Cycling in the Dades Gorge

Renting a car is highly recommended if you want to explore eastern Morocco, where the Atlas Mountains and desert areas are located. Traffic is not heavy and there is good signage. This makes it easier to stop and enjoy nature or stop in a small village that looks interesting. You also avoid the long bus rides in the mountains, which can be hard on the stomach. You'll meet many large campers with license plates from Spain, France or Germany on the road, so it pays to bring your own car to Morocco. If you rent a car from a local rental company, be extra careful if you pay with a Visa card, as it is often the case that the rental company charges a much larger amount than agreed. Therefore, it is better to use the more well-known companies such as Budget, Hertz or Avis. You should preferably rent a car for longer than 6-7 days - otherwise the daily rental rate is too high. Fortunately, our view of Moroccans has become more nuanced again. Marrakech was special. The city is very touristy, which is why 99.99% is about business and money for the inhabitants. As a result, the inhabitants are very aggressive and pushy, as one of the locals from Boulmalne du Dades said. We also had a good experience in our backpack from Ouarzazate before we took the bus from there in the morning. We stayed at a hotel where breakfast was included, but we had to leave before breakfast was served, so the hotel gave us 2x20 dirhams back. That's better service than you experience even in Denmark :o) Boulmalne du Dades is a relaxed small town located close to the Dades Gorge, which is a 32 km stretch of mountain that offers great views of the varying mountain types, villages and rivers. This stretch can be experienced in a car or from one of the many minibuses that whizz back and forth between the smaller towns. We chose to rent a couple of bikes. 100 dirham per mountain bike. We got the bikes on the roof of the minibus, which we took one way. 32 km away from the city we were dropped off. It was an incredibly beautiful stretch - very mountainous - back to the city. The road meandered up and down the mountains, so our legs got tired. Some of the highlights of the trip include the following. Ait Arbi, a small valley with lush nut and fig trees. About 30 km from Boulmalne du Dades there is a small restaurant with the most beautiful view. From here you can clearly see how steep the road is and how it winds around the mountainside. In a small village, we took a picture of a man and his 2 children. He didn't have email, but made us promise to send him a copy of the picture. He wrote his long address on the back of a postcard. He insisted that we come into his house for tea, but we politely declined. Back in the city again, we were exhausted after a good round of cycling in the mountains. We had a bottle of white wine in our backpack from Marrakech, which we enjoyed in the room in the evening, you can't drink in public :o)