Leg 7: Mauritania to Morocco

Claude Marthaler left his native Switzerland in March 1994 with a plan to cycle around the world. In a series of letters to Travel Africa readers, Claude has been sharing his thoughts on the African continent and its people as he progresses through Africa. This is his seventh such letter, covering the final leg of his journey. He returns home to Geneva on June 16, 2001. In our next edition he will summarise his thoughts on Africa.

The Sahara - Mauritania

One imagines a picture-postcard desert with impressive dunes, but it is mostly stony, flat as Saharan bread and invariably composed of tabular plateaux, sometimes alternating with fine white sand dunes or pastures for herds of camels. In the intense sun, unbearable odours of putrefaction announced dead donkeys, dogs or camels. They punctuated the road more often than signposts.

Huts papered with newspapers and rice bags were an auberge. Tiny square windows (shuttered in case of a sandstorm) created a refreshing air current. I lay on cushions eating Mauritanian military biscuits. The Maures know how to combine a slow pace and kindness to keep you longer. Tea flowed indefinitely.

A French television crew filmed me, which lessened my solitude. Suddenly the mountains of Adrar looked like a movie set, but my declarations before the camera seemed artificial; I felt simultaneously flattered and robbed. They interviewed a group of camel shepherds sitting on their heels, faces showing the typical contentment of a hard day's work. Mauritania's government - a dictatorship - wants money from tourism while retaining its archaic way of life: an impossible goal.

I reached the oasis of Cinghetti, the seventh most venerated place in Islam. For centuries, caravans of camels had refreshed themselves here at the desert's edge. Today, its stone houses are preserved by UNESCO, but many are invaded by sand.

After two days, 120km without water, and much pulling my bike through thick sand, I reached Choum and joined the world's longest train. I ate tins of sardines given by the Red Cross. On their lids "Sale forbidden" was written in French. I was too hungry not to buy food - even that which European taxpayers had sponsored. Poverty, corruption and donor naivety had transformed humanitarian aid into a profitable black market.

The Mauritanian minerals train was a man-made monster, and its 660km-long line is probably the only African route free of charge for passengers who accept the lack of comfort - which everybody does.

Sunrise revealed the immense Atlantic Ocean and fields of coloured plastic bags engulfing Nouadhibou, Mauritania's second city. The city was born from the mineral train and from its seafood. It had grown up too quickly without proper planning, and was utilitarian and rootless.

Morocco

I rode in darkness into no man's land (where white-painted cairns marked off heavily landmined, undefined territory). Beyond the border, 340km were covered by car convoy - the only unridable stretch in Africa. "For your own security," I heard. I insisted on knowing why, and received a categorical "Military territory!" The question of Western Sahara-ex-Spanish land-obviously haunted the desert. Morocco had orchestrated a peaceful invasion by populating Western Sahara. At each town, the police checked my documents. Behind the uniforms, I felt the heavy power of Morocco's monarchy.

I leaned against the wind. My Walkman rescued me from the boring, infinite road. Drivers rushed past, impatient to escape a landscape that illustrated the monotony of life. No one stopped to chat in this featureless part of the desert. 50km from Láayoune (capital of the southernmost region) sand threatened to cover the road, blowing from huge dunes. The sunset lit their crescents. Entering town, Morocco seemed to be booming: building sites, electric lines, desalinisation plants, traffic. But Láayoune was ugly to me and to every traveller I had met so far.

An amateur cyclist, Sidi, invited me to eat the first sweet meal of Ramadan. By daytime, Ramadan gave an impression of laziness, life slowed down. People bought food in the markets, but nobody ate. I encountered kindness but the evening evolved into an invitation to become a Muslim. I was 40 - the same age as Mohamed when he became a prophet. The next morning Sidi told me Ihad to leave, otherwise the police would interrogate him about me and the neighbourhood might disapprove.

Leaving town, the policeman at the checkpoint asked, "Faster than Lance Armstrong?"

At Guelmim, children waved at me but, as I passed they threw stones for no reason. I chased them, but they vanished. I camped at the Total petrol pump a few kilometres out of town, waiting for the Paris-Dakar rally. I made friends and was invited to a wedding, a full night of dancing, revealing an unusually festive aspect of Islam. Africa showed me a deep sense of sharing. After nine days, the twenty-third Paris-Dakar rally reached Guelmim. The laid-back town suddenly experienced an unusual excitement.

The Atlas

I rode through a stony vastness punctuated by prickly pears, isolated walnut, almond and olive trees, and shining green terraces of wheat betraying invisible streams. High fawn-coloured kasbahs perched on hilltops, dominating the valleys. Farmers led ploughs pulled by donkeys, horses or sometimes camels.

Shady café terraces sheltered men who came to watch TV, find warmth and share their lives. Women were strangely absent in a population 60% female. Invited into homes, I received daily marriage proposals from women desperate to escape their destinies.

In the mountains, one feels the rotation of the planet intensely; the sun soon plunged the barren heights into shade. People were rough: the faces of old men had wrinkles like the contour lines of my map. Although the sun was strong, the air remained crisp. I frequently joined people for candle-lit evenings around a plate of Tadjin. Winter nights were cruel in stone houses without heating.

In the village of Imlil, beneath the High-Atlas, a man rented me a backpack, boots and crampons to climb Djebel Tubkal, Northern Africa's highest mountain. The trail passed a kasbah used in the film Seven Years in Tibet. In the Neltner refuge, I froze in the penetrating mountain silence, fully clothed in my sleeping bag. At the top, I felt the fragility of memory: fifteen years ago, I'd climbed the same peak without remembering much about it. I started to wonder what I'd remember of this whole journey.

I climbed the winding route towards Okaïmeden, "the highest ski resort in Africa". It seemed artificial, incongruous, like a replica of an Alpine ski resort, with stone chalets. There was no mosque: an old man, hands cupped around his mouth, called for prayer five times a day. Shopkeepers closed their businesses and joined him on a concrete platform.

It was the weekend and rich townsmen passed me in their cars. I saw them eating roast beef in cafés, drinking beer and smoking contentedly. They wore black leather jackets, jeans and dark sunglasses. If Kilimanjaro was the physical top of the continent, here was its symbolic one: everybody looked to have reached his own summit. Okaïmeden is among the cheapest ski resorts in the world. Once on the slopes, I forgot about pedalling and felt instinctively connected to my childhood.

Marrakech Marrakech has its folkloric side, but to a cyclist on a long ride, a city represents trouble: cars, expenditure, less friendly people. I stayed with students, collected letters at the French embassy and saw a dentist. The students' austere flat resembled any student flat in the world: dirty dishes, books and clothes in disarray on the carpet where we slept. They all wanted to leave Morocco for Europe, a place "where it could only be better than here".

To get a job, they said, one is asked "Who is your father?" and never "What are your qualifications?" There were few ways to escape the increasing frustration: few distractions or cultural activities. A relentless chase for money dominated society. One never spoke openly against the King, Western Sahara or Islam, the three major taboos. Alcohol and prostitution were culturally forbidden, but their consumption was common. As the world's biggest cannabis producer, smoking offered a cheap diversion. Cybercafés were packed till 3am, young Moroccans chatting worldwide, some seeking marriage and life in Europe. Their future looked bleak. "Insh Allah!" ("if God wills") was an over-used phrase.

Tichka Pass (2260m)

Delicious smells of boiling Tadjin came from terracotta dishes with conical lids in restaurants along the road. On improvised tables, handmade carpets and pottery were sold, alongside fossils, reminding me that North Africa had been a sea millions of years ago. A strong wind and the steepness of the road made me pedal like a drunkard. I met a man carrying a heavy load, his bright eyes shining like crystals out of his turbaned head. He was walking from Marrakech to Quarzazate in broken sandals, some 200km in four days, "for business". In the past, some Moroccans walked all the way to Mecca. Camper vans with mythological names like Kon-Tiki passed us, bubbles of Westernism. An avalanche of mechanical problems reflected my state of mind. Even before reaching it, Europe was rushing towards me. I felt suffocated, disoriented.

The pass was full of shops and restaurants. Sellers were pushy, children demanded "Bonbons! Stylos! Dirhams!" The entire place was compromised. The reward for my uphill climb was robbed in an instant.

Three passes later, the mountains were invisible in darkness, but still perceptible, like giant masters of the planet. Pedalling without goal (other than fighting the cold), I eventually reached the mine town of Bou-Azrou. A night watchman took me into his tiny stone house and sent his son to buy dates and Coke. "Could I work as a shepherd in Switzerland?" he said. "How much does your bike cost?" added his son. Here, copper-, cobalt- and silver-miners, working 460m underground, earned $5-10 a day.

Palm trees faded out into sand near the Algerian border. In El Kellaá M'Gouna, a woman who saw me fixing my bike took me to her three brothers. She was covered by a scarf, so I was surprised by her initiative. Later on, she showed me a document for taking part in the "US visas lottery". "I spent $50 to try it, but no answer came back. Is this paper false?"

Posters of pin-ups hung on the walls. Muslim homes seemed either austere or over-filled with kitsch. This room was empty but it echoed with both despair and hope. Khira, the young woman, earned $2 a day working in a teleboutique to support her jobless brothers. The best olives and roses of Morocco grow here, but I left the place with a bitter feeling.

At an auberge in the Dadès Valley, beneath the ubiquitous portrait of Hassan II (the late king), Lahcen, the owner, pointed down to a huge kitsch house: "A Kiff (hashish) smuggler's." Lahcen smoked some from his long pipe to increase its effect. He had only left his valley once. "We know the world only through football so that at each World Cup, we discover a new country!"

I felt solitary and silent about the end of my journey. It had swallowed seven years of my life and would soon be over. I sometimes wished I'd been a simple soccer fan, not a cyclist. I felt like a moulting snake: travel had eroded my old skin.

The Dadès cliffs were impressive. The river course deep below snaked tortuously. Minuscule bright green fields contrasted with the dark, round, black polished rocks. The trail reached a pass opening onto a large plateau. Behind, the defiant Atlas loomed. I could only imagine how big Morocco would be if flattened. Riding down the Todra gorges, I came to a plethora of hotels and tourist buses. The pure air and silence of the mountain vanished. I found the hammam or communal steam bath, inherited from the Romans. Nothing was more relaxing after cycling. There was something primitive, essential, about hammams: the steam, austerity, lack of light and hygiene.

A local man told me: "People pray to be excused for their mistakes, but when they leave the mosque, they don't behave like Muslims. The bazaris don't hesitate to sell their carpets at ten times their original price."

I passed from desert to high plateaux to cedar forests. After the conical roofs of Black African huts, the Mauritanian tents and the flat roofs of southern Morocco, here were triangular ones, inherited from the French. Spring welcomed me generously with tall, green wheat, flowers and birds. Stony walls bordered plains of orange and olive trees. A few days later Casablanca and the Atlantic were in view.

A Moroccan proverb says: "It is better to travel than to live a hundred years".

Claude Marthaler, Mohammedia, Morocco, 117,553km

Published in Travel Africa Edition Sixteen: Summer 2001 Text is subject to Worldwide Copyright (c)