Morroco - the cities
Trip Start
Apr 20, 2008
1
63
69
Trip End
Ongoing
Marrakech,
Morocco
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
We left Chigaga at 5am in the morning as we had a long drive to Agadir, a popular sea resort which claims to have 340 days of sunshine a year. With this in mind we were very unlucky to arrive on a cool and overcast afternoon! Apart form the beautiful beach there didn't seem to be much else to do in Agadir so we wandered aimlessly along the seafront
Boys in their djellabas
. This was out first experience in a city an Agadir is very new and modern having been rebuilt after being destroyed by an earthquake 20 years earlier. Lizzie and I were stopped on numerous occassions by Morrocan boys who wanted our number, email addresses, to invite us to drink tea, have dinner, drive us up to the mountains etc etc. It was amusing at first but got old quickly and we found we had to be quite forceful to get rid of them. We had dinner in a restaurant with the rest of teh group. I ordered the camel couscous. It tasted a lot like lamb but I didn't get a lot of meat (supposedly one can only eat the legs) and (I wouldn't order it again) Agadir is known for it's nightlife and Marwan wanted to take us out. We agreed but weren't expecting him to take us to a 'British pub' with karaoke. After sampling some Morrocan beer I headed home.In the morning we had a couple of hours to ourselves. Had a look around the markets and the main street before heading off to our next destination, Essaouira which is a couple of hundred kilometers up the coast. Our first stop along the way was at a pharmacy type place where they made argane oil. It's made from a nut that grows on trees which resembles an almond. The oil is supposed to be healthy for cooking with and good for the skin so they make a lot of cosmetic products with it. I had heard that goats really like to eat the argane but it didn't really cross my mind that the goats would have to actually climb the trees to get access to them
The beach at Agadir
. We stopped alongside the road at an argane plantations and there was goats... lot's of them... climbing trees!!! We reached Essaouira late afternoon in the rain..... this another seaside town but with an old city with narrow winding atreets built inside high walls it had a bit more cvharacter and charm than Agadir. Marwan gave us a bit of a tour of the city which included a woodwork place where they make amazing furntiure and jewellery boxes and all sorts. We had to cut the tour short and find refuge inside a nice warm dry restaurant. We went back to the hotel via a bottle shop and spent the night in the hotel room playing drinking games which was quite hilarious.
After a couple of hours exploring the little streets of Essouira in the morning we drove back to Marrakech only to be greeted by even more rain! Boo.. and it was cold!! We went out to the main square, Djemaa el Fna Square which normally would be full of all sorts of buskers, snake charmers, story tellers, tarot readers, henna ladies etc. but on this day it was quite dead. We ate at one of the stalls in the middle which would have been really nice had I been able to feel my toes!
Saturday morning Lizzie and I were the only ones left
McDonalds in Arabic
! Everyone else had set off for the airport early in the morning. After breakfast in the hotel (breakfasts in Morroco left a lot to be desired, I was so sick of bread rolls and jam!!!) we checked out and got a petite taxi to the centre of town to find a hostel that had been recommended to us. It was impossible to get to teh hostel by taxi as it was down a series of tiny winding streets. It was worthit though, it was a gorgous place, really quite with couches and cushions in open communal areas set around a central courtyard. It was still raining so we weren't in the best of spirits especially as all our shoes were soaked through and we had no dry clothes left. We decided top go to a hamman, a traditional Morrocan bath/spa. When we got there we were shown in to a little round room where we could sit and drink mint tea while w waited as there are designated times for men and women and we had come a little early. When it was our turn we were given a big basket for our things and instructed to strip down to our underpants. We were then lead through a series of rooms where we had water thrown on us, oil rubbed on us and our skin scrubbed to within an inch of its life. At times we were directed to sit in a hot steam room with our skin covered in a spicy smelling mud. It was a very surreal experience. When it was over we were given robes and led into a semi dark room, splashed with rose water and allowed to lie and realx for about 20 minutes. We then reloicated again and had a 30 minute massage. Two and a half hours later we emerged from the hamman refreshed and not caring somuch about the rain anymore
Agadir
.In the evening we went out looking for a restaurant, as we were walking down the street we got talking to two Morrocan guys. Whilst this experience wasn't new for us it was somehow different this time, these guys weren't pushy, they didn't seemto want anything form us and they were educated, they spoke good english and they were interesting. They recommended a library/reastaurant down s small side street. The food was amazing and we sat and talked to them for over 3 hours. We also got talking to a Canadian couple sat beside us an we all decided we should meet up an ddo the same thing the following night.
Sunday was our last day and the sun was shining and there was not a cloud in the sky! We set off to explore the city. We walked south to an area called the kasbah where we saw an exhibiton of art and handicrafts, vsiited a herbologist who told us about the uses and benefits of all his spices and his cosmetic products whilst feeding us with berber tea which he then added menthol to for a bit of a kick. We wandered around the big palace and got yelled at by the guards any time we came too near a wall or entrance. We got incredibly lost in the small winding streets on of the medina (old town) and kept reaching dead ends. We sat watching a local soccer game and fed almonds to little Morrocan kids like they were monkeys
Making friends
. We also visited the old palace and sat in a peaceful palm covered court yard just soaking up the rays. At 7pm we headed off to meet our Morrocan friends along with another Australian guy we had befriended at breakfast in the hostel. We met at the same restaurant where we sat on the gorgeous rooftop terrace. Khalid and Simo had met two Swiss gilrs who they brought along so we were quite a crowd. We had some mint tea and listened to the Morrocan live music before we relocated to another restaurant across the road. We had a lovely dinner and then headed into the new town to a bar called Africa-chic. There was a crazy guy singing on stage, we drank some beer, had a dance and then went home about 1am. I was not ready to go home Monday morning but am looking forward to seeing everyone when I get back to Adelaide on Friday!!!
