Riad Lotus Marine Hotel Essaouira

... quart au parking en bord mer et direction l hotel El Chakib
90 dhs la nuit « plan d Aziz ». Le lendemain
nous avons rencontre Youssef un pote Aziz qui nous a mis en contact
avec un super garagiste le meilleur jusqu a present. Lundi 18 mai
changement des croisions de transmissions et direction Marrakech '
arnakech'. A une dizaine de kilometres session nettoyage du quatre
quart. Essaouira, Morocco quatrequart

... seem to be male and young. The very few woman on the beach are either tourists or covered head to toe. First impression of Essaouira is that they like blue. All buildings are white with blue trim . The narrow alleys however are almost completely hidden under displays of funny pointy shoes, leather bags, pottery, colourful rugs and shawls and inlaid wooden things. Our 'no thankyou' in Arabic comes in handy again. Next day we walk to the port. This is a frantic hive of activity ...

... toegepast kan worden. Dat moesten we even onderzoeken. Waarom nu net Marokko? Ziehier een vers uit de nummer 1-hit: 'Le tiroir dynamique..il est seulement utilisé en Afrique'. En Ahmed van de groentenwinkel hiernaast kon een goedkope vlucht regelen. Vandaar. Een verslag met fotos volgt later

Sorry for the delay in keeping you up to date on our travels.  We haven't had much stable internet connection here in Africe so our post will be short and sweet. Here we are in Essouira, a fun beach city couple hours West of Marrakesh.  We stopped by on our way back up to Casablanca.  

Only a couple of hours drive through farmland from Marrakech was the coastal fishing town of Essouira. What a change from the cities of Fes and Marrakech. It was calm and inviting and Mum and Dad had treated us and we were booked into the ...

... basic sandy buildings. After a couple of hours of painfully slow driving (the speed limits seems stupidly low in places, when its just mainly open road), we stopped for the obligatory coffee break, wondering how much longer to go! It turned out it was another couple of hours... and we declined the chance to stop at an Argane Oil factory on ...

... i can think to tell you was that i helped the cook group by taking some sausages to fry in the kitchen of the 2nd appartment, and while there helped made a fruit salad which we taste tested many times. It was good. Tuesday 12th + Wednesday 13th - Essaouira Tuesday we got to have a sleep in and most of us slept till about 10am, this was the first real sleep in that we had gotten on the whole trip and I think we needed it! We had breakfast and cleaned up ...

... to turn back this time. After the craziness of Marrakech, the relaxed, laidback atmosphere of Essaouira is a nice change. It is a popular tourist destination, on the Atlantic coast. Although it's touristy, the town hasn't lost its charm and there are still signs of everyday local life.

... swabs of luck - if you're feeling weak then you've already lost the battle to keep the bike upright. One thing that the morning has made crystal clear is that any boyhood fantasies we might have entertained of doing the Paris-Dakar one day are pure tosh! 50 km/hour has been bloody tough going and we've lost it a few times already...these guys do it for 10 days flat out at 150 km/hour. Super Human Freaks need only apply. Hassan offers to ride Pierpaolo's bike for him for a while ...

... saw hundreds of grey herons, egrets and eleanore falcons just off the beach, and saw some camels on the beach, obviously not as nervous of water as the ones in merzouga. one day we sat up on the roof terrace of our hotel all morning. apart from getting rather sunburnt feet, it was a lovely way to spend the day, reading and watching the seagulls. we were very sad to leave, but much more relaxed and back to full health agai