This is our final blog entry

Here is our last blog entry... we are back in drizzly England, back to normality (of sorts).
We went to collect our bikes from RAF Lyneham the-day-before-yesterday (thanks Commadore Parr!), and spent yesterday cycling! we cycled from Matts Grandparents in Didcot to oxford, a lovely un-challenging cycle. It's really good to be pedalling again.

Anyway, we had planned to still be in Morocco...so why are we back????
We had to leave our charity project in a hurry when Claire was struck down with a vicious bout of DYSENTERY! Spent a delightful couple of days in hospital and bed-bound in Marrakech hotels while Matt organised last minute flights back. Claire was reeeeaaaally poorly! (dehydrated, delusional and unable to eat or drink). The return flight did pass without 'incident' because she had not eaten for a while.

She's better now, though, and is raring to run and jump and cycle cycle cycle! She just needed home cooked food that wasn't veggie couscous - thanks Claire's mum!

Thanks to everyone who followed our blog - we like hearing from people that they've been avidly following our progress!

And thanks to all our sponsors. We're putting together a report which you will hopefully enjoy. We got a letter from WaterAid thanking us and you for all the money - the amount we raised (over £3000) is enough to pay masons to work on wells serving 30,000 people!

What we have been up too in brief...

so...we left you in Azrou....
¤ we travelled to Marrakech wiv our friends nadia and gregg in there hippy van (matt had the shits, but took a bum blocker so survived the journey,

¤ on the way we camped on top of amazing waterfalls,

¤spent a night in Marrakech, claire was poorly and tired so not much happened,

¤took off to Essaouira on a nice bus because claire felt poorly,

¤spent three days in Essaouira, it was rubbish, touristy, wasternised and lots and lots of hassel due to the extreme poverty just behind the affluent waterfront, our campsite was so sos so so windy and sandy, we did however find a lovely resturant and matt took claire for a lovely meal because she still felt poorly,

¤too cheer ourselfs up we rented a car for 4 days to take off southwards to explore the lesser known morocco,

we....
discovered amazing argan oil and bought a big big bottle from a happy bloke on the side of the road,

drove to tafraoute which was hot and beautiful in the middle of the anti atlas the most dramatic mountains matt has ever seen!
we bought claire some pretty moroccan shoes, matt knows the proper word as always...babouches

we then drove further south the next day...too the desert! the beginning of the Sahara! didnt see any big sand dunes just rocky wilderness,

we visited an oasis with lots of palm trees, but found people to be very odd in a scary way so retreated to some hotsprings to set up camp! claire had a swim in the ladies only srings and was a real hit with her cool (blonde) hair! unfortunately there were also strange people there and we were kept up in the night by wife beating and plain madness!

we obviously skidaddled in the morning... We got completely off the beaten track, abandoning the tarmac for dirt tracks; we discovered an amazing, lush valley in the middle of the hot desert hills where a trickle of water had inspired people to settle and turn the landscape green!

We then headed back northwards, hitting the coast on the way; we stopped at a brilliant beach (no tourists, just moroccan lads larking about in the surf). We joined in the fun of confronting the huge waves - we got tossed and turned and battered and slept well that night... in Tiznit, the town where everyone wes trying to pick our pockets (so we retreated to the campsite and our tent).

Yesterday we returned to Essaouira, via the Souss-Massa National Park, Morocco's most important, to do some bird watching. Matt was thrilled... Claire doesn't like birds.

Bought more argan oiland returned to Essaouira. In an hour we'll be on a bus to Marrakech to catch the train to Rabat to stay with our new friend Najib.

So where are we?..... Azrou!!!!

still having an amazing time... been to fez seen amazing things....seen women making carpets at the most phenomenal speed!!!!!!!!!!!!! most amazing women we have ever seen. we would love to decorate our home from the medina in fes...maybe one day. We also saw the most beautiful plate in the entire world, but more about that when we return home. While in fes we stayed in a hotel which had both the toilet (hole in the ground) and shower in the same 1 meter square space, smelly!! oh, i was using one of these holes to pee in the medina, as you do...and two rats jumped out of the hole.

Fes is a beautiful, really interesting city and one day is nowhere near long enough to get even a slight impression of its depth! We did spend the whole day in the medina and finished our day by watching the sun set over the city... nice!

now we are in Asrou, once again with our new found friends also traveling around morocco. we spent the day today on a day trip with them seeing a place where 36 springs burst out of the Middle Atlas mountains to form radids that gush down the hill... there was a freezing cold rocky pool next to one of them in which we swam escaping the dry heat... which was lovely.

at the moment we are meeting a morocco couple who we meet yesterday, they are the same age as us and have invited as to pass the night with them! we dont really know what this entails but are happy.

bye for now! our plan is to head to the south atlantic coast and travel as far south as we can.

First impressions of Morocco

First stop for us was Tetouan, a fairly big town that bewildered us quite a bit... had a crazy, maze-like old town that we lost ourselves in, looking for new clothes in the souqs; we retraced our steps when we came to the really smelly meat and fish selling part of the medina (this was right next to the tanneries, which made the overpowering ponginess of it all even worse.
The new town was easier to manage, but we were continually being hassled by guys trying to make us part with our cash.
Café-patisseries (french style, but with better stuff on offer - loads of juices, and really sweet honey-drenched Moroccan pastries) were a very good refuge for us, as was our lovely (but noisy as it was right on the main street) hotel.
Despite all the craziness, Claire still managed to buy a beautiful top and red headscarf and some good trousers.
Were now in Chefchaouen, which is a lot calmer, chilling out!

bye for now

Off to Morocco!

Thanks to Healthcare R.M., we have a nice hotel to go to when we reach Morocco tonight with no idea of what to do in a strange new country. This is greatly appreciated and will help us to recuperate after the past month's fun and giggles!

We bought lovely new rucksacks from the industrial estates, and had great fun packing them. Now we're ready to go!

So what now? who knows, we've got nearly four weeks of adventure until we have to be in Marrakesh for our IVS project. We'll keep this updated when we can.

Love from us both, X big kisses.

P.S Claire is the world's worst bag packer...this is her at 7.30 last night after dedicating the entire day to packing!

From us...

"So we have done it! It was hard but not as hard as I believed it would be at times. We didn't suffer from sun burn as I thought we inevitably would, probably because I insisted we stopped every hour to cream up with factor 60! I didn't swallow nearly as many bugs as i thought I would (you swallow less bugs the further south you travel). We took far less days off than we initially planned, and I rediscovered the extent of my determination I sometimes forget I have. I've definitely decided that I do really enjoy cycling up mountains, strangely addictive, and will definitely be doing more in future years, there are many mountains out there. In all truthfullness i didn't really know spain was so incredibly mountainous and perhaps if someone had pointed this out to me a year ago I may not be here right now...so ignorance can sometimes be a very good thing. I'm really lucky to have done such an amazing journey, and to be able to have such an amazing time you need to be in the company of someone you can really rely on" Claire.


"I reckon we're very lucky to be able to do a trip like this - cycling somewhere is a lot more expensive than flying these days, and the support of our families has been essential. I most want to thank my wonderful girlfriend, because I couldn't do a journey like this on my own. She made sure we got going at a decent time in the mornings (even when I was really slow, difficult and in a daze). She also made sure I didn't eat too many biscuits. I will really miss my bicycle these next couple of months but we have so much to look forward to!" Matt


So anyway, thanks to all our sponsors for supporting us, bring safe water to many people in the developing world, and changing our world for the better.

6th July: The end of the Road

Having reach Europa Point you may of expected us to: relax, have a lie in, go to the beach... however...

...

The two intrepid travellers, not content to accept this as the end of the road, set off once more before daybreak. This time, their target was the little-known (and perhaps non-existent) coast road to Tarifa, the southern-most town in mainland Spain (however only about two miles further south than Europa Point)...

First, though, they had to make it through the Campo de Gibraltar, one of the biggest petrol refining centres in Spain. Madness! Having struggled for hours to find the way, and with their legs only taking them in circles around the vast industrial estates, the weary travellers asked directions countless times. Each time, the Spaniards directed them to the terrifying motorway, clogged with ferocious motors. These spaniards time and time again tried to tempt the travellers onto the apparent hard shoulder, but the travellers were not to be tempted, and with all the determination they had left they continued to find their own way (basically the extremely long way around). Having made it to Algeciras, they arrived at the confluence of all the roads into the metropolis...

...having escaped almost certain doom in this craziness, they found themselves at last on the road round the coast: the map promised this to be a beautifully scenic car-free route to Tarifa. The adventurers boldy zoomed along the road, hope rising in their chests, as they rode over the tops of the cliffs and Africa came into view. This hope was dashed, however, when the road came to an abrupt halt. It just stopped. No more road. Nothing. Not a sausage.

The exhausted pair let their bikes fall to the ground, and they sat at the end of the road, their collective gaze set on Africa. They knew their journey had come to an end.

Europa point.

We got through the madness of Gibraltar (tiny island with loads and loads of cars, all of them seemingly confused by the British-style road markings) to Europa point, where we tried to spot Morocco over the Straits and waited around for someone to ask to take our picture.

We felt great satisfaction to have reached the end of our epic journey, but strangely sad that we would have to leave our bikes behind and carry on alone.

Later we found a Moroccan Arabic phrase book which made us both very happy (and will give Matt hours of entertainment), and a big square meal of baked spud and chips and omelette.

Went to Morrisons... very strange.

Day 35: Ronda to Gibraltar

The last leg!... and we really felt like we were on our last legs as we started the long climb at the beginning of the day. But the day got better and better as the sun came up revealing amazing views of the Serrania de Ronda. It was mostly down hill, which makes a change, and we had a fantastic morning. We hit the craziness of the Plain of Gibraltar (although it is not that plain-like - quite lumpy really), with its huge oil refineries and industrial estates.
We did find a way through that wasn´t on the motorway (quite a challenge, though) and got to Gib as it was clouding over and looking ready for a downpour.
Gibraltar is weird.

Day 33: La Roda de Andalucía to Ronda

Had a really lovely cycle yesterday, and here we are in Ronda (on day 34) updating blog, planning our way home etc.

The amazingness of the photos basically says it all about yesterday´s leg, except that there was a long long 1000 metre-plus climb in the middle!

We´re about to explore Ronda further, already found a fantastic Italian gelateria, and had four ice creams there on arrival yesterday! Many more to come today!

Two more days of cycling left (although Claire reckons it can be done in one!)

That´s all for now... lots of love to everyone from Matt and Claire

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Day 32: Baena to La Roda de Andalucía

We went down a dead end today.

Here is a photo of us looking hot, grumpy and sweaty.

And here is the drugs rehabilitaion centre that was down the 10km long dead end.

Oh and we were cycling in over 40 C today!

day 31: Albanchez de Mágina to Baena

Strange gale force winds in the night cooled us down drastically and freaked us out a wee bit.. but we still slept a lot! In the morning we climbed right from the off, and climbed steeply for an hour and 20 mins... up to our highest spot yet (see photos - THE SIGN SAYS 1250m)!!!

You might then have thought that the rest of the day was downhill... NOT THE CASE!

Luckily once we got to Jaén (lovely looking city, we´d love to go back for a better look) we found an old railway line turned bike path to speed along (although this also seemed to be slightly uphill). Finished our fairly long hard day with a visit to a frighteningly huge french-style hypermarket in Baena for yoghurt (obviously), then found a fantastic hostel in the old Moorish party of the town.

day 30: Santo Tome to Albanchez de Mágina

Started to get sick of all the olive trees today. Also, Matt´s map started to let him down (he didn´t like this). Luckily we didn´t go down any dead ends... but we did visit a town where no one knew of any roads at all, and they all seemed to be mad.
Finished the day with a long climb, crossing a valley (v. scenic as always), then climbing up a mountain (in the hot hot heat) to where our campsite was. Lovely! Very red-faced and puffed out, we were ecstatic when the campsite amazingly appeared 2km before the town, which hardly ever happens.
At the campsite, we rushed around like busy beavers doing all the things we only normally do on a day off (like washing sleeping bags and all our clothes). Again, we slept very very well!

the craziness of day 29, in all the gory detail...

Woke up very cold (being so high up and with only the inner layer of our tent up). We had quite a slow start due to Matt hiding Claire´s stuff. Claire subsequently became grumpy and channeled this into furious cycling (really speedy... no stopping... even for bakeries... Matt finding this very tough).
So we did 70 miles in 5 1/2 hours!!!!! then... the campsite we were aiming for closed last year, so we decided to stop - and eat lots of yoghurt. Claire fell asleep on a concrete bench, and Matt stared at his maps.
Once we had livened up enough, we did 5 more hot sweaty miles to the nearest hostel, where a strange lady greeted us, and finally gave us the room we wanted. Sleep was very easy!

more about day 28 (don quixote and us...)

Anyway, we were on the route of don Quixote...
...the tunnels through the mountains, while being welcome since they made the way nice and flat, were also long and dark (no lighting installed yet - they are a throwback to the time of Cervantes), with bats that rustled and swooped over our heads.
The path went steadily uphill until we were as high as the wind turbines! We camped at a high village in a campsite full of ravenous skinny cats who stared at us hungrilly as we ate our feast of a dinner.
Claire slobbed out while Matt played with the bikes - all three prefered to be on their backs (more relaxing).

day 29: to Santo Tome... mental day!

Day 28: Albacete to Peñascosa

Lovely (but a bit bizarre) day - 60 miles following in the footsteps of Don Quixote... so lots of dark tunnels and grumpy farm owners to contend with!
This internet closes at six, so weŕe just going to put our photos on for now! another update tomorrow!

day 27: Venta de Moro to Albacete

60 miles again.........

We had a very hilly morning in the Hoces del Cabriel Natural Park, making our way to the province of Albacete... and into La Mancha! Don Quixote country. We´re very excited about that because tomorrow we´re going to follow the 'camino de don quixote', a nice, flat (hopefully) cycling path!

Anyway, we were climbing for about four hours and then suddenly found ourselves on a flat plain that led all the way to Albacete... a very strange sensation, having expected a nice long descent following our strenuous climb!

But we´re here now, staying in a hostal and about to go to some fancy shops for window shopping. Here is a pretty picture of Claire showing off her tan in the main square!

Hasta luego!

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p.s. this is where we´re heading tomorrow!

day 26: Bugarra to Venta del Moro

55 miles, average of 10mph, 5 1/2 hrs of intense pedalling!

This was a very peaceful day of incredible scenery... very lumpy stuff but practically nothing on the roads. We even managed to get to our campsite in good time as it was cloudy for most of the time.

We both decided that photos wouldn´t do the amazing mountains, valleys and gorges justice, so you´ll have to take our word for it - the most spectacular landscape we´ve seen in Spain so far!

day 25: Sagunto to Bugarra

long long long hot day... 60 miles but it took us from 6 in the morning to 9 at night to do it...

temperatures over 40 C stopped us about 15 miles from the campsite at about midday...

so we sat in the shade of a big palm tree eating our lunch of yoghurt and fruit, then whiled away the hours until about 7 in a cafe, eating ice cream and playing dominos.

the last couple of hours still found us streaming with sweat, though, as the sun refused to leave us alone in the evening!

Here is a picture of Claire at the campsite, exhausted but happy to be about to go to bed! (notice sexy anti-mosquito get-up).

day 24... our ´´day off´´

It was our day off today (being sunday)... we still managed to cycle ten miles though, including pushing our bikes through the surf on a beach again!

went to a fab market and Matt got lots of olives - yum.

Check out Claire´s new dress she got in Castellon - from a Moroccan man that Matt tried to talk to in Arabic (failing slightly but still getting across the idea that we were cycling to his country).

very relaxing day.

Day 23: Ebro Delta to Moncofa (between Valencia and Castellon)

This was the most mental day´s cycling we have ever had! 100 miles of completely looney craziness (all of you who think we are nuts are completely right!).

In a nutshell (because we´re running out of time)... we were determined to cycle along the coast whether the road went there or not... so we encountered a variety of different surfaces, including pebbly beaches, mountain bike trails (very steep in parts), and pushing our bikes along in the surf.
We cycled through Oropesa del Mar (holiday city - very scary place) and Benicassim and Castellon seeing happy people sunning themselves on the beaches as we sweated our way past!
We set out with no final destination in mind. This perhaps was a mistake.

bye for now.

lots of love from Matt and Claire!!!!!!

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