Cycling The Globe

The boarding of my Tunisair flight to Casablanca was quite the show. The plane was full of an older generation of traditionally dressed Arabs who didn’t seem to be accustomed to flying. The simple act of finding your seat and keep sitting down until take-off was not easy for the poor flight attendants to explain. An hour delayed we finally took off.

It feels like every new country I’m visiting at the moment brings me one step closer to home; riding the taxi from the airport to downtown Casablanca on a new highway passing one big shopping center after the other, I might as well have been in France. Oh well, less than a week until crossing into Spain now – Europe is indeed getting very close!

I met Manon when I cycled through Cali, Colombia a year and a half ago. We kept in contact, and it all ended up with this plan of cycling through Morocco and Southern Europe together. The ride is not going to be as solo as it once was 🙂

Manon is among many other things a globetrotting Dutchie, an adventure sport lover, an entrepreneur with her own communications agency, and also a great photogapher – something that you as a reader of this blog is surely going to appreciate in the coming updates 🙂 We started off with a walk around the old Medina and ended up at the impressive Hassan II Mosque. Morocco, just like Tunisia, is surely a very photogenic place.

I have been to Casablanca before but my last visit was over 10 years ago. As we walked around I tried to remember the places and plazas but maybe a lot has changed, or maybe I have simply seen so many cities during the last 10 years that everything kind of mixes together. One thing I remember though; I was very fascinated by Morocco during my last visit, and that fascination is very much still there.

And so, with an open mind, a renewed appetite for adventure, and some very good company, I’m ready to explore this last bit of Africa before returning to Europe – the final chapter of Cycling the Globe.