We take the boat in the morning – from Algeciras to Tanger; from Spain to Morocco; from Europe to Africa. We bought the tickets yesterday – 35 euro each. Unfortunately, we get on the wrong boat at first. We pedal off the boat imagining ourselves to finally do our first miles in Africa, but find ourselves in Ceuta. Although a part of geographical Africa, it still belongs to Spain. After loads of hassle with the ferry company, we get a free ride back to Algeciras (mainland Spain) and a new (also free) ticket to Tanger (Morocco). We’d cycled eight km between different ferry terminals, until we were finally on our way to our true destination. Six hours wasted. As a final compensation for the hassle, we don’t have to pay the 30 euro fee that they usually charge for bicycles.

We reach Tanger in the afternoon and immediately start cycling south so to reach as far away as possible from the border before darkness. People drive a bit more reckless (although slower) than in Spain, and the roads are somewhat narrower. Sometimes sand has blown up on the shoulder, so that we have to cycle in the middle of the road and get quite some horning and shouting from the truck drivers. But people here are welcoming towards us – a good change from private Spain.

There are fruit salesmen all along the road, often sitting on the ground shadowed by high trees or simple stalls. One of them is Mohammed – two honeydew melons are ours for only two dollars. These are perfect places for us to rest at along the road, and at the same time fill up with some energy from yummy fruits.

We reach the northern outskirts of Asilah after biking the last hour or so in darkness. The local campsite sponsors us with a spot for the night.

We cycle the last kilometers to what will be our last place of resort before leaving Spain and Europe. Algeciras is the port in southern Spain from which the cheapest ferries to Morocco depart. We meet Walter from Nigeria, who invites us to sleep at the construction site in central town that he guards at nighttime.

We sleep on mattresses underneath the stars, between a container, the corrugated iron sheets that frame the construction site, and the concrete skeleton that rises up towards the star-spangled sky. The container for waste construction material is also the toilet. “Go behind, do what you have to do in a plastic bag, tie it up well and throw it in the container,” Walter instructs. He shares his apple juice and explains, “The Moroccans told me about it. It’s great. We don’t have it in Nigeria!” It is as if we’ve reached Africa one day earlier than we had thought we would – but not a single day too early.

Summary Europe

Takeoff

Europe was actually just a takeoff – both I and Lina looked forward to Africa. Although by starting off at home, we could easily supplement our gear in well-stocked shops along the way, at the same time it was difficult to travel so close to ones ‘normal’ life. On the days when we couldn’t find any place to camp – late afternoon became dusk, dusk went into evening and evening drew towards night – it didn’t get any more easy when we passed by a villa with a family eating Sunday dinner inside by the kitchen table, with lit candles. Warmth, food, a shower, a comfortable bed. You only miss it as long as you can see it; reach it.

The roads

The good part of cycling in Europe is that there are usually quite good bicycle paths. In northern Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, that was more of a rule than an exception. Some of the best routes were ex-railway lines that had been transformed into bicycle paths. Since those routes have been made for trains, they are naturally flat, moreover take a very short course from A to B as each extra kilometer was very costly when building the railway. Other good routes are those that go alongside canals – picturesque like anything!

The further south we came, the fewer choices of road were available. In Spain, we actually never found a real bicycle path. Sometimes, there wasn’t even any legal alternative for us to take – at times the highway was the only way. Even worse, we sometimes cycled through long tunnels with just one or two decimeters of verge for us to cycle on. Littered with rubbish and even empty wine bottles. Pitch dark. On one side the curved-in wall and on the other side cars rushing by fast. No matter what hid in the shadows ahead, we only found out a second or so before passing it. Those tunnels were the most scary part of the entire way to South Africa.

The meetings

Even though Europeans generally are far from hospitable, the few meetings we did get were all the better. The one with a homeless woman in Spanish Vinaroz was probably the most memorable. She invited us to stay in her trailer in the outskirts of town, to where we couldn’t come until dusk since the property on which it was parked belonged to somebody else. “If I can earn two euros today, I am rich tomorrow,” she said and meant that with enough money for a cup of coffee in the morning, she’d have a good start of that day. Then, she’d be rich that day.

We continue south, mostly along a highway. It’s illegal, but the police doesn’t seem to care. Possibly because the only alternative is sometimes a 100 km detour. Actually, it’s by the law illegal for some people to cycle to their neighbor village five kilometers away, unless they do it the 100 km way.

The roads along the coast in Spain seem generally to be built for none but those with cars. At times we pass through quite long tunnels with only a ten or so inch wide shoulder for us to bike on – covered with rubbish, even bottles. It is pitch dark – the curved wall on one side, and cars rushing by on the other. Whatever lies on that thin line we cycle; hides in the shadows ahead of us – it only reveals itself a second or so before we pass it. To cycle those tunnels was, bottom line, the most nerve-racking experience on the whole trip to South Africa.

Again, we fail to find any camping that can sponsor us. By the time we reach the end of the N340 road, where it once again transforms into a highway, a wide open sandy pitch makes our home for the night. We’re not alone – just beneath the roundabout, on a flat land of gravel by the sea, loads of caravans have parked up for the night. As well as a busload of French schoolchildren on a summer tour.

We all fear the Guardia Civil (local police), that they will come and tell us to leave. But I guess when all the campings are full, and there is no legal alternative, where can they send us?

We return to Malaga where bike shop Campos Lorca does a rigid checkup on our bikes, working for almost two hours with each bike. They take everything apart, change what is necessary, lubricate and then put them together again. At last all my gears work properly, as well as the brakes.

Along the road are urbanizaciones to the right, urbanizaciones to the left. Many new houses; new cities. Urbanizaciones here are like small, cramped villages of holiday houses, with names like “Mar i mar,” “Sol i mar,” “Mar azur,” etc. The tourist industry here is truly repugnant – and awkward. Who want to live like a sardine on their vacation!?

In the evening, we find it hard once again to find a camping. But after four full ones (yesterday was the beginning of the main vacation period in Spain), we reach one that has ONE spot left. The staff kindly sponsors us with it, but without the owner knowing. Thus no name. Just south of Marbella.

Rafael from the Hospitality Club (www.hospitalityclub.org) kindly hosts us on short notice in his apartment in Torremolinos, just 10 km south of Malaga. Come evening, he prepares a great dinner for us from a selection of local specialties. Then a walk through town, to the beach. Fireworks in Malaga, for some reason, flash up the night sky. The nightlife seems great here, but we are too tired to hang around; return ‘home’ to sleep.

In the evening, the first two camping sites are completo – full. Just a few kilometers further up the road from the second camp site, we meet a German guy, who lives in a silver trailer just by the beach. He leaves us there for a walk with his dog, but tells us that we can camp next to his caravan. We never see him again. In the darkness before we go to sleep, we take a cold shower with a hose. It all looks quite permanent – a small house, and a garden between it and the caravan. The swells of the waves sway us asleep. I guess it’s difficult to find better sleep than that.

In the evening, a woman advices us to pedal to el Lance de la Virgen, where there is an abandoned, old campsite. We reach there in darkness around eleven p.m., pitch our tents next to some bushes and fall dead asleep.

The sun is fierce here. My cheeks ache after six-seven hours of constant cycling and my eyes screwed up in the bright sunshine. I’ve sweated so much that the back of my shirt looks bleached from all the salt.

Along the road, I meet Ngor from Senegal. In one of the smaller towns that we pass through, he sits on a bench; in the shadow of a tree. He chews on a piece of dry bread; drinks a can of nonalcoholic beer. He has been given work in one of the many plantations where tomatoes, oranges etc is being cultivated, but earns barely enough to pay the monthly 600 euro apartment rent. In his eyes I can see a disappointment over what he had expected to be a place where he – once lucky enough to reach – could earn quick money. Instead, he is unable to save anything after having paid for rent and food. Not for himself, and not for his wife and four children back home in Senegal. Europe hasn’t live up to his expectations. It’s a broken illusion – a shattered dream – that can be seen in many of the faces from Senegal, the Gambia, Mali and Morocco that hang out on the streets here in southern Spain. Around most towns, the surrounding plains are completely covered in a sheet of white and grey plastic. In the plantations underneath, low-paid immigrants work in up to 50 degrees Celsius.

Come evening, we decide to camp at a roadside petrol station, on a piece of ground behind the actual station building and pumps. There is ‘round the clock surveillance, toilets and a shop – what more can you ask for? Actually, petrol stations are like free hotels – only that we hadn’t thought of them before. We met a policeman that also advised us to stay there. He gave us a pepper spray – ‘just in case’ – and an unlabeled bottle of red wine. The ground behind the station is a bit dodgy. “The Moroccans usually sleep here,” says one of the station’s staff members. But there is also a prevalent racism in Spain towards Moroccans; people lump them together. Many of the folks we’ve met have talked about Moroccans with the same, negative voice as when speaking of criminals. We find some pieces of cardboard that we lay out over the bottle caps and pieces of glass that cover the graveled ground, and pitch our tents on top. Throughout the night, my hand rests assure on the pepper spray by the tent entrance – ‘just in case’.

Again not able to find a camping, we end up pitching our tents next to some Romanians at the beach of Cala Panizo. Their caravans are tied with ropes to some small boulders on the beach, so it seemes that they’ve been standing there for a while. It’s a beautiful spot, but it is not legal to beach camp in Spain (signs ‘no acampar’ on all the beaches), so we have to wait until after the sun has set, before we pitch our tents.

We try many different campsites, but without luck in getting sponsored for the night. Finally, pedaling along a rocky, small road along the coast, we catch sight of a house on top of a small hill, where a family is just settling in for the weekend. Just beneath their house, we are allowed to camp. Not far from the beach, but still secluded enough for us not to be visible from the road.

Narciso accompany us on his bicycle for some 10-15 km, before we say goodbye to eachother – something we all find it hard to do. Narciso and Monica have been some of the few along this coast that has actually not only helped us in getting a place to sleep, but also spoken with us, shown interest in what we are doing, and seemingly also found it exciting themselves.

Thanks to Camping Mar Menor in Los Alcazares, just by the beach, where we camp for the night.

We meet Narciso in El Altet, and after a short bicycle ride to Urbanova (just south of Alicante), and a tour past the beach, we get invited us to stay with him and his wife Monica in their apartment for two nights. They live in one of the many tall buildings that line the beach; most of its residents only come during vacation.

Narciso shows us the simple but surprisingly tasty breakfast of toast bread topped with just olive oil and sugar. He tells us stories from the time when he worked for NATO in Bosnia, and for the UN in Basra (Iraq) and Mozambique. Narciso and Monica invites us to delicious dinners with wine on their balcony, overlooking the beach from the eight or so floor.

The kind owners of the camping just south of El Altet (there is only one camping) give us two nights of free camping.

The tourist industry along the Spanish Mediterranean coast is completely insane. Small town Altea even has a small Scandinavian district. The tall buildings bear names like Viking and Scandinavia, and all the occupants are from Sweden, Norway and Denmark. A kind Swedish lady, who lives in a villa behind those buildings, invites us to camp in her backyard.

Complejo Coelius Camping (www.coelius.com) in Miramar sponsor us for the night.