Larache to Kenitra. Lifeday 25,319

The weather forecast  yesterday was so, so right 🙁 I awoke to very wet roads a very threatening sky and a wind that was going to be in my face all day long and a very long day at that.

The breakfast at the neighbouring cafe was excellent 2 fried eggs, bread, coffee, orange juice and a small pudding all for less than £1 🙂

I finally hit the road at 8.11 a whole hour after sunrise, must be getting old. The wind was awful, straight into my face especially with the frequent rain squalls 🙁 plus the road was quite dull essentially like the fens with long straight roads and abrupt bends .

The tiny poverty stricken roadside settlements were marked in Romanian style, loads of rubbish dumped on the village boundary. The kids run out and try a grab stuff of the bike, very annoying. One advantage of the rain was it kept the number of kids down.

I reached the area where they are constructing the new Kenitra – Tangier rail link. What a mess they are making of the road, it now comprises islands of tarmac separated by gravel/sand potholes. Totally a nightmare to bike on.

The rain became heavier and me more and more fed up with the traffic, I eventually reached Kenitra in the dark and raining heavy, not a good combination. I eventually found the station hoping to get a train to Rabat. Suddenly I heard shouting when I was wheeling the bike to the info boards. A very brusque guard made it clear that bikes are not allowed in stations and certainly not on the trains 🙁 He escorted me to the parcels office outside (identical to the Red Star at Cambridge Station of old). They said my bike would go overnight to Rabat. I said no way and left.

I found an equally miserable coffee place to rethink. Booking.com hotels were all sold out 🙂 so I checked maps.me to find there was a  Hotel Europa. I zoomed around arriving like the proverbial drowned rat. They had a room on the fourth floor as long as I didn’t mind the bar music! after 80 miles biking in those conditions they could have had an orchestra playing and I would have slept, especially after lugging the bike all the way up the staircase.

Strava says I did 80.1 miles and 1,473 feet of climbing at 9.4mph probably one of my toughest days ever,

Some pics are on dropbox here

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