Morocco Madness, Day 17

Up early because we have a lot of km to cover today, and we have to walk to collect our bikes from the carpark then load them up before riding away. 

The first part was easy, waking up to a cold breakfast on the terrace, with ingredients purchased from the local Carrefour last night. Cold coffee, cold pastries, cold yogurt drink. 🤷🏽

The walk went ok too. But then we had to leave the car park. We had registered our bikes at the hotel but they hadn't given us a discount code so the parking attendant insisted that we pay the full price. We didn't argue, but decided to walk back to the hotel to get the discount. But before we left, much to our surprise the attendant gestured that we could leave together on one ticket, which we did and bid him our muchos gracias. When I asked about the parking at the hotel, it wasn't actually that much of a discount, so the parallel riding exit solution was a good outcome. 

Then motorway blast. The scenery changing all the time. It became cold and later we realised we had climbed to about 1400m while riding. The weather was clear and cool so we made good progress stopping three times for petrol. On the second stop we decided on our destination that evening, somewhere just short of the French border in the Basque country.

We arrive and it's starting to get dark. The bikes are parked, and we look for the check-in. The hotel itself is unusual for us, attached to a bar, and the receptionist is the barman who doesn't speak English - why should he? He uses a phone to relay instructions, which works out fine after our pre-payment is confirmed. The room is better than expected, refurbished and very clean.Then we go out hunting for food. 

The immediate area seems dead for a Saturday night, although the bar itself is busy. It's a working town and there's a Arcelor Mittal steel works down the road, and this is a Friday so no doubt it will be busy with people unwinding after a tough week.

I decide that my chain needs oiling and adjusting, so while I do that, Christopher walks into the centre to find a restaurant. Job done and he pings me his location, another bar. But the food is interesting, I have squid, served in a black sauce, which I eat with bread. Christopher has meat balls and chips. 

After dinner we go in search of ice-cream; no fancy gelato stores here, but we find it in a wrapper at the local petrol station -good enough to scratch that itch. On the way back we see sparks flying inside the steel factory. This really does remind me of the steel town in the Deer Hunter film.

800km today on well kept roads and no tolls - yay!