Paris Dakar Stage 28 to Azrou

Stage 28 of 60, day 34 of 71: 84.6 km, 1491m, 3:43, 187 shifts, ave speed 22.8, max speed 63.4

Crap, another day, another crash, another rider out. We were looking forward to this day as it was pretty easy on paper, practically a half-day compared to the previous stage. We rolled out of Fez after breakfast and I immediately fell in with Daniel and Wytze – it’s so natural, other than Andrew not being here. We cruised out of town, almost 30 km of gentle climbing, and were getting pretty hot. We stopped at a little restaurant, a wonderful place, really an oasis. Ype texted that lunch would not be early and we should relax. So we did – we had a couple of orders of breakfast, lots of drinks and some relaxed fun.

We started back up again eventually and decided to skip lunch which was at 50 km, after most all of the climbing for the day. We waved as we rode past and continued to the next town, Ifran. We arrived there with Rob who called it “The Switzerland of Morocco”. Sure enough, it had lots of flowers and plants, the temperature had dropped dramatically – I guess since we were now up at 1650m elevation. The architecture was different too, with European-looking houses with steep roofs. It was a very pleasant change after Fez. The rest of the group continued on to camp but we headed into town to find lunch. There was a giant complex of restaurants and we picked one and ordered up a massive Tajine feast, a ton of drinks, and for good measure, a chicken with rice and fries for Daniel and Wytze to share too.

These Tajine look vegetarian but under all those veggies are a few good sized chunks of meat. I left mine and after a while an older woman came over and pointed at it. I enthusiastically said yes go for it. So she collected the meat and the little bit of leftover chicken before the restaurant guys gently chased her away. Wytze saw a patisserie on the map so we looked for it and finally found it and got a little dessert.

It was an easy, mostly downhill, 13 km to camp from our lunch. We stopped to admire the view – this was the first day we saw clouds and for a second it almost looked like we could get a little rain, but no.

Then down the hill to camp, at a pretty decent campground. I found a shady spot for my tent and for maybe the first time ever on a Bike Dreams trip, didn’t have any soup or snacks after the ride. I was still stuffed from lunch. The shower was great, then I had a nice call with Katie – she got to say hi to Jan and Dick too.

All that sounds really good, but it turns out that right after the normal lunch, one of our German riders, Willi, who I had just had dinner with the night before, crashed and broke his hip. Ype took him to the local “hospital” where no one spoke any English, but they could do X-rays and determined that the hip was indeed broken and that surgery will be required. Willi will stay in a hotel nearby tonight and go back to Fez tomorrow. It sounds like a couple of our riders will accompany him. He’s working with insurance to see where the surgery will happen, possibly in Germany. He was SO enjoying this trip, it’s so sad it ended this way for him. I got to say good-by to him in camp and he sure had a great attitude.

Dinner was quite good with my favorite dessert yet: tropical fruit salad. It had very many kinds of fresh fruit including dragon fruit. I helped Michael with his GPS, finished this post up and was really ready for bed.