Morocco - days 8 to 12

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  Essaouira, Morocco
Thursday, August 14, 2008

Saturday 9th and Sunday 10th - Marrakech
Today was a bad day for me. Not only was it one of the longest days of travel on the truck, it was also the windiest, which only made my nausea worse. I ended up vomiting a couple of times, I was in so much pain from my stomach cramps. Later on in the day was given some crazy Canadian medicine which completely knocked me out, and although it seemed to take forever, I cannot remember much of the journey.
 
Marrakech was busy, hot and the walk from the truck to the hotel felt like miles. I passed out as soon as we arrived, waking up when Jess came in to tell me they were going for dinner. I ended up getting up to go, and made it to a bar where they had a couple of drinks before they ate, but I never made it for dinner, instead heading back to the hotel to watch some of the Olympics and then a bit of a movie that I found in English, before falling asleep again

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I felt a little better on the Sunday, and attempted to accompany some of the girls out to see the sights. We visited the Jardin Majorelle Garden which was created in the 1920īs by a French artist by the name of Jacques Majorelle. They were stunning. It was divided up into different areas, one section was cacti, another bamboo, tropicals etc, and there were ponds and gables covered with hanging vines. We spent some time admiring the different designs and then decided to hire a horse and carriage to drive us back into town. As there was 5 of us the cost turned out to be only a couple of euros, but we still haggled until we got a fair price. It was a weird feeling being on the road with cars zooming past while we just clip clopped along.
 
We walked through the main square and to one of the main avenues to get some lunch, I had some icecream but some of the girls had kebabs from one of the street vendors, and another had some pancakes which seem to be very popular here. We started walking through the souks (marketplace) but I started to feel sick so I ended up going back to the hotel for a mid afternoon siesta.

That evening we headed back to the main square and went to a restaurant with a 3rd story balcony, where we had a beautiful view over the craziness which was happening below us. I shared a couple of pizzas with Jess and Caroline, and watched the sun go down over the city and the atmosphere heat up. Below us the square was absolutely packed with people, food and spice stalls, snake charmers, dancers and all sorts of entertainment. Bright lines of lights ran in parallel lines across the square, and huge plooms of smoke were rising up from where they were cooking, drowning out the crowd creating a hazy glow until the wind blew it away

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. We sat there mesmerised by the sights, amazing smells, and tried to take in the crazy atmosphere. Just below us were some African style dancers, and huge circles of people formed around them to watch. The crowds seem to descend from nowhere, a mix of locals and tourists, and its like this every evening of the year. It was awe-inspiring and almost didn't feel real. Though that feeling soon changed when we had to negotiate the hordes to get back to the hotel.


Monday 11th - Agadir
We left Marrakech with me feeling almost 100% again, I had lost the nausea and vomiting and was able to eat real food again. We had a leisurely drive out to the coastal town of Agadir, on the Atlantic Ocean. We got in mid afternoon, and instead of staying in the campsite as they normally do, Marnie had organised us to have a couple of apartments for the night, which each slept 10 people and had a basic kitchen and even a tv where we got to tune into the Olympics! During the trip we all got very excited by any chance to watch it, as it was one of the only programs which we could understand even though they were talking in Arabic/French/Spanish/who knows. And I guess it was the aussie love of sport that brought it out of us too.

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We headed down straight away to check out the beach, and spent a while down there watching the surfers and hanging out before heading back to get our tv fix and have some dinner. It was a pretty boring day so i guess that deserves a boring entry. The only other thing 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 the apartments, then repacked the truck and split up into 2 groups; those that wanted to see the town/markets, and those that wanted to lie on the beach. The town didn't sound all that exciting and I was saving my money for the souks of Essaouira, so I decided to go with the beach option instead. We got to see a little of the town as we dropped those that wanted to see it first, and its like a mini Gold Coast full of highrise and hotels

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. This is as the city has only just recently been rebuilt, as a huge earthquake brought down Agadir in the 1960īs, so most buildings are quite modern. When we got down to the beach it was earlier in the day there were less people than the previous day, so it was nice and quiet. The beaches here aren't as impressive as the ones in Spain and Portugal, they seem a lot dirtier, but a beach is a beach and after being in the sweltering heat inland it was a welcome relief to be back with the coastal sea breezes. We got a couple of hours on the beach before whipping up a pasta salad for lunch and piling into the truck to drive up the coast to Essaouira.

We overstayed our beach time a little bit and ended up getting into the campsite a little later than planned. Essaouira is one of the windiest spots on the Moroccan coastline and is home to much windsurfing and kitesurfing, and i think some of our tents wanted to give it a go too as they promptly tried to take off as we were setting them up. The ground was also very stony and hard so it was entertaining to say the least. The 2 German guys in the campsite behind us found it especially amusing.
 
Most nights we would all sit around on the ground or on folding chairs and chat, but it was so windy the first night that we ended up hanging out in the truck. The cook group also struggled to cook the dinner as the flames from the burner were being weakened by the wind. We ended up eating our dinner well after 10.30pm and then pretty much went straight to bed.
 
Wednesday was our day to explore, so we headed along the beach for the half-hour walk to the town and spent the morning exploring the great souks

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. This was the place that i had saved my money to spend, and spend and haggle i did. By the end of the day, i had bought scarfs, jewellery, timber boxes, and some other little bits and pieces. The markets also sold stuff like rugs and blankets, lanterns, fake sunnies, spices, artwork, happy pants (those thai fisherman baggy pants), woven baskets and leathergoods. Most shops do not have fixed prices, and the Moroccans love to rip you off so you generally just give them some terribly low price and work up from there, usually which involves walking away a couple of times till they chase you out and make a better offer. Its fun and entertaining but by the end of the day you are kind of over it.
 
I had lunch with Jess and Caroline at a restaurant in town, where we bought a couple of different plates and shared, then ventured into a patisserie and then a really good gelato shop. Pigged out. I went off on my own for a while in the afternoon, just wandering and exploring the streets, before going back to camp and starting preparation on dinner as we were cooking that night. As Essaouira is a fishing port town, there is some great fresh fish available, so we bought some to make into a red fish curry. But as it was so windy we struggled to keep the stove lit and me and Danielle ended up wrapping one end of a blanket around each of us and huddling around the stove to try and block the wind, while also avoiding catching on fire

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. Probably not the safest but it was definitely quite amusing to watch. Our dinner ended up being delicious, although the only downside was that the fish had bones in it so we had to eat tiny portions and were always pulling tiny bits of them out of our mouths.

We went to bed pretty soon after that.



Replies to comments

Elly - Im glad you want to go to Morocco it's a crazy experience and you will love it I promise! There will definitely be some people that I keep in contact with from the tour, the group was great and we all got along really well. Sleeping under the stars was really calming, being out in the middle of nowhere in the dark and silence. Absolutely amazing.
Im so jealous of everyone back home that's been going to the snow!!! Its not fair haha. I wont be doing any alpine sports while away, they are way too expensive and I wont be there during the season, but I will hopefully still get to see snow, maybe even get a white Christmas in Scotland which would be so cool!!!!! Im glad that your talk went okay, I guess chocolate is always a bonus. Poor Judy, she really has no idea hey. Funny little lady.
 

Dad - sorry to hear im going to cause you to go bankrupt

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. thats unfortunate! yes my milk addiction is continuing, its not too expensive here but the variety sucks! And you cant put a price on milk anyway. And I do miss having a huge shower, though the shower at Lagos was quite big, it was the one in Seville that was tiny! Lucky I was only there one night.
I heard a little bit about your travelling adventures, it would have been good to see the Dobsons when does Mike go to Germany? Do you know where hes going? I didn't realise their house is almost finished, last time I spoke to Janice she was saying that they were nearly ready to start. But that could have been ages ago I cant really remember. I guess that this means that you won't be joining the rest of the boys and coming over here. That's a shame, I could have used you to carry some of my crap home that I have accumulated. And I guess it would have been nice to see you too.

To answer your questions...
Where was the worst Hostel you have had? - I haven't had any really bad hostels, but I guess Barcelona was the worst as people were getting their stuff stolen and the staff were so rude.
What has been the best food you have had? - ohhh my lord there is too much to name! Gyros and pastries in Greece, choc dipped strawberries in Munich, Gelati and crepes and pizza in Italy, Sangria in Spain, tarts in Portugal..

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. the list goes on
What has been the worst? Ummm I don't know! By the end of morocco I was totally sick of tagine, a stew like thing that I think we ate at least every day. Even thinking about it now makes me slightly gag.
What has been the weirdest? Camel burgers in Fes
What country has the best m ilk? Australia!!!!! It all tastes the same here.
How's your suntan going? I'm sure you're using plenty of sunscreen!!! Its going brilliantly! Of course im slip slop slapping though.
What is the next thing you are hanging out to see now that Morocco has been ticked off? Switzerland
List 10 item's (not people) that you miss from home (as in Melbourne). Good milk, top gear, 24hr convenience stores, coles mud cakes, steak, driving my little baby, my bed, shower, Hamish and Andy, mums cooking!


Mum - im glad im inspiring you to come overseas! Its about time! Though I don't think dad is very happy with me haha. Glad that you got your blog fixes. Its getting harder and harder to find time to do them, i get so busy. But I guess that I need to have something to write about! I don't think I would have ever thought that I would have been able to see morocco back when I was in yr 12, its crazy to think it stemmed from there. Im so glad I got the opportunity to do it myself. Definite highlight of my trip.


All stay tuned for the final chapter of Morocco!

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