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| Found in one of numerous little stores in the Marrakesh Medina |
Not going to lie, we didn’t really get a good start into our trip. First of all, I didn’t really decide that I was going to go down south until Thursday morning; I was thinking of possibly going hiking with a couple others in Chefchaun, a bit north of here, but in the end changed my mind because it would be pretty cold up there still and I had a bit of a cold, so didn’t want it to get any worse, and warm weather was way more appealing than hiking in the cold at that moment. Anyways, I finally decided to go south with the group that was going, so we went that Thursday afternoon to get our tickets. There were three of us who still needed to buy tickets, but we were told that there were only two seats left on the bus that everybody else had bought tickets on, heading down from Ifrane to Agadir. So in the end we bought tickets for the bus traveling from Fes to Agadir, and would just have to get ourselves down to Fes by 6:30 on Friday. So far not totally according to plan, but still ok.
Friday we were going to meet at 4:30, grab a grand taxi and make it to the bus station in Fes with lots of time to spare, seeing as the ride down should, if everything goes well, take about an hour to an hour and a quarter or so. Got off to a late start though, so didn’t actually end up leaving in our grand taxi until 5:15, which was going to be cutting things pretty close. 6:30 rolled around and we weren’t at the bus station yet, though we were already in Fes and should have been pretty close to it. I was starting to think for a little bit there that we weren't going to make it and would have to come up with a secondary plan on what to do, though I didn't really know how many options we actually had at that moment. Thankfully we’d paid our taxi fare before the trip started so we could just grab our bags and run into the bus station when we arrived at 6:33. The bus had already backed out of its stopping place and was ready to exit the compound when we finally caught up to it. Definitely got a lot of Moroccans to stare at us as we ran past, backpacks swinging around on our backs, but at the moment I couldn’t care less. I just really wanted to get on that bus. The prospect of spending the night somewhere in Fes or trying to catch a later bus ruining my long weekend, wasn’t all that appealing to me right then. But we finally did make it onto the bus and were on our way before we had found seats to fall into. The next 11 hours of the trip weren’t really all that exciting, though we did stop a couple of times. I got out at a couple of the stops, once to go to the bathroom, which thankfully wasn’t too far into the trip, because nothing I could have done would have gotten me to Agadir without that bathroom break without something drastic happening I’m sure. And another time around midnight, 1am or something, we grabbed something to eat to make due for the supper we never got and to last us until we got to Agadir.
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| The sun rising just after we arrived in Agadir |
Finally around 5:45am or so, we pulled into Agadir, half asleep and slightly cold, but happy to finally be done with our bus ride. We literally chilled at a small café that was open in the bus station, had some hot green tea and some kind of cheese sandwiches, before heading to find the beach. The rest of the group that was coming down wouldn’t be arriving for a couple of hours and we didn’t just want to wait for them at the bus station. Once at the beach, which took us a lot longer to find than we thought it would, we just spread our towels out and tried to catch up on a bit of sleep that we missed over the last 12 hours. I finally got a call after a couple of hours and was informed that the others had arrived a bit earlier and were already at the beach somewhere further along, so we grabbed our stuff and went off to find them. They weren’t all that hard to find, a group of like 15 exchange students, some already wading around in the water while others were playing Frisbee on the beach. We spent the whole morning and part of the afternoon just enjoying the beach, switching between playing Frisbee, sometimes with random Moroccans who joined in, building sand castles on the beach that we had to defend from attacks from the rising tide, and just lying around on our towels on the sand, soaking in the warmth of the sun. It was perfect weather for sitting around doing things on the beach, probably around 20 – 25C or so, but not quite warm enough to go swimming, though that didn’t stop a few who were determined to jump in anyways and get a taste of the salt water. Mid afternoon or so we packed up our things and headed towards the port where we found a small restaurant where we had fresh grilled fish and calamari, and fried shrimp and some other small fish that I don’t know the names of. It was excellent fish and seafood, though the whole meal could have been vastly improved that they served us French fries or something alongside the fish, but were only given bread to eat besides the fish. It was still good though, although slightly over priced I thought, but oh well. I’m only in Agadir probably once, so I didn’t worry about it too much.
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| The beach in Agadir |
We then split up, the girls going to find the hotel where they were going to spend the night at, and the seven of us guys in the group headed to the apartment that Ahmed (one Moroccan guy in our group) had found through some kind of family connections for only 300Dhs per night, which worked out to be less than 50Dhs each. A couple of the guys, particularly the French guy and Ahmed, started rolling and then smoking a couple of spliffs right away, with the chunk of kiff that they had bought somewhere in Fes, filling the main part of the apartment with sweet smelling smoke. Dylan and I decided to go walk around for a bit in town. We ended up calling the girls and went back to the apartment where we all went as a group up to the Kasbah, or old part of the city (the only part of the city that was left standing after an earth quake destroyed the rest of it in the 60s.) that was up on top of a hill on the edge of the city. We had an awesome view of the whole beach and most of the city behind it, and stayed up there long enough to watch the sun set into the Atlantic Ocean. It was pretty awesome, and we got a lot of good pictures at the top, with the view behind us and silhouette ones as the sunset. We then split up and some went in search of alcohol, while the rest of us went out for supper.
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| View of the beach from the Kasbah |
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| Up near the Kasbah on the hill above the city of Agadir, taking advantage of the awesome view |
We found this awesome restaurant, not a touristy place, but one where locals were all eating, so we knew that we were getting good food at reasonable prices. And it was good food; we had lamb tagine and some French fries, with green tea to wash it all down with. It was quite delicious. After our meal we grabbed some taxis and headed back to the girls hotel where they had to get some stuff, before we walked back to the apartment where we were going to hang out for a bit for Corontont, the French guys birthday. We ended up getting kind of lost, but not before we found a little patiserie where we had some pastries and fresh fruit smoothies, before heading out again in search of the apartment. We thought we knew where it was, at least in the right general direction, but after wandering around for good while we decided it might be better to just call Ahmed and have him come pick us up form where we were. We didn’t know where we were though, so in the end we gavethe phone to a random girl who was walking by who managed to get across to Ahmed where we were so that he could come pick us up in the car that he had rented when he got to Agadir. So we finally made it all back to the apartment, though it took longer than we had planned it on taking.
All that went down over the next couple of hours was people drank a bunch and those who smoked kept filling the room with smoke and got a couple of the others to try their self-rolled creations, but I past on both. Most of them wanted to go out to a club later, but discovered that they were all closed due to its being the holiday weekend of Mohameds birthday, so they just stayed at the apartment. I headed to bed though, around midnight or so, and let them drink and smoke. Not exactly my idea of having an awesome time.
The next morning, I went with Dylan to the girl’s hotel, where we were able to grab some breakfast before heading off in search of a grand taxi. We were originally going to travel to Essouaira for the day, before going to Marrakesh for the night, but after calculating how much more driving that would be, we figured it might just be best to head straight to Marrakesh, because we didn’t really get an early enough start to make it to both places in one day. Found a grand taxi, squished ourselves into it, and headed off up to Marrakesh. It actually wasn’t that bad of a drive, but would have been so much better if you’d had your own seat to enjoy it from, (sitting four across the back of the taxi isn’t too bad for about half an hour, but can get pretty uncomfortable after a couple of hours.) Thankfully we stopped after about two hours at a roadside restaurant and had something to eat there for a late lunch. The six of us who were in our group got some sort of kebabs and a tagine to split, which was really good, and we left in slightly better spirits than when we had arrived at that place. Slept, read and wished I wasn’t squished into the back of a crowded taxi for the next hour and a half until we finally reached Marrakesh where we unloaded ourselves and headed towards the Medina where we hoped to find a place to stay for the night. With my lonely planet guidebook and the help of a “helpful” man who later demanded money for his services, we found a place to stay for the night down some back alleys in the Medina. Got two triple rooms for the six of us. Evan, who had spent the whole weekend so far in Marrakesh with the rest of the West point guys called us, and after getting our stuff into our rooms we went back out and met up with a couple of them in Jamaâ Al Fna, the big square that wasn’t too far away from our hotel. It was around 5 or 6pm now, and the square was just packed. It almost felt like some kind of food carnival was going on or something; little numbered stalls covered a good chunk of the square offering everything from freshly squeezed orange and grapefruit juice to spiced teas to snails to dried fruits and nuts, soups that you had to eat with massive wooden spoons, soft serve ice cream, tagines of all sorts, beef, lamb, brain, chicken, grilled fish and I’m sure a lot more that we didn’t even see or know what it was.
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| Some of the numerous stalls that lined the square, Jamaa Al Fna (there were a lot more the night before than there were in the morning when we went back) |
Everywhere you went, people tried to get you to eat at their respective little stalls, some accepting your refusal, or even cussing you out when you tried to politely say that you’d either eaten, or just didn’t want to eat there. We spent the next couple of hours walking around the milling square and exploring the edges of the nearby Medina stores that surrounded the whole area, trying out the fresh orange juice, spiced tea, ice cream, and soup eaten with the massive wooden spoons by the time we left. I also bought a Jelaba by the end of the evening as well. Brian, who was with us when we were poking around in the little shops, helped bargain the price down to something more reasonable than the guy was originally asking with his Arabic skills. In the end most of the group went out to a club, but I didn’t really want to pay the 200Dhs cover charge that I would have had to pay, so I just went back to the hotel to sleep instead. Walking back through the now half empty square and then through the little alleys of the Medina back to our hotel I realized how touristy I looked with my small backpack on and a shopping bag in my hand so I took out my Jelaba and pulled it on over everything, putting the hood up as well. Not quite as bit of a target now that I just looked, hopefully, like any other Moroccan wearing a Jelaba. Regardless of whether it helped or not I found my way back to the hotel safely without getting robbed or mugged and just crawled into bed with my Jelaba on, because it was so cold in the room when I got there. There was nothing going in the way of heaters in any of the rooms so I figured I’d just wear my own heater to bed. The others got back somewhere around 4:30, so for the rest of the night I had to share the double bed that I was in with Dylan who was the only other guy in our group, but it wasn’t too bad and we slept until around 9:30 the next morning.
After looking around the Medina a bit more, eating chocolate covered milwee along the way for breakfast, (Milwee is some kind of fried layered dough thing, really good, and usually you can get different things to put on it or get cooked into it, like cheese, onions, eggs, onions, honey, chocolate spread, etc.). Around noon we headed back to towards the train station to be there on time to catch our train at 1pm back to Meknes. Right on schedule, to the minute, our train left and the next 7 hours were spent reading or trying to sleep, passing the hours slowly until we arrived in Meknes ready to be done with traveling for a little while. But once again we had to pile into a grand taxi, 4 in the back and two in the front passenger seat for the drive back up to Ifrane where the cold weather was waiting for us again. I don’t know if I’d call it lucky even though it did get us back to school faster, but our taxi driver drove like he was trying to race someone all the way back to Ifrane, reaching 145km per hour a number of times on the more straight stretches of the road. Thankfully only on the straight stretches of the road, thankfully there wasn’t too much other traffic on the roads, and thankfully we only hit fog when we were almost back at Ifrane, but we made it safely in the end, though slightly cold and stiff.
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| Squished into our grand taxi on the ride from Agadir to Marrakesh |
It was definitely a good trip overall, though a lot of traveling in the space of only three days, so I think I’ll to go somewhere a bit closer next weekend, do a day trip to Fes or Meknes or something. We’ll see. After a quick pizza for supper and a warm shower I was ready to get some sleep in my own bed to be ready for the rest of the week.
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