Von/from Blanche van der Meer

Fort  Tafnidilt - Sidi Ifni  

Can you cycle Plage Blanche?  Yes you can, but ….. 

For years  I wanted to go. I wanted to go to my own beach, I wanted to go to plage Blanche. We came closer every time but somehow never came round to it. In all of the 12 times we visited Morocco we had several reasons. Not enough time, not on the route and…...  On the last few days of the year 2010 we finally came round to it.   

Plage Blanche is a huge white sandy beach of 50 km long at the edge of the Moroccan desert. It’s empty, white, foggy and accompanied with huge white dunes of 70 – 90 meters high. Sounds nice isn’t it? Well ……..  

There is an easy way and a very hard way to get to Plage Blanche. If you are coming from Guelmin you can cycle a road which is covered with tarmac for about 5 years now. The stretch is about 75 km long before you reach plage Blanche. On top of the cliff there are some empty houses and governmental buildings. You have to bring all your food and water. After your easy visit you have to cycle all the way back or follow our tracks.   There is also a hard way to visit plage Blanche. We did it the though way all 180 km long!

After being on a very beautiful piste from Assa - Tantan for three days we reached Fort  Tafnidilt.. There’s a very nice place to stay with great food with the same name. You can stay in a room, in your tent our in their tents. We stayed in their tents as we arrived in the dark and where very tired. But as we found out, we should have taken the effort to put up our own tent as their tents were full of mosquitoes. Also we didn’t stock food and water in Aouinet Ait Oussa and in the last village near Fort Ayoun du Draa there was nobody around. And as there isn’t any food or water in between Tafnidilt and Sidi Ifni we needed supplies. Luckily the owners from the Foum Assaka place let us buy some food for a nearly Moroccan price an gave us 20 litres of fresh water for free for the road ahead.  

27 december     It took us a whole day to reach the sea from Tafnidilt. We only covered 41 km as it was very though going especially the first bit. The road is going up and down through a stretch of 22 km with huge sand dunes.  A lot of the road is covered with very loose sand. It was very hard with our loaded bicycles but beautiful. You also go up (on the very steep dunes) and down a lot. We saw loads of tiny flowers and dozens of camels. Later on the piste becomes harder and you ca cycle. There are a lot of tracks leading to the ocean and we tried to take the short cuts to the sea. Some km’s before we reached the Ocean we sensed a change of air, it changed from desert dry to a humid sea breeze. On the high and beautiful cliffs by the Ocean we met some fishers who offered us some fish. You’ll encounter may fishers on your way to plage Blanche. Mostly they where very surprised and pleased to see us. They live in poorly plastic huts. What a way of making a living!  

28 december     The first day was though going but the second day would become even harder. A sandstorm would blow right in our faces for the next two days. What a joy! The official place to descent for plage Blanche is at Cap Aoreora. The road became sandier and sandier the nearer we got to plage Blanche. The pushing and the wind nearly prevented us to move any meter. Besides that Douwe was feeling very weak and I had to keep him from the wind all day. So we wanted to descent as soon as possible to the beach hoping for some smoother riding. Finally we thought we saw a place were we could descent and where the beach was wide enough even at a high tide. Because it was a long way descending, I tried first. While I was gliding the sand on my way down I encountered with a big and beautiful chameleon. It was low tide and as we expected the stretch near to water was driveable for my bicycle. So I pointed Douwe to come down too. Sadly he didn’t see the chameleon. When it’s low tide you will have roughly 6 hours to cycle the beach. To find out about actual the tide see

Tide Prediction

On our way we also saw a death whale. The sandstorm was harsh. With a completely covered face against the sand we only did again apoorly 41 km. So in the end it was high tide and we had to walk again! Besides that we didn’t see a lot as the air was full of sand. When you reach the end of plage Blanche there is a river, Oued Noun which is dangerous to cross when the tide is high. And the tide comes in very fast as we found out. We nearly lost our luggage and bicycles. At the cliffs you’ll find a few private empty and governmental buildings but there is nothing to buy food. From here you can take also take tarmac road of 75 km to Guelmin. 

A video taken this day

29 december     The next day after a very, very windy night  we took a piste along the coast to Foum Assaka. This piste is rough but beautiful. First it goes through green gardens along the Ocean. Afther that it climbs to the cliffs where it descents and climbs regularly as you pass a Oued. Today it was my turn to be completely tired. I blew one time of my bicycle and fell down and when I walked the wind made me drop a second time. Today we reached a dayamount of only 36 km! In Foum Assaka there is a very little holiday village near the beach and a some sort of a small restaurant but there are no guaranties if its open. We slept in one of the houses  which they started to build but stopped soon after. Sleeping between the bare walls between the buildingsite was the only way to get some protection against the wind. The boys from the little restaurant offered us later to stay in one of the ready houses but as we had already everything unpacked we stayed in the building pit.  

30 december     Hurray today we’re going to reach civilisation again. Which means enough food, water, beer and no more fighting the wind. On our last cycle day the wind seased somewhat. From Foum Assaka there is a 45 km long tarmac road along the sea to Sidi Ifni. So finally some easy cycling. Around lunch we rolled into our well know Ifni and we went straight Ere Nouvelle to have some good food before we headed to our friends in hotel Ait Bahrain. Hurray we survived plage Blanche!

A video of our complete trip is here!  
Blanche

Traveling the world on a bicycle

Pictures taken on the road.