Paris Dakar Rest Day #8 – Sidi Ifni

Our 8th rest day was October 22, 2023. 70% of our stages are done, but we’ve only done 65% of the distance. From here, the amount of climbing drops and the distance per day increases. Tomorrow’s stage, for instance, is 170 km. Our next block of seven rides will be 1,050 km, an average of 150 km/day. We have one more day in Morocco, then we cross the supposedly non-existent border into Western Sahara (or Moroccan Sahara as they say here).

We slept in a bit, although I didn’t really sleep that well. Daniel went exploring and soon his text came, “Coffee and croissants here”. We walked over, in sort of dismal weather, light rain with wind from exactly the wrong direction for us. He had found a pretty nice café and soon we were under the awning, each at a small table, with breakfast ordered. We had omelets (fried eggs as we would call them), with baguettes, olive oil and jam, plus olives. The hot chocolate was good. After a relaxed time eating, Daniel pulled out a bag of croissants, eight of them, delicious. Another round of drinks was required, then he said, “We’re not done yet”. Wytze says, “I thought not.” Out comes a box with a couple of dozen fancy cookies. We ended up not even being able to finish those, even after a long chat with Simo who walked by. I gave the rest to a woman asking for money.

Then we had a look around, but the city has clearly seen better times. In the distant past. We looked at the lighthouse, the view down to the campground on the beach, then headed home to put out the laundry out to dry – luckily the rain had stopped and the sun was coming out. We made a reservation for dinner at “the best restaurant in town”, but my expectations were tempered.

Wytze went off for a swim while we relaxed in our house. Having a house is a nice thing once and a while. I got to do a little coding on my NStrava app – probably not many github pushes and heroku deploys are run from Sidi Ifni on an average day.

Later in the afternoon, we invited Ype over for a little party. We had the last of Andrew’s smuggled Spanish wine, plus a couple more bottles. And lots of snacks from Ype and Wytze. It was a super relaxed fun time. We toasted Andrew multiple times.

When we finished all the food and wine, it was just time for our dinner reservation. We staggered up the street to Nomad, “the best restaurant in town”. It was shut tight the night before but tonight it was lively as the waiter ushered us in. We had a bunch of mostly seafood dishes, maybe four starters plus five main dishes. What a feast! Living it up right before a hard block of riding days seems like a really good idea. I’m not sure it’s the best place in town but may well be. It’s certainly great and a great deal.

We cleaned up at home, then settled in to sleep, ready for breakfast at the campsite at 7:30.