Nov 18/09 This should have been an easy day since it was more downhill than up. Naturally, we had a nice consistent headwind all the way to distract from the fun stuff. There was a lot of sand blowing north from the Sahara which left all the hills slightly hidden by a haze. Still, the scenery was beautiful. The frustrating part of the ride were the kids. They were relentless with their chasing us down asking for pens, money or gifts. My already low opinion of ...

Nov 17/09 We had a wonderful breakfast with our new cycling friends, Etienne from France and his friend Marcus from Germany. They gave us tons of route information and it was great sharing cycling stories. Etienne gave me tips on bargaining but I still had no luck with it today at all. I will keep trying. They were heading north on a newly paved road but had no idea of what food and lodgings lay ahead. They are true explorers. Yet another long day on the bike!...

Bonjour! We left the big city this morning and it was really not all that bad. Trying to follow the map did involve going the wrong way down a narrow little street but we were not the only ones to do so. Predictably the traffic thinned out the further we went but even on the outskirts of town it was not all that bad. The traffic is incredibly polite. Trucks of course get the most respect since they are bigger, but even they often waited until it was safe to pass ...

This was a wild day, no doubt about it! The plan was to ride to Taddert, a mere 40 km of uphill. I have definitely learned something about perseverance from my swim coach Nancy. I was pretty exhausted when we got to Taddert but the thought of staying there was pretty gruesome… so in true Duck fashion, I ate lunch, managed to score a free bag of oranges, a picture taken while wrapped in traditional headdress and a back rub from a dirty old man. Nothing says get ...

Nov 15/09 Oh, getting out of bed was much harder today. I am fighting a nasty cold and really don't feel very energetic. The good news is that it is mostly downhill today, wahoo! We headed for Ouarzazate (war-za-zat) and had a pretty nice ride. Of course, there were way too many stops due to bike problems and brain farts. Both of our chains fell off a few times. My front rack screw finally gave up the ghost and is somewhere along the road. A bungy cord helped out...