Paris Dakar Stage 30 to Gorges de Ziz

Stage 30 of 60, day 36 of 71: 120 km, 1011m, 4:12, 214 shifts, ave speed 28.6, max speed 53.2

That’s a milestone, half the stages done! I managed to sleep 10 hours between an afternoon nap and a long sleep at night. I woke up feeling sicker but still ok to ride. After breakfast we started out and it was pretty magical for me. After the first few pedal strokes, on a smooth, gently downhill road, I felt great. We cruised for about 40 km, easy pace.

Then the day’s climb started. At one point the road split, old on our Garmins and new in real life. We took old since there was no traffic on it. We soon found out why: it ends in a 3-4m precipice! We carried up and around and made it onto the new road.

We continued the climb, then stopped at a friendly restaurant for drinks and snacks. It was at 63 km and then the text from Ype came in “Lunch is open at 66 km”. After sodas and mint tea, we headed there and had a good lunch. From there we had under 60 km to camp, mostly all downhill. Dennis and Wytze blasted out the first 40+ of that at what felt like full speed to me, mostly 40 ish kph, more on the downhills. We pulled in to a little restaurant and Dennis had the biggest smile ever, “Now that was cycling!”

After more drinks and snacks we cruised the rest of the way, including entering the Gorge of Ziz.

Our camp was at a hotel called Kasbah Hotel Jurassique. Initially I only saw rocky crap places to camp but then it turned out if you had a free-standing tent like my Quechua, you could camp on the concrete by the pool, and it was shaded! Our baggage wasn’t here yet but after we unloaded it, I went swimming in my bike shorts – perfect cold clear water!

Then we had a round of soup and snacks, a beautiful warm shower, laundry, etc. Brian gets the Hero Of The Day award for arranging to get 50 beers delivered from a distant store. He ended up having to drive with the guy’s son who was a terrible driver, but successfully returned with 50 beers that were still cold and didn’t last long. 30 dirham=just under 3€ each.

After a couple of beers and writing this up, I took a nap until dinner. I need to blast this cold out of my system somehow. Luckily, tomorrow’s ride is under 100 km with little climbing. Good night!