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Published: February 18th 2008
The Big Sur of Morocco?
Everytime we thought we'd seen the most spectacular coastal view we had to revise our opinion when we saw an even more amazing vista like this.
After a few days of "taking care of business" in Casablanca, we were looking forward to heading south along what we anticipated would be the really scenic portion of Morocco's Atlantic coastline. The only big cities we expected to encounter along the way were Safi and Agadir, although we weren't sure just how far we would go past Agadir; the desert outposts along the coast seemed to diminish in appeal the farther south we looked on the map.
Our first day's ride out of Casablanca to Azemmour started out less than auspiciously: besides getting a late start, we got thoroughly lost, since it wasn't as easy as we thought to "just take the coast road south" out of a vast sprawling city of 3 million people. While we somewhat enjoyed cruising through Casablanca's very affluent southern suburbs (reminiscent of San Francisco's Pacific Heights), it took a sympathetic cab driver, observing our map-rattling befuddlement by the roadside, to lead us - with the cheerful acquiesence of his fare-paying passengers - in a slow-moving 3-vehicle caravan back from the beach roads where we'd dead-ended onto the real southbound highway to Azemmour.
Once we were truly out of the city, the cycling
Riding south towards El Jadida
The coastline here was so distractingly scenic we got lost from each other. along the coastline was really spectacular and very reminiscent of the central coast of California. Our common reaction to the landscape over the next couple of weeks would be "now THIS must be the Big Sur of Morocco!", an analogy we'd be forced to retract and reapply when the next even more incredible stretch of coastline came into view. On this day the scenery was so compelling that Kate got confused whether I was out ahead of her (yes!) or behind her taking photos (nooo!) and we lost each other for an hour when she ran out of patience waiting by the roadside and headed back up the coast in the opposite direction trying to find me. After racking-up 10km trying to reconnect, only the intervention of a couple of locals on a motorscooter, dispatched by the officers at the police checkpoint where I was waiting, compelled her to hang a U-turn and head back in the right direction. (Moral of story: when searching for a lost partner TURN ON THE %!@#%#!! CELL PHONE.)
When in the late afternoon we finally reached Azemmour, a bustling riverside town with an old Portuguese kasbah, our relief turned to disappointment as it
appeared the several possibilities for accomodation fell a couple of notches below our grunge threshold. (If we'd simply read the LP a bit more carefully we would have found the 2 nice tourist riads hidden away on the backstreets.) The locals mentioned the Sofitel hotel and golf resort as a possibility, but after jamming another 10km down the road to find it, the nice English-speaking desk clerk there laughed and politely declined our counter-offer of 300dh - $40 - for their standard 1200dh room. (We've been urged by the natives to bargain for EVERYTHING.) So, resigned to doing ANOTHER 10km, we donned our safety vests, strapped on the lights, and had a magical ride down a deserted beachfront road, past crashing surf and an offshore shipwreck glowing magically in the moonlight, before pulling into the city of El Jadida around 9pm, our longest day yet at 106km.
After a night at the too-sterile and too-expensive Ibis Hotel, we spent the next night at the Hotel Morabatine (free WiFi in the lobby, woo-hoo!) so we had a nice day wandering El Jadida, nominally an extremely popular seaside resort but blissfully quiet and low key in the 72-degree January weather of
The Portuguese Cistern, El Jadida
This dramatic stone tank was used for the riot scene in Orson Welles' Othello. the "off-season". We spent our time strolling the corniche along the wide beach, eating fabulous wood-fired pizza on the ocean-view terrace of the Borj Mazagan, and visiting the old Cite Portugaise, the original European-built medina surrounded by massive ramparts. In the medina we made the requisite photo-centric visit to the old Portuguese Cistern, the giant eerily-lit stone-arched reservoir whose claim to fame is having served as a locale for a scene in Orson Welles' "Othello". In response to our gate-rattling, a caretaker guided us around the dramatic rooftop of the cistern where the water was actually collected, a view most tourists apparently miss out on, and he directed us to an art gallery housed within the 3m-thick walls of the cistern that was exhibiting an amusing show of Pop-inflected paintings by the late French artist Jean-Pierre Giacobatti, most works exploring the theme of "Morocco meets Eurotourism, for better or worse".
After two nights in El Jadida we were ready to head to our next destination of Oualidia, another resort-ish seaside town about 80km south. This stretch of highway hugged more spectacular coastline, with much of the road running along bluffs separated from the surf by wetlands trapped behind extensive
Art show in El Jadida
This painting was included in a gallery show of works by the late Jean-Pierre Giacobatti within the walls of the Portuguese Cistern. dunes. We picked up a bit more of the prevailing northern tailwind we've been expecting, ameliorating our disappointment since Casablanca at the disappearance of the nice, wide paved shoulders we were used to riding on Morocco's other national highways. The pavement itself has also taken a downgrade since Casablanca from the smooth, highly-tarred surfaces we saw in the north to a rougher-textured asphalt that requires a whole gear's downshift to maintain equivalent pace. (The quality difference may be attributed to the fact that we're now on regional - though primary - roads following the coast, not on the more-direct inland national highway N1.)
While appearing initially to be just another one of the roadside strip towns we're used to blowing through, Oualidia actually turned out to be the first of the many Franco-centric resorts we have subsequently encountered. Looking out towards the sea from the highway on the bluffs, we saw a huge lagoon whose southern edge was encrusted with hotels, bungalows, and "campgrounds" full of sleek white RVs bearing satellite dishes and French license plates. While we have often been passed on the highway by white-haired couples giving us the "thumbs-up" from the windows of these vehicles -
Fishing boat at sunrise, Oualidia
The beachfront and lagoon at Oualidia are spectacualr - no wonder the place is mobbed with French RVs... to be fair, they are dwarfed by the typical 6-ton, 4-mpg American behemoths that clog our own national parks and scenic byways - we hadn't previously put 2+2 together to realize that there is a European "sunbird" culture analogous to the one in the States, consisting of retired people who biannually pilot their "house cars" (the literal translation, we are told, of the German colloquial term for recreational vehicles) between climatically optimal locales in the North and South. Not present in any appreciable concentrations elsewhere in Morocco, this phenomenon appears focused on those coastal areas featuring wide, sandy beaches and helped motivate - along with the relentlessly clammy atmosphere - our decision to make the stop in Oualidia a 1-nighter.
After a delicious dinner at Hotel L'Initiale and a gorgeous pre-breakfast walk on the beach, we packed up the bikes and climbed the bluff back up to the highway for what should have been a quick 34km ride down the coast to Safi. Unfortunately, that distance was a misprint on our Rough Guide map, and the highway markers showed nearly twice that - which would still have been no big deal except for our 11am start time and the
Struggling south towards Safi
We were barely able to appreciate the beautiful rolling ride along the cliffs from Oualidia to Safi while we were getting smacked by the stiff headwind. 25km headwind that smacked us in the face when we reached the highway. The ride was gorgeous, gently rolling very close to the ocean along an unusual "bermed" marine terrace hundreds of feet above the beach, but we were too beaten-up by the wind and the extra bumpy surface of that section of road to appreciate it. We reinforced our stamina and resolve with a lunch break of fresh fish and fries at a cafe near the lighthhouse at dramatic Cap Beddouza, but again the drama of the landscape was pretty much wasted on us as we pushed on down the road to Safi. A consolation prize came just at the entrance to town when the road surface turned to glassy new asphalt (we've noticed that the city fathers often do a better paving job on their main drag than the federal highway authorities), the wind shifted 120 degrees, and we got a rolling, twisting downhill entry into Safi. Following the advice in the Lonely Planet, we found the Hotel Assif in the ville nouvelle and DID spring for the more expensive 320dh rooms because we were both craving a hot bath to soak off the salty residue of the
Portuguese Fort, Safi
This industrial city is not exactly a tourist destination er se, but has some interesting sights nonetheless, as well as being an up and coming surfing hotspot. day's relentless sea breeze.
Safi is a good-sized city whose livelihood rests mostly on its industrial port and the phosphate plants south of town, and it pretty much shrugs off tourists - though the really astute surfers (no, not an oxymoron) have picked up on the incredible shore break on the north end of town, which has been the site of some international surf competitions. So while Safi was not a place we really wanted to stay, we'd planned a stopover day anyway due to predicted rain, and it came right on schedule, storming most of the first day we were there - alot of it spent in a local cafe where we found (advertised, this time) free wifi. We eventually did get out and about, touring the dramatic seafront Portuguese fort and the ceramics museum housed in the former French prison with a young Moroccan man we met along the corniche who served as our Arabic and French interpreter for the afternoon. An additional day was spent after the storm passed just kind of kickng around town and researching the route ahead to Essaouira - though truth be told it was mostly a chance to finish drying our
Coastline between Safi and Essaouira
Another "Big Sur moment" as we looked down the coast from the top of the first hill just south of Safi. newly-washed clothes and drink more coffee.
We knew the route to Essaouira was fairly flat and rolling with only one real hill, but at 127km was pushing our daily mileage limit. We had differing reports about the availability of places to stay along the way, so we hedged our bets by leaving Safi by 8:30am (early for us) and blasted out of town with a killer tailwind through the phosphate factories south of town. Early on we had more "Big Sur" moments from viewpoints high up on the cliffs where we got incredible vistas of the coastline stretching south towards Essaouira. For lunch we pulled off the highway and pushed the bikes to the edge of a dune overlooking an expansive sandy beach stretching as far as we could see in both directions and absolutely devoid of people.
The rumored stopover points on this section of the highway never materialized, so, powered by the big tailwind, we pushed on all the way to Essaouira. Only at the very end did the road leave the oceanfront, climbing a big grade back over the coastal hills for the last straight inland run downhill into town. On the outskirts the the
Arrival in Essaouira
Entrance to the port of Essaouira with the white walls of the city in the background. increase in traffic and the big billboards advertising hotels, surf shops and quad-bike rentals gave us an unsettling intimation of Essaouira as the popular tourist mecca and arts center that it has indeed become. But as we rolled along the beachfront corniche and through the dramatic Bab es Sebaa gateway into the medina, it was clear that Essaouira has retained its essential Moroccan character and charm at the same time that it has adopted a modern hip, artistic and liberal attitude, and extended a laidback welcome to the implacable forces of tourism and development.
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Check our expanded gallery of travel photos at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/steve_hoge/collections/72157613626339376 And visit our home page at:
http://web.mac.com/steve_hoge
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non-member comment
nada
eu lisboa casa eu vou viu nada gosto el jadida