Walking down to our picnic spot in a park. This isn’t how I pictured Morocco in my mind’s eye, all greens and blues.

Then we climbed our first good-sized hill.

The Tangier city centre harbour. There’s another big port nearby.

The streets certainly don’t empty out after the call to prayer. But there are discreet places for men to pray, if they desire. Identifiable by the shoes outside.

A planned swim in the hotel pool was abandoned because the pool hadn’t been cleaned in forever. Did I mention the hotel was rundown? Wendy and I had hot water, but apparently not everyone did.

Instead of swimming, we decided to head for the Medina on foot for a tour, but we got waylaid by the knowledge that our hotel had a bar, and it was serving alcohol. What?!? We drank a cold Casablanca lager each and then headed out for a walk.

The Medina was packed in preparation for the end of Ramadan. We wandered for a while, then stopped for a drink at a fancy hotel where lots of celebs have visited in the past. Their photos were on the wall, from ages ago (Rock Hudson, Rex Harrison, Omar Sharif) and more recent (Ralph Fiennes, Jessica Chastain). There are lots of movies filmed in Morocco. The government supports the industry because it’s great for tourism

Exploring the quiet streets of the Medina.

We enjoyed a glass of Moroccan rose at a fancy hotel.

Based on Hicham’s advice, we had a very good dinner of various tagines at a busy spot near the hotel - the same restaurant had locations on two sides of the street. Consensus was that the best dish was beef and prunes. Chicken and veg was good too. It was busy for the end of Ramadan, which was officially declared tonight. Tomorrow is Eid al-Fitr (lesser Eid) and apparently pretty much everything will be closed. It’s not just an important religious day today - we noticed that the religion of Champions League soccer had many Tangier residents glued to televisions tonight.

This restaurant isn’t fancy, but is served great food. The bald gentleman who is pictured sitting at the left asked us how we knew to go there. It’s one of his favourites.

Betty photographing our first tagunes of the trip. Not our last, for sure.

I’m sorry that our guides and drivers are missing the holiday season with their families. But I’ll bet they are happy to be able to eat and drink again during the day starting tomorrow. We certainly lucked out with our two cycling days during Ramadan, because they weren’t too hot. But still, I wouldn’t have wanted to do them without water.

Today's ride: 30 km (19 miles)
Total: 49 km (30 miles)

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Steve Miller/GrampiesRule number 1 of flat tires- always check inside the tire for protruding objects. Rule number 2-see rule number 1.
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