Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, France and again Germany.
These countries already bit the dust on our world tour. Next on our list was Morocco in north Africa.

It was the beginning of November 2019. If you've seen our videos from the Netherlands or Belgium, then you know why we had enough of the freezing cold rain in Europe. We regularly had to pack a dripping wet tent and making food and washing the dishes became an actual challenge with such clammy hands. The weather report didn't promise any improvemt for the coming weeks and so we had to work on our route plan. After having to fight against 60km/h of winds coming towards us while cycling on the north see coast in the Netherlands, the rain in Belgium simply didn't want to stop and even in Luxembourg and France the temperatures dropped to 3°C, we finally made the decision. On to Morrocco!

An encounter with the police
The flight from Baden-Baden to Fes, one of the four royal cities of Morocco, went without any problems. After having put back together our bikes on the airport in front of curious moroccans, we already went into the city while it was already dark. We had arranged an overnight stay for the first few days over Couchsurfing and now we were looking for our host. It was just really inconvinient, that we was just not available and there was no certain adress either. We asked our way around the neighborhood with hands and feet and got astonishingly well towards our destination. This ended in us telling the host's name and showing his profile picture from Couchsurfing - of course there was always someone, that somehow knew someone, that knew this one... and so on. So we ended up showing up on the door frame of the wanted person and were excited how it would go on from here.  

Our host would come back home around 10 pm. No problem, we said. We can wait half an hour. That half an hour went by. Then another 30 minutes. Again we tried to call him. Finally! He picked up! It turned out he was in prison, because he got caught drinking a coffee with an italian. In and of itself nothing dramatic. Though, there were many natives getting exposed as „fake guides“ in Morroco at the time, that showed tourists around the city and then ripped them off after. Our host seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and probably couldn't explain himself anymore. We don't know. Too bad. For all three of us...

Plan B?

Ok, what was our plan B? It was now after 11 pm and we chatted with a Morrocan,
that was on a walk. We didn't want to further drive around and look for a tent or
check into a hotel. We still had our bivouac sack and could maybe use a little corner.
A street guard quickly joined, because there was now 3 men, that were considerably
worried about our safety. Which was totally understandable. The guard got us a 
blanket as well as water and said he'll look over us this night. We were just about 
to get into our sleeping bags, then the police came. 
They absolutely didn't like our idea of sleeping here. We had to show our passports, 
pack our stuff and follow the police car to an accommodation. It was now 11.30 pm 
and we were led directly to the Medina aka to the downtown. So we were supposed
to spend the night in a hotel. We originally wanted to avoid hotels and sleep in tents
to manage our budget. That went perfectly... We already paid for a room on the 
first night. We made the best out of it, atleast we would be faster in the 
small alleys of the Medina the next day.At the end of the day we were forced to pay a
„special price“ of 7€ per person thanksto the amazing connections of the police officers.
The hotelier didn't want to makeany other deal. The many alleys, the many people and
the tanner district were definitely the highlights of Fes.
[read more...]
 

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