De Marruecos a la Meca en bicicleta

Leaving Morocco four years ago, a Moroccan globetrotter crossed twenty-eight African countries to finally reach his destination in Saudi Arabia, where he intended to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. His journey began in January 2017, when Yassine Ghallam decided to realize his dream of making the Hajj. But unlike the classic pilgrimage, during which the faithful travel to Saudi Arabia by plane, the Moroccan cyclist chose an unconventional and very original option: to go to Mecca by bicycle, sleeping in a portable tent filled with his personal belongings and kitchen utensils.

After traveling through twenty-eight African countries and experiencing countless adventures, Yassin decided some time ago to leave his bicycle in Saudi Arabia, where he planned to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. Almost four years after he left Morocco, he arrived in Medina, but he could not achieve his goal because the Saudi authorities only allowed a limited number of people to perform the Hajj, as a large part of the measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus. His story has convinced the Saudis so much that he has been visited by people who have given him support and comfort.

Saudi media personality Abdulrahman Al-Mutairi is one of them. "We have come all the way from Qassim to meet you. You are our guest and the guest of every household in the kingdom. We are very happy to have you," he told Yassin. "I walked from Mecca to Madina on foot, following the journey of the Prophet Mohammed," he said. A member of Al-Mutairi's group joined the celebration and said, "The reason we came to Abha so quickly was because we were moved by your story. I also want to give you a gift. We will take care of your Hajj expenses for next year. The traveller called his mother and told her about the surprise for next year. "I have wonderful news for you. My Saudi friends will take care of your Hajj trip next year," he said, adding that she had never visited Mecca before.

"I wanted to discover this continent where we belong, but we don't know much. So I decided to travel on foot to find the history of our ancestors and the path they used to make the pilgrimage," she recalled in a statement to Babylon. "I decided to travel with 0 dirhams. It was a challenge with my mother who once told me that money is important in life and I did not agree with her," she adds. In order to meet the costs of the trip, this former employee of the Casablanca tramway company had to work as a teacher of Arabic and mathematics, a mechanic and a hotel agent. But the adventure was not easy for this Moroccan globetrotter. His journey suffered several setbacks. Once he packed his luggage, his journey began from Mauritania. "When I arrived in Dakar, I suffered a knee injury and a doctor advised me to buy a bike to continue my journey, which I did. In Benin I contracted malaria, which left me bedridden for a week in the hospital, and in Nigeria I had a car accident," remembers Yassine. 

So his adventure has allowed him to document and videotape all his travels, some of which have now reached more than 70,000 visits, and have travelled through countries such as Guinea-Bissau, Guinea-Conakry, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, Congo-Brazzaville, Angola, Namibia, Zambia, Mozambique, Swaziland and South Africa, before arriving in the Comoros, Madagascar and Mauritius. He interrupted his journey to go to the United Arab Emirates before returning to the Comoros and continuing his adventure. He then moved to Tanzania, where he climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, before heading to Kenya, then to Ethiopia, Sudan, Egypt, where he attended the African Nations Cup, and then to Jordan, the last stop before returning to Saudi Arabia.

But for Yassine, this adventure allowed him not only to improve his English but also to learn the basics of several languages, such as Lingala, a Bantu language spoken in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Congo, and Swahili. "The most important thing is that I learned about the humanity of African countries, and I also held on to my dreams and understood that we must set goals for our lives, not live by chance and remain indifferent to what people say," concludes the young cyclist who is planning to return to Morocco, where he plans to give several lectures on his experience and write a book about his adventure.