Day 6: El Jadida to Oualidia

February 21, 2023

Meeting the Kepinski's Day

“I feel bad to feel good about us having a tailwind,” Patrick says thinking of the Kepinski’s having a headwind. “Especially since they have accommodated us with a change in their schedule so we could meet up,” Rachel adds.

The hotel starts serving breakfast at eight, we are down in the dining room just a few minutes early: Strong coffee, fresh orange juice, a boiled egg and croissants with jam. We have loaded the bikes in our room and manage to get them down in the elevator and out the restaurant door, the main door has a metal detector that is too narrow. It is foggy this morning. The forecast calls for fairly strong winds from the north today so that should work in our favor. The road leaving El Jardida is a four-lane with fairly heavy traffic, but everybody is respectful. When we have a shoulder we use it.

As the city disappears behind us we enter a busy industrial area. There is a deep sea port and lots of oil storage facilities. At about 20km we break out of that and enter a much more agricultural area. The road parallels the coast at about a kilometer away. Between us and the coast are fields full of cabbages, carrots, some are being harvested. Other fields are either fallow or being planted. We see lots of mostly women on donkeys with big baskets hanging from the sides.

After about 30km we take our first break at a shell station, we try a tea (very strong with huge chunks of sugar we don’t quite know what to do with). We also have some “palmier” cookies we found at the patisserie yesterday; they go great with nutella and laughing cow cheese.

“I see a cyclist coming toward us,” Patrick says. Cyril, a Swiss cyclist stops and we chat and do what cyclists do when meeting up on the road, exchange information. He had met the Kepinski’s before Safi.

He tells us the road further south will get prettier and prettier. We can only tell him about the hotel in Azemmour, and that the scenery gets worse from here. He already knows about the wind forecast for the next couple of days.

We stop at a petrol station for another break. Rachel sees two cyclists riding north and enthusiastically waves. They see us and ride over, they had just stopped for a break but did spend some time chatting. Lydia and Max, Australians have been in Morocco a month, starting in Marrakesh. Heading north through Spain and Portugal and towards Holland. Blog — Riding Slow

Cyril from Switzerland, we tell him about the hotel in Azemmour

Lydia and Max from Australia. ridingslow.com

The wind has been helping us all day, but now the road starts to slowly gain elevation and all of a sudden we don’t feel as strong anymore. Then we get our first glimpses of the lagoon at Oualidia and enter the town. Our hotel is down a fairly steep road down to the lagoon. It is nice to end the day with a coast, but tomorrow we will have to climb back up here.

The Laguna Blue Hotel is a two story, blue and white motel-like structure. It’s about 3 when we arrive. We get our room with a balcony and haul are gear up to the second floor. Some cold water, ice cream, a bag of potato chips and a shower washes the day away. The Kepinski’s are not here yet, they must have had a much harder day fighting a headwind.

Then they arrive! And still smiling. We greet them in the lobby, even though this is our first meeting, we feel like they are old friends. We’ve followed each other through journals and Facebook for years. They have done a 5 year tour “Bike2ctheworld” and multiple other tours. bike2ctheworld, by Michael Kep...

And now, “It started in Morocco” a tour including renting an apartment in Spain as an experiment of living in a foreign country for planning escaping the cold for future winters. It all started in Morocco, by ...

They are ready to go for dinner much sooner than we would have been after a hard day. We walk toward the Laguna and check out a few restaurants that we find out won’t open for a couple more hours. In the other direction we do find a decent place with very good food. The conversation is fantastic as we share stories, share information about the routes and places we stayed in each direction. This has been a highlight for us in meeting “the Kepinski’s.”

Joanna arrived, Michael is already in the lobby

Joanna and Michael Kepinski, we finally meet after following each other through journals!

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Today's ride: 81 km (50 miles)
Total: 183 km (114 miles)

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Rachael AndersonThat’s great you were able to get together with the Kepinski’s. By the way, the link to there journal doesn’t work.
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