Atlantic coast

After a quick recovery in Taroudant I took my time to make it down the Atlantic coast. The N1 road appeared to be very busy so I tried to find another route. This was parially succesfull but I had a lot of fun. In Tiznit I met two other cyclists from Canada but they took the direct route down to Mauretania because of visa issues. Anyway, the weather is nice (nights sometimes a bit chilly) and I'm enjoing Morrocan fruit and veggies! Tasteful and cheap. My cycling is getting stronger again so quick break at the beach and heading towards the Sahara...

Criticism: why do all the mosques have to spread their "ALLAH AKBAR" at 4.30 in the morning for half an hour?

Marakech to Taroudant

rendering / uploading on tour takes a lot of time... offcourse it should be 2011 on the title :)


After a good flight and a nighttime bike ride to a campsite north of Marakech I noticed I wasn't in place yet. The weather is nice but I always need to adjust to a new country. In Morocco it took me a little longer than usual. Spent one day on the campsite and around Marakech suburbs (which are mostly depressing). Will spent more time before my flight back.

The first day riding started cycling through Marakech and onwards to the High Atlas mountain range. The snow capped peaks were looming in the distance. After some climbing I made it to the village of Asni were I spent the night at a berber family's house. Lot's of mint tea to bargain about the price. After dinner Mustafa showed me his cheap souvenir collection (offcourse he wanted me to buy stuff) but I wasn't that impressed.

The next day I ended up in a small town in the high Atlas mountains. Even after 70km I was really tired. Haven't done much mountain cycling lately. The Tajine was very good that night.

Climbing to Tizi N Test was really rewarding, I had great views but when I reached the 1900m hight it got cloudy and eve small drops of snow. Drank coffee at the top and started on the chilly downhill dropping from 2100 to 500m in just 30km! To bad about the clouds because the view should be spectacular. Only 55km left to Taroudant. But man the wind was strong. I arrived just before nightfall in the old city. Decided to get a kebab but that didn't really worked out. It reminded me of my "Broodje Yak" experience in China.

Luckily it wasn't that bad and I'm feeling a lot better today!

Heading off to Morocco

As most of you will know I'm off for a 5 week tour around Morocco. It was a bit of a struggle to decide where to go this winter. Morocco was always in my mind but since I never really cycled a lot in winter in Europe, I also thought that might be quite interesting... I think the weather made me change it.

For this trip I bought some new gadgets for the road. I'm going to shoot more video and try to keep some sort of video blog if the Morocco internet is good enough and if I have enough time to edit. It's the first time I brought a laptop on tour. But electronics are secundary, I hope they don't distract me too much from the real thing (finding out about a new culture and scenery). I finally get to cycle in the dessert which I have never done before!

But first I have to fly to Marakech and adjust myself a bit to the new country!

(thanks Johan for the Photo)

Iceland video edit

Iceland Cycling edit from bas steller on Vimeo.

Familiar Farmland

Three days ago I cycled accross the dutch border into the province of Groningen in the northern part of the Netherlands. Riding along the busy highway A7 made me realise that this is quite a busy country...

After a quick stop at the Faroe Islands  I arrived in Hirtshals with the Norrana Ferry from Iceland. This was great especially because my family was giving me a warm welcome at the harbour! We spend a nice long weekend at a summerhouse. Too much to tell and quite overwhelming. It was so good to see them again I totally lost my motivation for the last 1000 kilometers home.

The weather was just horrible, too much rain, a neverending headwind, some cold nights and familiar and unexciting farmland. I felt pretty lonely on these days. Wo ist die Bahnhof? This was offcourse never a real option. Are you really going to give up in the last kilometers? "Don't be such a pussy" I told myself and decided to keep going. Singing and talking in german kept  me busy!

It feels good to be back home again and I still have a lot to do right now, sorting all the pictures, cleaning the bike, clothing (and myself). I definitely need a haircut...

I really would like to thank all the nice people who helped me along the way, providing me me food, shelter, interesting conversations and so on. You're all very welcome in Holland.

Japanese memories

Road number 260 leading into the Japanese Alps. End of may 2010.

The Last Pass

I arrived in Seyðisfjördur today over the last pass off this tour...
From 30m to 600m and down to sealevel again. Not the biggest but a memorable one! Sigarette well deserved. (I finally figured out the "zelfontspanner" on my camera).
The other picture was a few days ago very early in the morning at the Jökulðalsheiði.