With my wife being a teacher, and myself being involved on the periphery of education, we tend to be ‘stuck’ with school holidays, despite having no children to take with us. Before you ask, no, we don’t want to borrow yours!
One thing we DO try to do though, is go on holiday more than once a year. The crop so far this year has been 5 days in NY at New Year, and a few days in Bilbao at half-term.
Now we’ve been to Morocco for a week. Here’s what it was like.
Firstly, we’ve never been there before, and to my shame, I had to look up Agadir on the map* – I knew where Morocco was, but it has an Atlantic AND a Mediterranean coast, depending on where you are in relation to the Straits of Gibraltar.
*I have a little woman who books all this stuff!
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
Our primary destination, Agadir, is firmly on the Atlantic side, being only a hundred miles or so from the Canary Islands. Anyone familiar with the Easter weather in Gran Canaria will realise that this is no bad thing – I was there exactly two years ago, and it was glorious, which except for our day of arrival, when the sky was emptying itself on Al-Massara airport, is exactly how it was this time too.
There is quite literally nothing left of the old Agadir medina (the old town), courtesy of a horrifying earthquake in 1960, which I kind of remember in a ‘405-line monochrome’ sort of way. 15,000 people died in 15 seconds, and the old hillside remains were bulldozed, the rubble no doubt being used to form the foundations of a new town set on flatter ground. The upshot is that Agadir itself is a rather dreadfully soulless seaside resort well ‘up’ to Costa Brava standards. All the buildings, with the exception of a couple of Mosques are white painted shoeboxes. This doesn’t automatically mean that it’s a bad place to stay, and anyone is search of a beach-based holiday won’t be disappointed, after all, the Spring weather is superb, the resort quite un-crowded and the beach is clean sand stretching 6 kilometres. Likewise, it’s a good enough place to eat out too, suited both to those who really can’t leave McDonalds alone and to those who want to try local cuisine.
Our accommodation at the Igoudar Apartment Hotel was adequate, i.e. it had a roof, beds, some kitchen facilities including a fridge, and it had a bathroom with ’western’ plumbing. Beyond that, it was nothing special, but since we only intended being asleep for most of the time we were in it, this didn’t matter.
THINGS YOU MIGHT FIND USEFUL
Morocco is a largely Moslem country with a population roughly split 50/50 between Berbers (the original inhabitants) and Arabs, who arrived in the Middle Ages to spread Islam. Most Moroccans involved in contact with tourists speak English – that way they can converse with Scandinavians, Germans, Dutch, Irish and British visitors. Having been a French colony until 1956, it’s a safe bet that most people will also speak French, even those not connected with tourism; in fact French seems to act as a unifying means of communication between Berbers and Arabs, who each have their own languages. I was glad of a reasonable degree of fluency in French on several occasions during the week, if only to save me the trouble of writing my room number down to the only non-English speaking desk clerk in the hotel.
The currency is the Dirham, of which there are approximately 15 to the £ or 10 to the €. You cannot buy this in advance, and it’s only when you get to the Airport that you get your first glimpse of a Bureau de Change. Exchange rates are officially governed, so don’t expect to be ripped off by hotels and treated more fairly by banks – they’re all the same. Strictly speaking, you should keep your exchange receipts, since you are only SUPPOSED to be able to re-exchange half of what you purchased in the first place. My advice would be to get only enough to last you for a couple of days, and then use ATMs to get the rest. We had no trouble changing ours back, but we had to accept Euros.
They drive on the right using left-hand drive cars. However, roundabouts operate on the former French system of giving priority to the right, i.e. to vehicles joining the roundabout, so be careful to pause by every entry point.
My first reaction was to throw the idea of car hire out completely, but on balance, if you are happy driving in the likes of Greece, you’d be OK here. Turkey, it isn’t, mercifully! Road surfaces were pretty reasonable but some roads aren’t very wide, and you find yourself taking to the gravel with two of your wheels to allow a truck to pass. All major signs are in Arabic and French. Whilst on the subject of driving, don’t surprised if you see what appears to be a right-hand drive car – if it’s got L plates, it’s probably a BOTH-hand drive car as Moroccan driving school cars take the phrase ‘dual control’ to the ultimate extreme with a pair of steering wheels. I shudder to think of the havoc my wife could cause – ‘pull in here, there’s that colour of curtain material I want’ as she yanks us off the road and up someone’s garden.
Each city (e.g. Agadir, Marrakech) has a fleet of Petits Taxis, which you may think are the same as mini cabs. Well, to one extent you’d be right, they are ‘mini’, i.e. cars like Peugeot 205s and Fiat Uno’s, and they only take 3 passengers. However, unlike our minicabs, they ARE metered and very cheap. A trip across Agadir in a Peugeot 203½ ** cost us 10 DH, say 66p or 1€. All the Petits Taxis in Agadir were orange, and in Marrakech they were beige.
Note: These cabs are only allowed to ply within town limits, which excludes the airport unfortunately. The larger taxis, usually the archetypal Mercedes, are the ‘real’ taxis, are allowed to take you on longer journeys, but agree a price with the driver first. You can even hire them for the day, and they wait outside hotels offering trips to the Sahara (return, I assume).
** Almost a 205, but bits kept falling off!
Despite its Moslem background, Morocco brews its own (Flag brand) beer and has a thriving wine industry. Moroccan reds tend to be of the dry robust variety (rather like Turkish) although some of the whites are quite sophisticated. The good news is that none of these are expensive, especially if bought in the Marjane Hypermarket – yes they have those too, and the Petits Taxis wait outside!
There are many food specialities of Morocco, couscous being arguably the most famous. This is a semolina-wheat based dish, not unlike rice dishes in appearance. Extra ingredients can include vegetables only or grilled meats like lamb and chicken (no pork - surprise, surprise). The stock from the vegetables is added to moisten the couscous to your taste, and can be spiced up with a wicked chilli paste. Other delights include ‘tagines’, which are really the cooking vessels rather than the dish itself. These are a conical ‘chicken brick’ in which the ingredients are part roasted and steamed by virtue of the partly open relationship between base and lid. A favourite tagine that we both liked was chicken served with preserved lemons. The use of dried fruit and nuts is also common, apricots, prunes and dates all being local produce. Restaurant meals are moderately priced compared to the UK, especially if you are hardened to London prices!
Mint tea (aka Berber Whiskey) is very refreshing especially when made from its component parts rather than a pre-prepared mixture, although they tend to like it sweet, and don’t offer the option of a sugarless version.
BEWARE OF LOW FLYING GOATS
Another culinary peculiarity of western Morocco is argane oil. This delicate nutty oil comes from the kernel of the argane fruit. The tree only grows here in western Morocco and for some obscure reason, in Mexico. Moroccans favour it above olive oil for cooking. It’s not just humans who like it; goats do too, and it is not an uncommon sight to see them actually climbing the trees in search of the fruit and the leaves. The mere sight of a goat standing on the top branch of a tree nibbling his nuts (?) is enough to bring most tourist coaches to a screeching halt as another photo opportunity unfolds. Beware goatherds pointing at roadside trees with their sticks – they have most likely posed the goats there, in the hope of scraping a few more DHs out of tourists! The way to tell if this is a genuine occurrence is if they are letting the goats get on and off the tree – if they are, it’s most likely genuine. The story goes that the goats only digest the flesh of the argane nut, leaving the kernel un-assailed in their sh……well, just leaving them, OK? These are then extricated and gathered up by the farmers and pressed into argane oil – hopefully, washing them figures in this process. I suppose you might say that the goats are quality control inspectors; after all, they ‘pass’ the nuts prior to their being turned into oil!
MOVING ON
Not being ‘beach people’ it doesn’t take long for us to get itchy feet, although early on in the week, I was still of the opinion that car hire was a no-no, so we availed ourselves of some of the trips arranged by our tour operator, Panorama Tours (a My Travel, formerly Airtours, subsidiary).
Apart from the obvious orientation tour of Agadir, which proved to be more interesting than I at first thought, including a trip to the kasbah, as in ‘come wiz me to ze…’, we also arranged for a two-day trip including an overnight stop in Marrakech, which itself is about 4 hours away by road. Including all main meals and accommodation, this cost about £78 each.
MARRAKECH
A trip to Marrakech these days, however exotic it may sound is only a ‘soft’ adventure, especially when bed in a 4-star hotel beckons.
On approaching Marrakech by road, you begin to wonder why you bothered, after all, it’s got busy moped-fumed streets, it’s hot, it appears to be as characterless as Agadir and it’s noisy. Until you arrive at the wall of the old Medina (the wall city) that is. This sandstone-coloured monster of medieval construction stretches for a full 17 kilometres around the old city. Once inside, it still doesn’t impress in the way that you thought it might. It still has wide boulevards, thronged with road traffic. Then you get to the main market square. Now this is more like it! Stalls selling local farmer’s produce vie with snake charmers, jugglers with their balls (?) on fire and more tom-tom players than you’d find in Leicester Square Underground station on a Saturday night!
The famous ‘souk’ (the labyrinthine street market) can be accessed in one corner of the square. At this point, you need one of two things, either a hand-held GPS device or a guide. Without them, you’re going to be ‘gone some time’, and in my case, the more offers of ‘hallo, yes please, you like shufti?’ I get, the tetchier I get. Just how many lamps, naff plates and leather jackets does a guy need anyway?
To be fair, the official tour guide will also take you around the more artisanal parts of the market, including the workshops where they make all the trinkets being pedalled to tourists elsewhere, and the genuine food stalls where the locals shop. Beware anyone offering to be your ‘lifestyle consultant’ for the day - they will latch onto you and take you only to the shops giving them the best commission. This is where learning to say ‘la shucran’, which is approximately the Arabic for ‘No Thanks’ comes in handy. It’s even handier if persuaded to watch a carpet making demonstration – these people must think that just because we can afford to fly, we must be rolling in it. I’d had the hard sell in Turkey, so I was at least prepared, though some of the party were in danger of mutinying at this point.
Bloody Judith Chalmers has a lot to answer for. Bartering for everything is NOT GOOD FUN, it’s a pain in the arse, and just puts me off buying anything. Unfortunately, my initial reaction just to walk away is taken as the mark of a master at work, worthy of pursuit – what they don’t realise is that I really am only walking away! ‘Non, je n‘en veux pas, même pas de shufti, OK?’
However, if you haven’t got a sense of humour, don’t travel!
Marrakech has much more to offer than a walk around the ‘souk’ though. There are tranquil palaces with fountained courtyards, ancient schools and mosques, and more importantly as the day drags on, plenty of eateries to consider. The light in the evening sun is stunning, as most of the buildings are of a warm sandstone colour. My fondest memory that I’ll carry for quite some time, is that of sitting in the square at about 6 p.m., with a large black coffee to hand, just people-watching, letting the sounds of drums and snake charmer’s clarinets (or whatever they are) wash over me, along with the smell of French/Arabic tobacco – or is that just camel sh** on the wind?
Rail buffs might like to know that Marrakech is the western end of Morocco’s, nay all of North Africa’s railways.
The following day, after a peaceful wine-induced sleep at the Amine Hotel (I wonder which IDIot called it that), we set off on our return journey to Agadir via a coastal town founded by the Portuguese called Essaouira, but not before our last port of call in Marrakech, The Majorelle Gardens, lovingly restored by Yves St Laurent. Stepping inside is like entry to another peaceful world of tropical plants, fountains, ornamental ponds and an ecclectic mix of Arab and art deco buildings, some of which are painted such a vivid blue that they blended in with the sky in certain of my photos. Well worth the experience.
ESSAOUIRA
This is a picturesque fishing port complete with ramparts and cannon facing out to sea. There is a walled medina here too, but it is curiously spacious with an air of having been planned instead of growing like the Islamic version of Topsy. It transpires that it is only 200 years old and built by the French colonists in a kind of Arabic style. It contains many houses formerly owned by rich merchants, many of which have been restored as hotels. The basic tranquil courtyard design prevails in these ‘ryads’ giving a cloistered atmosphere away from the bustle of the street only on the other side of a solid gate. We visited one, which was ‘on Panorama’s books’ as a hotel and it was a rather lovely place to stay – pity we weren’t really!
On the jetty, we had a rather fine fish lunch and set off again for Agadir via a few goat-in-tree incidents.
TAROUDANT
Yet another inland city about 90 minutes drive from Agadir, we spent a morning here looking around, but to be frank, all pales when you’ve been to Marrakech first. This turns out to be yet another intact medina wall, surrounding yet another old town with a souk, this one more of a working entity though. In fact, this is the only souk to have been blessed with our Dirhams, and yes, we did barter, and not just with money either – I sold my baseball cap and a ballpen to get a better ‘discount’! If you were in the Agadir area with limited time, then Taroudant would be a good introduction to Moroccan town life without spending ages on the road.
ROUNDING UP
Since we aren’t ‘beach’ people at heart, then 4 days out of 6 spent exploring seems a good ratio to me – we were certainly grateful of a ‘day off’ after our trip to Marrakech. Agadir is as good a center from which to operate as any, and many tour companies and airlines serve its airport. Two days spent reading for leisure by a pool sets the whole sequence off nicely.
One of the added bonuses of this trip is that we ran into some really nice people, so, Brad, Julie and Trish, if you should ever get to read this, thanks for being the icing on our cake, and Trish, I hope the rug suits Croydon as well as it did Marrakech!
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