From Akcay it was a 50km, gently rolling ride to the town of Ayvalik, relatively quick but somewhat painful due to the level of traffic back on the big D550 highway. In Ayvalik we did a quick survey of in-town accomodations but then decided to head out to Alibey Island, a 10km ride across the harbor causeway from Ayvalik proper. After a pointless ride over the island's steep spine to the Lonely Planet's favorite Ada Camp yielded only expensive 100YTL bungalows (the punatively-priced 6YTL beers were really the deal-killers), we rode back to explore picturesque little Alibey town itself. Here [View Full Entry]

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We arrived by ferry from Istanbul in the port town of Bandirma on the southern shore of the Sea of Marmara to begin "the actual cycling portion" of our trip, intending to follow the circuitous coastline of the North Aegean for parts unknown to the south. Between extended stays as ordinary tourists in Marrakech and then Istanbul, we'd been nearly a month off our bikes, so we set a modest goal of 65km for our first day of cycling from Bandirma to Biga, not knowing what kind of conditions we'd encounter. Even so, we disembarked from the ferry a bit too [View Full Entry]

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After a tough transit from Marrakech, we were in a state of somewhat exhausted excitement when the cross-Bosphorus ferry finally cruised into the Golden Horn and deposited us, our bikes, and a boatload of fellow commuters on the quay at Eminonu. Our initial impression of Istanbul, formed by the shifting views of the hilly skyline seen from the ferry and solidified by the sheer mass of humanity we encountered on the pier, was of a modern metropolis combining the character and geography of San Francisco with the intensity and scale of New York, and punctuated with a profusion of eye-grabbing la [View Full Entry]

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After we returned from south of the High Atlas to Marrakech so Kate could travel back to North Carolina for a family gathering, she spent a furious last day of shopping around our neighborhood in the Ville Nouvelle looking for gifts for the folks back home and then trying to pack up all her spoils. Hassan, our innkeeper at the Hotel Toulousaine, was kind enough to take her to the airport for her 24-hour, 4-flight, 3-airline marathon, which she survived without a hitch. On the other hand, my incipient Marrakech Hack developed into a full-blown upper respiratory case complete with ear [View Full Entry]

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On our exploration of Morocco south of the High Atlas, we had originally considered cycling a loop from the Draa Valley village of Tansikht through Risani and Erfoud back to Ouarzazate, but soon realized we wouldn't have enough time to complete it before Kate had to catch her March 18 flight from Marrakech for a quick visit to the U.S. So, not wanting to pass up the Dades and Todra Gorges - "don't miss" destinations, from all the first-hand reports we'd received - we rode the bus from Zagora, near the end of the Draa Valley, back to Ouarzazate. After spending [View Full Entry]

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After a day exploring the extremely photogenic kasbah at Ait Ben Haddou, we had a relatively short morning's ride to get into the city of Ouarzazate, at the intersection of the Dades and Draa River valleys. Ouarzazate was the real beginning of our trip south to the end of the N9 highway at M'Hamid, where the paved road finally gives way to the hammada and sand dunes of the Sahara. While riding out of Ait Ben Haddou it was very clear that we were now out of the High Atlas mountains and into the desert, with the tortured, red-rocked landscape reminding [View Full Entry]

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After returning from a fresh 3-month renewal of our Moroccan visas in the Spanish enclave of Melilla, we wanted to spend as little time as possible in Marrakech and get back on the road. Outside of its famous medina, Marrakech is a large Europeanized city of vicious traffic and wicked dust storms, and on the whole held few attractions for us. We had already arranged a flight for Kate to her family gathering in North Carolina and had written off the attempt to retrieve our package of supplies sent from the States by UPS but now apparently marooned in the Customs [View Full Entry]

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Our arrival in Marrakech, at the ungodly hour of 3:30AM, was the result of the vagaries of the CTM bus schedule and our haste to leave the city of Guelmime sooner rather than later. We decided that hanging out in the Marrakech CTM station until sunup, when destinations like hotels and restaurants were opening up, would be our best bet. But it's cold at that hour in Marrakech, so Kate had to augment her passive warming system, consisting of all available clothing layers, with some active warming courtesy of a tiny stray puppy she found wandering the bus station, whose intense [View Full Entry]

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We left Agadir with a sense of impatience to get out of that tourist town and back into the wilder coastal landscapes - not really wild, of course, since wherever you go in this country you are always surrounded by the curious and friendly Moroccan people, who seem able to materialize out of even the most desolate-looking landscapes. Our destinations were the towns of Massa and Sidi R'Bat on the Oued Massa river, which forms the southern edge of Souss-Massa National Park, a haven for overwintering bids and the enthusiasts who watch them. We'd already seen one of the stellar entries [View Full Entry]

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After nearly a week off the bikes "on vacation" in Essaouira, we resumed our southward journey down the coast with a very short 25km leg to the beachside village of Sidi Kaouki. This tiny town - barely more than a bus stop, and not even rating its own mosque - has only recently appeared on tourists' radar screens, and the road to it - a 30km loop west of the main N1 coastal highway - was only fully paved in the last few years. The driving force behind its development has been the international community of windsurfing fanatics; even more than [View Full Entry]

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