On the road.

Joy, me and Donna just outside Taroudant.

Last weekend, a couple of neighboring volunteers spent the night with me, feasting on hummus and pasta salad and zucchini bread, watching a waaaay-too-long Brad Pitt movie, all in preparation for biking into Taroudant the next morning.

How can I not have done this before? It's only 24 kilometers ~ 15 miles. I used to routinely ride 20-30 miles on a Sunday morning back home. The road is flat as a pancake and two lanes wide; the wind, what there was of it, was at our backs. Yet this was the first time I've made the trek by bicycle. Inch'allah it won't be the last.

The perfect way to spend a lazy, unseasonably cool Sunday morning ~ and with excellent company.

Pit stop for water.

That sandpit in the background used to be a river, the Oued Souss.

Entering the medina.

We then enjoyed a lazy day of shopping, eating and people-watching. I took the opportunity of having friends in the souq with me to play tourist and take a few pictures.

My favorite souq entrance, of Place Assarag, near my spice guy .

Bread for sale at the souq entrance.

When I asked permission to take a couple of pictures, my spice guy insisted I come behind the counter and mug for the camera.

Spices, olives, incense, penile enhancements, jewelry, baskets and who knows what else ~ what can't you buy here?

Back home again, my bike in the parking lot that is my hallway (those other vehicles belong to the landlord's family upstairs)