01-02/07/2019: El Jadida
Km travelled today/sum: 264km / 7745km
Sun shine, 23 degrees, country road
We decided to follow the ocean again and it was a good choice. The road was fantastic, with some long curves, following the ocean.
At some point it reminded us of the Great Ocean road. There were sand beaches all over the place, sometimes just a small strip at the bottom of a cliff, sometimes nice wide beaches in the middle of nowhere.
The last couple of km we got caught out by the GPS and ended up on a highway… Oh, well can’t win them all. The nights accommodation would be in the Medina, apparently we could park the bikes there. Below is the entrance to the medina and yes, we fit through that gap!
The streets were not too bad, narrow and cobble stones in places but not too bad. We parked the bikes near by, in a place our host said he parked his vehicle a couple of years and never had any trouble. So we unpacked and covered the bikes.
This picture is the view from our rooftop garden.
- Well, if you look down you could see our bikes, but you had a much nicer view when you looked up.
- Sigrid relaxing on the roof top…
- … and the view to the beach.
The main reason why we were here was the Portuguese Cistern. This was build when the Portuguese were ruling this town, to hold water in case of a siege. I liked the reflection in the water, so we decided to have a look ourselves
Next morning when we had breakfast and met David and Andrew from the Czech republic. They were on a short trip to hike up Mt.Jbel Toubkal. Since they had a couple of days left until their hike, they were traveling through Morocco to wherever the train would get them. After a good conversation we took a picture before they departed.
We had a walk at the Ramparts of El Jadida, it was just around the corner. It is hard to imagine how much work they put into these tall thick walls.
It was nice to look down and just listen to the sound of the ocean and watch the fisherman going in and out of the harbour.
Tomorrow we’ll ride over to Casablanca, particular at the ‘Hassan II Mosque’, which is the third largest mosque in the world and it’s open to Non-Muslims.