Africa (local)

Riding the oasis circuit in Egypt's Western Desert.

A cycle-tour over the Atlas Mountains and in the Moroccan desert.

Welcome! We are Maria and Spiros, two slightly adventurous souls, who on January 12th, 2008 will begin a year long journey of a lifetime. The first part of our adventure will begin at the foot of the Pyramids in Giza, where we will embark on the 6th edition of the Tour D'Afrique. Starting in Cairo, Egypt and ending in Cape Town, South Africa, the Tour D'Afrique is a 12,000 km, 120 day cycling race/expedition across the exotic and intriguing African continent. More challenges and adventure are sure to follow as we then continue riding our bikes through Europe and Asia.

Our goal is to raise funds and awareness for WaterCan, a charity providing clean water and sanitation to impoverished communities, and Against Malaria which works to donate bed nets to fight Malaria, a devastating disease that kills over a million people a year.

Trip to Marrakesh. From Marrakesh over the High Atlas to the desert and back. As it was my first real cycling experience on my own I decided to stay on the main roads. There were only 20 km offroad.

3 men, 3 bikes and 3 months - a swing through the mountains, forests and great lakes of east and southern Africa.

Wonderful Maroc!

I started my cycling holidays in Maroc. After traveling a great part of the world and to Maroc two times by bus and one time by hired car. I hoped there was something better to do it, and there was....the bicycle. Since then the cycling-bug got me and I visited more countries on a bicycle.

On my windows webspace the route and the pictures tell the story of a few bicycletrips in Maroc. Enjoy!

South of Tunisia: a interesting country to visit with a bicycle.

The landscape is completely flat. There is nothing at all, nothing but stones. And sand. Although there is nothing to see, the emptiness has its own beauty. There is a quietness coming over me despite the harsh circumstances. All the problems and possibilities of life seem to dissolve in the infinity of the landscape.

From Marrakech, we have cycled across the Atlas into the Sahara. In two intense weeks we learned to know a bit about the many faces of Moroccan society and we were able to explore the extraordinary Atlas-Sahara region.

This is my own personal diary from a solo trip I made by bicycle around Southern Morocco over Christmas and New Year 2005/2006. My bicycle tours invariably seem to turn into wild and woolly adventures involving deserts, mountains, extremes of weather... and fantastic experiences. This trip was meant to be a little less 'epic' in nature, as such all the camping gear was left at home in favour of guesthouses and pensions though I did fill the space to a degree with a lot of cold weather gear and my sleeping bag - fortunately as you'll see! It worked out well, though the terrain and weather proved to be no less extreme than past adventures and events did not quite turn out in accordance with my admittedly very rough pre-trip plan.

This, my second visit to Morocco, only served to strengthen the memories I have of the country as being populated by overwhelmingly hospitable people and blessed with some of the grandest scenery on the planet.

Picture by Mike Hayes, http://www.mikesimagination.net.

Bei der geplanten Tour wollte ich 5 neue, interessante Abschnitte erfahren.Für die Strecke 1 lagen Beschreibungen vor, der Rest ließ sich vor der Tour nicht in Erfahrung bringen.

1. Strecke durchs ``östliche'' Ait Mansour-Tal
2. Pistenverbindung Anti-Atlas (Izerbi) an die Strasse Akka - Bouizarkane
3. Piste Akka - Imitek
4. Piste Tagmoute - Tiguermine
5. Piste Tiguermine - Agadir Tasguent - Souk Tnine Toufelazt usw. zurück zum Flughafen

Der folgende Tag stand natürlich ganz im Zeichen der Besichtigung der alten Stätte. Nach einem längeren Fußmarsch erreichte man den Siq, jene imposante, enge Schlucht, die den Einstieg in die Stadt darstellt. Bis hier hatte man auch den Schock über die knapp 50 DM Eintrittsgeld verdaut... Den ganzen Tag stiefelten wir zu Zweit durch die Ruinenstadt, bei brüllender Hitze bergauf und bergab. Neben dem 8000 Menschen fassenden Amphitheater beeindruckte uns vor allem die Anlage als Ganzes und der gute Erhaltungszustand der Gebäude. Alles machte einen ungemein plastischen Eindruck, der Sandstein schimmerte in vielfältigen Farben. Irgendwann ließen jedoch die Hitze und die Menschenmassen die Aufnahmefähigkeit sinken, so daß wir uns zur Rückkehr entschlossen.

Der folgende Tag diente der Erholung. Die Hitze begann unerträglich zu werden, selbst auf dieser Höhe herrschten schon weit über 30° C im Schatten, wir ruhten uns also aus und bereiteten und mental auf die Bezwingung des Desert-Highways vor, wovor uns allerdings schon ein wenig graute angesichts der dort herrschenden Geschwindigkeiten und Verkehrsdichte.

Hurgada - Sharm-el-Sheikh - wadi Dahab - mt. Sinai - oazis Feiran - Suets - Cairo - Luxor - Quena - Hurgada.

The old riverbeds that cross the mountains of Sinai Peninsula are called ``wadi''. Now the rains are rare, but when they happen these narrow valleys become rivers again. We could see signs of it as the soil was a mixture of sand, stones and thorns, and we had to ride on narrow dry streams of clay that could hold the bicycles. The thorns probably belonged to some poisonous plant as they poisoned our living a lot. One day we had to repair the flat tires at least seven times.

``First, this was not a bicycle tour. It could probably be done by bicycle but I used trains, boats, and buses. And camels, of course. My excuse to put it here that I rented a bicycle in Luxor and rode through the desert to the Valley of the Kings.'' The old manager, Andreas Caranti, is particularly sympathetic, as he did the same as a young man: his first off-road experience! (And the new manager is the guy on the camel.)

A brilliant site, with several well-described itineraries.

[We] spent about a week touring Tunisia in June 1994. We took road bikes and stayed in hotels. It was nice and sunny, but there was sometimes a stiff north westerly breeze.

The desert is subtle and baffling, with few landmarks and none that appear on any map. For those of us from temperate climes, travelling through such an extraordinary environment can be a mystical experience. It is a disarming vacuum, seemingly benign and very romantic. But come tea time, we come into our own, as temperatures plummet and camel dung camp fires become compulsory. On a clear night, the canopy of stars is awesome and the silence creepy. By 5:00 am, the temperatures are sub-zero.

We spent the first week of March 2004 cycling to, around, and back from Tafraoute at the western end of the Moroccan Anti-Atlas. We had been there before, trekking with Exodus in late 1992.

This time we flew to Agadir and on the following morning took our bikes by minibus to Aït Baha, from where we rode on to Tafraoute. We spent 3 days cycling around - largely on pistes - and then rode to the Col du Kerdous, perched over the coastal plain. An easy descent took us to Tiznit, and we returned to Agadir by taxi.

We stayed in upmarket hotels, booked from England by telephone and confirmed by fax. Route-finding was never much of a problem, but it helps to have some acquaintance with the Arabic script since many signposts on tracks and minor roads have no Latin transliterations. We took a GPS unit with us but could have got by perfectly well without it.

The notes of [8 nights spent] in southern Morocco in November 2000. Includes a narrative and gorgeous pictures.

A nice report, with plenty of photos. Itinéraire:

• Jour 1: Arrivée à Ceuta le matin. Petite journée d'échauffement jusqu'à Martil
• Jour 2: Martil à Oued Laou, par la très jolie route côtière
• Jour 3: Oued Laou à Chefchaouen, en suivant la rivière qui prend sa source à Chaouen
• Jour 4: Repos à Chefchaouen
• Jour 5: Chefchaouen à Zoumi, en plein c?ur des campagnes du Rif
• Jour 6: Zoumi à Karia Ba Mohamed, sortie du Rif
• Jour 7: Karia à Volubilis (ruines romaines très touristiques)
• Jour 8: Volubilis à Meknès
• Jour 9: Repos, visite de Meknès
• Jour 10: Meknès à Tanger en bus
• Jour 11: bateau pour l'Espagne

Eine Atlasüberquerung per Rad.

From the moment we started, we knew this was going to be a holiday with a difference. Maybe it was the envious looks we got from British cyclists on the way to Heathrow, or maybe it was the stares from shocked Spaniards as we did a sudden strip-tease beside the baggage reclaim in Madrid, revealing if not our true colours, then at least our lycra-clad limbs.

The diary of a trip from Marrakech over the Atlas, along the Draa valley to Zagora, then coasting the Sahara to Tata and Akka, over the anti-Atlas to Tiznit.

North Africa, the ``Maghreb'', invites a spirit of adventure. On the crossroads of early Western civilization, its citizens date their arrival back to the lost tribes of Israel and the Phoenician and Roman conquests. On an early morning stroll through one of the many ancient ruins, you almost see a chariot coming over the horizon. The region has the warm, bright and healthy climate common to the Mediterranean. The north is a tapestry of pristine whitewashed towns, beautiful beaches, the deep green Atlas mountains, extraordinary historical sites and rich agricultural valleys of sunflowers and olives.