Morocco was on the cards for a few years. Cheap flights, relative proximity to the UK, and sizeable mountains. After the success of ‘winging it’ in Kyrgyzstan, we adopted the same ‘plan’ for Morocco.

To get the proper experience of arriving in Marrakech we walked in from the airport; vaguely hoping we’d stumble across some bikes but alas it was not so easy.

After being shown to a Souk by some kids we haggled with a bike stall owner. We agreed to meet him the following morning at 7 am where he’d have assembled two bikes plus panniers for us ready to hit the road. The evening in Marrakech was pleasant once the hastily booked Riad was located.

Bike man arrived an hour late which set the tone for the quality of the suggested steeds. The suggested bikes were hopeless. The ones we finally settled on were not much better. I can’t remember how much we paid. However much it was, it was too much.

The Atlas mountains, initially hazy, quickly became visible after cycling south from the city. A mixture of dirt trails and larger paved roads plus the early start meant we made good progress to the foothills. Minor mechanical issues with bottom brackets and cross-threaded pedals hampered progress later in the day. At dusk we were informed by the police we couldn’t start up the road to Oukaimeden, so instead carried on a short way hoping to find a spot to wild camp. A seemingly generous roadside man offered his garden and peppered us with food for the evening. Sadly this was ruined by the request for an unreasonably large sum of money for ‘the experience’ of the food. Luckily we didn’t have much cash on us. Lesson learned.

Our friend from the evening had shared one gem with us though. There was early season snow and some skiing up at Oukaimeden might be possible. A pedal failure, hitchhiking, and then a walk got us to the roadside sled and ski rental at Morocco’s premier ski resort. The snow cover was thin but adequate. We began negotiations to rent skis for a few hours. I think we haggled them down from £40 initially to about £2 - which was critical since it was all the cash we had left after being swindled the previous night. £2 was well spent for the experience, even if the snow was awful.

Post skiing a map assessment showed an offroad downhill route to Asni. The locals were apprehensive about being able to cycle it, but we figured it would be doable so we pitched the tent and prepared for an epic day riding.

Epic. Dirt trails wind their way down a few thousand meters. Squealing brakes and shoddy suspension serve us well. We both learned an awkward technique to pedal just pushing on the crank arm. One of the best few hours of MTB I’ve had.

By Asni, frankly, we’d had enough of the bikes. It was a stroke of luck that a man saw us with the bikes and weirdly, without any prompting, asked to buy them from us. A bit too good to be true. We were wary after the last few days, but it transpired to be entirely genuine and after buying the bikes he also helped sort a taxi to Imlil at the ‘local’ rate rather than the tourist rate. Faith restored in Moroccans.

Imlil is the base town for climbing Toubkal, the highest mountain in Western Africa. A good weather window meant we decided to have a crack. You can pay to be ‘guided’, but in summer conditions with previous mountain experience this isn’t necessary. Given the recent snow, we did hire some crampons. Typically the climb is done over 2 days, the first from Imlil up to the huts (there are 2), then the second to climb the final 1000m and descend. The route up is frequented by sellers of trinkets and drinks.

With an early start, we had made it to the huts (whereupon we pitched the tent) in good time and pushed on to summit the same day. Our late summit meant we had it entirely to ourselves. At 4167m it was an altitude pb - shorts and a t-shirt on the summit is a testament to how good the weather was.