On To Agadir

This was the day we departed Marrakech and headed out ot Agadir, a resort town on the Atlantic Ocean (according to Youssef, known for its surf). The tone of the tour was changing. We were going to be hanging out by the beach rather than spending time exploring the culture of the country.

This was the scene outside our hotel in Marrakech as we boarded the bus for departure. The person who had been selling pictures the day before was back.Our bags were also being checked to make sure that nothing was left behind. We usually stopped for one day (two nights) in towns along the way. Instead, we had had an extended stay of two full days in Marrakech because of the nature of the city. And we were about to limit our stay in Agadir to one night.

It was all quiet on the bus during the first part of the drive. People are chilled out after the many days of traveling. Eyes were closed as people snoozed.

The countryside that we were initially driving through was dry and almost featureless.Hazy mountains began to appear in the distance as we continued our travel to the west.

We eventually entered the area of the High Atlas mountains. We were now driving through a region of mountain ridges and deep canyons, with dry river beds below us.There was evidence of layering of rocks of different colors.
Then we were on the plateau. Cream colored rock had long changed to a reddish tinge.

The speed limit was 75 mph on the limited-access highway (with tolls) that we were on! The road was marked as the A3. I suspect that this section of the highway has been finished only recently.

I also noticed that it was quite cold and windy in the mountains. We had to drive through a long tunnel (called the Zaouiat Ait Mellal Tunnel) in a section of the highway.

In certain sections we could see the regular National Route 8 Highway (N8) running close to us. (The map in the Wikipedia page for N8, at the time of posting of this blog, is problematic even though the description is probably correct!)

We descended out of the mountains as we got closer to our destination.
This was the first time we began to see argan trees in large numbers. They only grow in this part of the world. We were going to hear more about the trees and their use the next day.

We saw goats on a argan tree, a phenomenon that is apparently unique to this part of the world – but I could not get a picture from the moving bus. Youssef had promised that if we did not get to experience this phenomenon, he would climb a tree himself, along with our driver Youssef and helper Rashid.

We arrived at Agadir early in the day. We were given an introduction to the place as we approached the town:

Although there had been settlements in the area much earlier, the town was officially created by Portuguese in the early 1500s. The locals ousted the Portuguese soon after that. The Sousi people went on to form the Saadian dynasty that ruled Morocco as a country soon after. The Saadians and Alawites have ruled Morocco starting in the 1500s.

Agadir used to be major port for exploration by the Portuguese. These days it is being developed for tourism. It is the largest resort town in Morocco. We noticed that most of the tourists from abroad were from Europe.

The city of Agadir is the home of the Sousi Amazigh. The Amazigh still form the majority population of the place. Agadir is now known nowadays for their canned sardines. An earthquake destroyed city in 1960. It destroyed the medina. It was not rebuilt.

We were supposed to go to our hotel after arrival in the city, but since there was time, and Youssef had some concern about the weather later, he made the decision to take us directly up to the kasbah on a mountain top nearby.

(I have talked about the nature of the inscription on the mountainside in a previous blog.)

From pictures that I have seen on the Internet, it appears that the kasbah has undergone an extensive renovation recently. The walls used to be of a different color.

We could not enter the kasbah, but we got nice views of the city and commercial port from there. You can see the beach that Agadir is known for in the picture below. You can also see the Agadir marina to the right of the same picture.
There is a another port to the right of the one above. I only got a picture of this second one as we were descending from the mountain. The port in the picture below is also used by the Moroccan navy.

A cable car ride has been opened up recently from the bottom of the hill to the kasbah as a new tourist attraction.

We headed out to our hotel after taking in the views from the mountain.

We checked into our room at the hotel only after lunch. For the sake of convenience, we had signed up to get all our meals while staying in Agadir from the hotel. We ate in a cafeteria, with food stations and dining tables spread out all over the room. The place was quite busy with other tourists when we entered. The food was OK, nothing to write home about. The one beer that they had came out of a tap from a dispenser for the drinks. It was awful!

It was an adventure finding our room in the sprawling complex.

We had made the mistake of picking our luggage up from the lobby rather than having it delivered to the room. We wandered around with our luggage looking at the signs outside the building at the entrances that indicated what rooms that entrance gave access to. We had an interesting but confusing interaction with an older gentleman in a corridor along the way. He wanted to help us with our luggage. He only spoke french, which we did not. He even offered to carry one of our bags, even though it was not clear whether he knew where our room was. We declined his help. We did eventually find our room on our own.

The room was OK – probably a typical setup for a beach resort town. Before we settled in, the maids had to rearrange the beds into the configuration that we had signed up for. There were some minor communication issues in this interaction that were overcome.

I took a nap in the afternoon. We went for 5 mile walk along the promenade later in the day. We walked all the way to the entrance to the marina. We enjoyed the leisurely walk. We had all the time in the world.

After we returned to the hotel, we retired to the lounge to have some drinks. Many of the drinks were covered by the bulk payment we had made up front for our meals – but not all. I gladly parted with a few extra dirham to imbibe a Scotch Whisky – the first time I had had the opportunity to do so during the whole trip. We chilled in the open area near the bar as others in the group joined us. For the first time during the tour, we had Youssef sit with us for a little while.We listened to some music being played at one end of the room.It turned out that the gentleman playing his guitar had some music playing in the background for accompaniment that felt rather significant to the overall sound. How could one gauge his actual skill in this situation? It felt a little like cheating in the end. (This was not the last time we experienced “live” music in this manner in Morocco.)

We watched the sun setting from the space just outside the the lounge.After that, we retired to the cafeteria with our friends from Arizona for the buffet dinner. I ate lightly. Long gone are the days when one felt a sense of obligation to try out as much of the foods offered at a buffet as possible just because of the concern about not getting what one paid for.

It had turned into a wonderful and relaxing evening. As we were lounging about in the open area of the hotel, hotel staff approached us a couple of times to inform us about an entertainment program that was about to start at 9:00 pm. I suppose that this was part of the resort experience. We decided to retire to our room instead.

As you can see, we spent a minimal part of the day with organized tour activity. As I noted in an earlier blog, the pace of the tour was slowing down. The cultural aspect of the visit was definitely not the major theme that day. We were here to have a beach resort experience!

You can read the next blog in this sequence here.