Paris Dakar rest day #7 – Marrakech

Our 7th rest day was October 14, 2023. Eight days of riding and camping in a row brought us to the big city of Marrakech. The population is about a million and it’s a pretty famous city. The IMF is holding it’s annual meeting here this month for example. I’m pretty “used up” from the last days of riding and feel like I actually need this rest day, rather than, “Oh a rest day is nice”.

I wanted to go to breakfast early to say goodbye to Dick and Dennis who are flying home today. But I slept like a rock from 10:30 to 5am, then right back to sleep until 8. It was the really deep kind of sleep with good dreams where you know your body is rejuvenating. Sleeping in a big comfortable bed probably helped too.

Daniel and I went for breakfast then I helped a rider with his GPS. I did an outdoor session of bike love, cleaning, swapping the derailleur battery and lubing the chain. I measured the chain and after 4500 km it’s only 25% worn!? This is my first experience with the SRAM X01 Eagle 12 speed chain and it looks like they really do last a lot longer than the old 11 speed ones. Well they cost double so they should. I only got 4500 km on one out of nine of the 11 speed chains I used on my old bike.

I guess the big topic for the group is the next three-stage section. Originally it was supposed to be a second rest day in Marrakech plus two stages continuing south. But the September 8 earthquake damaged a hotel we were planning to use so Bike Dreams rerouted the tour. Skipping the second rest day, they will backtrack all of yesterday’s stage (very demanding as it climbs over 2600m and is a LONG, hot ride), then have a short stage plus a very long stage to get back on the schedule. Over a week ago, a few of us booked hotels along the original route and so will be leaving the group tomorrow morning, carrying just the minimum (toothbrush, shorts, T-shirt, phone charger and flip-flops, although Wytze says we could buy pairs of flip-flops at each town!) This route takes us over the Tizi-n-Test pass which is actually on dangerousroads.org, so how could we miss it? That site says it’s one of the most spectacular drives in Morocco.

It turns out many other people are not fond of the idea of reversing so have made their own plans. I guess Paris Dakar will be sort of incomplete for the next three days. I think after that, everyone will be back in the group, in the town of Taliouine. But “everyone” is a smaller group now as many people are leaving here in Marrakech. From there to Dakar, the style of the trip changes, with many “desert camps” rather than campgrounds. In “desert camps” you don’t get a shower, you can’t charge your phone or Garmin in the truck, and life becomes much more basic. Someone described it as “the epic part” of the tour. We shall see – it’s already been pretty epic!

Daniel was a hero this morning and took my laundry along with his to the laundromat – thanks! I went out to lunch with Bart and Wytze, very nice but in a strange part of town. It’s so thoroughly modern you can’t even believe it’s in Morocco. All the buildings and shops are new and fancy looking. We had a delicious lunch, and then a bakery stop for amazing desserts and drinks. We headed home and Bart and I had a great chat, drinking a couple of beers from Wytze’s stash poolside. Later, I did some packing for tomorrow and called Air France successfully to add my bike box as luggage for my return flights from Dakar. I had a relaxed evening creating route files for our little 3-day adventure and watching some disc golf coverage. What a great rest day!