Blogs from Doukkala-Abda, Morocco, Africa
November 11th 2009
Nov 6 So today we had to go find where the break is. I wantted to suit up and go look but jay said why don't we just go for a walk first and look at it. Well it took us around a hour to get to the break where it was firing, at least head high to over head with steep fast walls. So we sat and watched it a bit and I said well i've seen enough let's get our stuff. We decided to try and take the road back and maybe get a taxi but we didn't find one till we were about half way back. Once we got back we suited up and got a taxi back to the point this all took about 2 hours or so which doesn't seem ... read more
June 14th 2009
El-Jadida nad Oceanem Atlantyckim-zalozone przez Portugalczykow na początku XVI wieku. Gdy sultan Muhammad III. zajal miasto, portugalczykow przesiedlono do Brazylii. Obecnie jest to miejscowość wypoczynkowa szczegolnie dla marokanczykow. Pozostałosci portugalskiego miasta wpisano w 2004 roku na liste swiatowego dziedzictwa UNESCO. ... read more
Dirty Shoe Laces and Jellybeans
Published: November 1st 2008Africa » Morocco » Doukkala-Abda » El Jadida
November 1st 2008
Dirty Shoe Laces Ireland is in a mall craze. Malls are believed to be key economic boosters in cities. Currently, Galway plans to destroy 5 pubs, including the one me and Tara work at. The other is one of the oldest pubs in Galway. They also plan to destroy some other really great things like liquor stores, a small casino and a music venue. To go in their place…a mall!!!! Across the street from the new mall…the other large mall. Nothing says capitalism like a mall across the street from a mall. It’s funny because people visit Ireland to be part of pubs and what we think is traditional Irish life, not the fucking mall. Nobody wants to fly to Ireland to see sheep and visit the mall, we want pubs and tunes and Guinness goddamitt. ... read more
The cool coast of Safi. Sahara and Marrakech.
Published: August 25th 2008Africa » Morocco » Doukkala-Abda » Safi
August 25th 2008
What photos!!!! What colours, I hope they azll make the trip home!! Have had no luck with the possibility of uploading them;, but who knows soon. -smile- Me and Maria, just spent two nights in Safi, on the coast 200k from Marrakech, and are heading to Essaouira this afternoon. where we will spend so,e days. Marrakech was really lovely, and we saw a number of contradictory towns squeezed into one space. The Souk or artizan selling quarter was particularly atmospheric, many beautiful colours and light games from sun coming through the mats over head, the yellowy glowing lights in the tiny shops piled hight with merchandise. everyone sitting languidly in the 40 something degree heat. We sat to eat with the locals, and got lost in the back streets, literally, not int he romantic Lonely Plantet ... read more
March 7th 2008
We got up nice and late, and thoroughly enjoyed taking our time getting ready. We almost managed to successfully avoid the slightly sleazy hotel guy but at the last moment he came over for a chat. We went out in search of a cremerie where we could buy picnic items. We bought yoghurts, bread, cheese and fruit, including an expensive apple. As we were walking back through town towards the beach we saw a few cafes but it was too late for breakfast in any of them. We found a place that still had a couple of pain au chocolat left and we accompanied them with two tankards of orange juice. The walk to the beach didn't feel as long because we knew that it was reachable by foot. It took about forty minutes which means ... read more
March 6th 2008
Ok, so it sounds like we have an addiction to crepes, but we have only had so many because we had to buy our own syrup for the first lot. We sat and ate the crepes whilst waiting for other people to turn up for the collective. We only had to wait about forty minutes for the taxi to fill up and we were on our way. Strangely enough we didn't receive the whole you can buy out the whole taxi spiel which we normally do. When you are the first ones to arrive for a collective they will tell you the price of the whole car, almost expecting you to pay it. What is worse is when there are four or five of you waiting and they all look at you as if to say ... read more
March 5th 2008
The wind sounded entirely uninviting and too fierce to entice us out of bed. We willed ourselves to believe that if we stayed in bed long enough, the wind would disappear. The wind didn't disappear but the day was, so we did eventually get up. Whilst I got ready, Rob nipped out to see if the lady selling crepes was there, but she wasn't. Instead we had breakfast at our hotel which wasn't fantastic but at least it put food in our tummies. The beach was deserted with not even a fisherman in sight. We both thought this strange because although the wind was strong, this enhanced the ferocity of the crashing waves. We climbed up onto the rocks which had the biggest splashes and we both watched for ages. Rob tried to catch some of ... read more
March 4th 2008
We woke up this morning not entirely certain of how we were getting to Oualidia. Once we had packed up our bags, we sought out the CTM bus station in the hope that there would be a bus. We were lucky that there was one leaving at twelve thirty and that we could leave our bags there whilst we went for a walk around. I saw that there was a bookshop nearby that had a "small selection" of English language books. The selection was pitiful. There were all the usual classics and then four crime fiction books all by the same author. I did find one book that was slightly larger than the others but they were all English prices which is pretty steep. We haven't eaten much recently so we decided to look for breakfast ... read more
Cruising South from Casablanca
Published: February 18th 2008Africa » Morocco » Doukkala-Abda » El Jadida
January 17th 2008
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 ... read more
January 17th 2007
10 heure ,mardi le 14 nous quittions Casablanca en direction sud à bord de notre superbe auto,une Suzuki,( au fait je ne crois pas vous l’avoir dit),voilà c’est fait.Empruntant la route qui longe la côte en surplomb nous avons fait un premier arrêt à Al-Jadida,une petite ville fondée en 1513 par les portugais pour protéger leur commerce intérieur.D’ailleur la forteresse que nous avons visitée s’appelle la cité portugaise.Entourée de hauts remparts en assez bonne condition elle fait face à la mer.Un joli petit port y acceuille de non moins jolis petits bateaux qui servent à la pêche à la sardine.On peut également y visiter une vieille citerne souterraine soutenue par plusieurs voutes qui servait à collecter l’eau.Devenue célèbre depuis qu’Orson Welles y a filmé une scène de révolte de son film Othello elle demeure aujoud’hui inutilisée ... read more
