If someone had come to me 10 years ago and said, “One day, you’ll be traveling around the world by bicycle,” I would have laughed and told them, “You’re crazy, leave me alone.”
I grew up in Syria, where even the thought of traveling felt like an extreme luxury—something far beyond my reality.
But just a few days ago, I found myself camping right in front of Africa, in a military zone, waiting to cross. I was overwhelmed with happiness. I couldn’t believe I had made it this far—traveling by bike and standing at the edge of a whole new continent. In the countries where I grew up, coming close to the Border has a different meaning and it could be life threatening.

The route over the last few days has been absolutely stunning. Spain is truly a cycling paradise. Communication was sometimes difficult because of the language barrier, but the landscapes more than made up for it. Every day has been a gift.

The reunion with Sandra is coming soon, after a long break while she finished her job in Berlin. I can’t wait for us to continue this journey together.

We had our Breakfast and head it out to Tarifa Port.

Ironically, we had our first sandstorm in Spain, not Africa. sand was hurting

On the port Door, the police told us to go and buy tickets from outside.
There are 2 offices for different ferry companies. I knew from reading blogs that the best way is to go inside and ask directly. We bought a ticket for 36€ including the bicycle, which is around 12€ cheaper than the wall-on-wall office.
Huge line on the ferry waiting for the stamp, the passport will always get stamped on the ferry during the hour of travel.
The authority officers were very polite and stamped our passports. When we went outside, the officer asked us politely to turn off the 360 camera.

We went to get some Dirham in cash, I knew that Albarid (post-Bank) is the best. It’s an official bank of the country and they charge no fees.
then bought a SIM card for 20 Dirhams (2€) and charged it with 20 Dirhams for 2 Gb which is extremely expensive compared with Spain (200 Gb for 15€).
We started cycling in the direction of Atlas Mountain, noticing that the weather is hot around 34 Degrees.

We had a break on Damm. The security came to me took the trash from my hand and said I’ll take care, sir, he took his phone and called someone and gave the phone to me, the person on the phone told me its dangerous to stay here cause of thieves but I’m watching you on the camera if something happened. I asked who he was and he just said I’m here for your safety.

We continued cycling and stopped after a few Km to ask to refill our water.
Mohammed sent his son to refill our water. The son came back with water and watermelon.


around 19:30 we arrived in a small village called DAR AL SHAWI around 35 km from Tangier. The sunset is in 40 Minutes and we wanted to ask where we could pitch our tent. I asked Zakaria who was sitting at the closed school door, if he knew a place and he started call many people, and then sent us to CAFE Shurafa.
Abdulatif in Cafe Shurafa was very Welcoming and offered a place in his garden and started to show us the Vegetables he is growing in his Garden.

6 am in the morning I went out of the tent to see Abdulatif waiting for us outside the tent, saying breakfast was ready.
Even though we insisted yesterday that he doesn’t have to wake up early in the morning just to prepared breakfast for us, he works everyday till 3 am in the morning.
He prepared an amazing breakfast all from self and homemade stuff, eggs, cheese, yoghurt, olives, and Moroccan tea and coffee from his Espresso Fancy espresso machine which is he is very proud of in the village.

We started calling around 07 am and noticed it’s already hot and the sun is burning.
After around 12 km cycling, we arrived at 400m altitude, it was very hot, and we had been drinking water so much.
A car stopped and the driver came out to his package, brought 5 L of water and started to refill our bottles, he told us that there is a water resource coming out of the mountains in a few km.
We arrived at the source, on the mountain far away from all kinds of civilization, there were suddenly many cars and thousands of water canisters, and around 60 men all staring at us.
I asked if we could refill our 4 bottles of water each 900ML, and they said ye,s sure, I turned my back and walked to the sources, leaving Sandra 5 Meters away from me, and she screamed come back quickly, this ”kid” is acting in a disgusting way.
I went directly back and saw how Sandra is trembling.
The 15-year-old was sexually harassing her and tried to touch her Body in an disgusting way.
I went to him and he was trying to apologize and went away. one of the men was telling me he is just a kid he is just a kid…. We wanted to just go away cuz no one of all the men reacted, they were just staring like zombies.

We cycled a few Km away and sat down just to absorb what just happened and Sandra broke down in tears.
Suddenly the father of Abdulatif, where we slept yesterday, drove by and stopped to ask what had happened.
He was very angry and insisted on finding the guy.
He mobilized the whole village.
We didn’t want any violence, Sandra told him we just wanted him to learn that this is not ok.
We got in his car and drove back, but when he saw us he ran away into the woods and disappeared.
Everybody was apologising .
The father wanted to drive us away, but we thanked him and said we wanted to cycle and Sandra was feeling ok again.

After cycling for another 10 km we stopped under a tree to have a shade break and suddenly a woman out of nowhere came to us with 2 kinds of bread and said Welcome to our village, They brought coffee, and the daughter came to speak to us in English.


In Morocco, especially in rural areas, local administration is organized through a traditional system involving the Caïd and the Mokaddem.The Caïd is a government-appointed local chief responsible for managing security, resolving conflicts, and overseeing administration in a district or group of villages. The Caïd represents the state and reports to higher authorities like the Wali (regional governor).Under the Caïd is the Mokaddem, a neighborhood-level agent who monitors a small area, keeps track of residents, reports suspicious activity, and helps with minor administrative tasks. The Mokaddem is the direct link between the people and the authorities, ensuring local control and communication.it dates back centuries and was very important during the French Protectorate (1912–1956) even though This system is still very active, especially in rural regions, where the Mokaddem often checks on new visitors or travelers and reports to the Caïd for security purposes.

we arrived in the evening to a village and were hosted by Imam Abdulrahman in a mosque.
Around 09 pm, when we wanted to sleep a civil dressing man came to us wanting to take our passports.
He said that he forgot his accreditation card at home. He called his Boss who said to me he is an official police, I told him sorry you can tell me anything thing at the phone, I can tell you on the phone that im the President of the United States of America too.
He was very angry and started threatening me.
We didn’t want to give him our passport, and at midnight the police came(The police in Morocco are extremely professional.) They apologized cuz we had to experience this. They took a copy of our passport and we went to sleep in peace.