14/06/2019: Meknes
Km travelled today/sum: 110 km / 5980km
Sun shine, 27 degrees, country road
Since the distance to Meknes was very short, we decided to ride along the more scenic road and pass the colourful mountain range again, which reminded us of the ‘Bad Lands’ in the USA. When we arrived there, the weather was unfortunately cloudy, so the beautiful colours didn’t show up as much as the first time.
We took some pictures of the moutain at a nice vantage point, which had some stalls selling some pottery. Suddenly a couple of kids with a donkey popped up, asking if I could take a picture of them. Sigrid warned me throught the helmet intercome, ‘as soon you take a picture, they’ll be asking for money’. I thought, I could control this. Well to be honest, they did ask. So Sigrid bribed them with the air ballons from her secret stash at her tank bag. But it got so caotic, they would like to have more and more. Eventually, after we handed out at least two for each, we hopped onto our bikes and drove off. Unfortunately I didn’t take a picture of the kids surrounding Sigrids bike 😅
After we refused to take some goat tracks suggested by the GPS, we ended up on another paved country road with beautiful views. Shortly after we turned onto that road, we arrived at the ruins. Looking at the lonely planet, I expected that the guides would jump onto us as soon we parked the bike.
This was far from the truth. First we had a tea and relaxed a bit before we entered the excavation side.
In the grounds we even found a guide who spoke (a bit) of English. Here are some pictures of buildings which are 2000 years old!
Imagine you leave your house as they are and revisit them again in the year 4000. I don’t think you would find anything left standing, this is an amazing testament to the quality of these buildings!
Here was the bath, Sigird and I were imaging how it would have been. The inner ring was for the masseur, so he/she didn’t get wet feet all the time!
These are the mosaics in a living room, they are 2000 years old! Amazing.
Some more pictures from the main street in Volubilis.
An overview of the roman empire, pretty impressive.
After all that culture we’re off to Meknes. This time we had a riad (moroccan hotel) at the Medina. We could park the bikes in front and could relax on the roof top.
The sunset in Meknes from the roof top.
Tomorrow we will head towards the desert. Looking at the temperatures we realised, as soon we pass over the high atlas, the temperature would rise into the forties. Should we really venture into the Sahara?
