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Published: March 14th 2011
Friday 11th March: switched on the TV this morning to hear about the big earthquake in Japan and look at some amazing pictures of the tsunami that followed the quake.
Back in Essaouira: it had rained overnight but the weather was clear in the morning so we took advantage of what may have been a temporary situation and headed down the beach to the ruin of the Portuguese fort in the sand. A lovely walk in bright sunshine and another close-up look at the ruined fort, then a sit down on the nearby sand dunes to absorb the view and the sunshine. Then back to the hotel as we wanted a buy a particularly nice bottle of wine from the local off-licence/liquor store and I wanted to transmit the last blog having had some difficulty the previous day.
(An Aside: compiling the blogs here has been a bit of a trial as although the hotel claims to have wifi availability throughout, the signal from the main server in the lobby to the rooms is not strong and is also subject to frequent interruption. To make matters worse the Hotel's link to the local internet provider is also subject to frequent interruptions.
Heading for safety
Saturday: a trawler heading into harbour in a heavy swell with waves spraying over the breakwater.The consequence of these problems is that photos especially take a long time to upload and the uploads sometimes fail altogether and the last blog was completed only after several attempts......End of whinge.)
Meanwhile ......when we got to the off-licence we were told that they had run out of the particular brand of wine that we wanted, so instead of returning to the hotel with our fine wine we decided on a light lunch at a snack bar near to the off-licence. The snack lunch turned out to include a generous portion of very nicely cooked chicken, plus chips and a very good side salad. All for a total of £5 for the two of us. The afternoon was spent reading in the room as the wind was extremely strong and the weather was overcast: good for the kite surfers but nobody else. For dinner we returned to the restaurant where we'd eaten the first night: and paid seven times more than we had for the lunch, and for what was probably an inferior meal – but there was live entertainment (Funny - I seem to got my second whinge).
Saturday 12th March: very strong winds and an
Jenks back in Bahrein.....almost
Typical local fishing boat with a very tall prow and low stern. The name means two seas, presumably here it refers to inside the bay and outside. overcast which put paid to any thoughts of strolling down the beach, so we strolled to the harbour instead and admired the sea pounding on the rocks. All very refreshing. A couple of days previously Jane had spotted a book that she wanted to read at a second-hand bookstall in the souk so we headed into the souk but we couldn't find the bookstall. After being misdirected to another part of the souk by a stall holder we went for lunch at a our favourite lunchtime restaurant, Chez Mermoz: good food, wine, beer, very nice staff, good value. We narrowly avoided being “entertained” by some strolling musicians presumably because there were just the two of us in our cafe whereas the nearby cafes had more customers and therefore represented a better return for their musical efforts. After lunch we went back to look for the bookstall and found it just where we'd expected it to be, it must have been closed during our previous pass through the souk, and Jane duly bought the book that she'd wanted: for a reasonable price too after trading in a book that she'd already finished with. Then a walk back to the hotel via
Medina (old town) ramparts from Harbour Fortress
Saturday: high winds and high seas. Blues skies but it had been raining quite heavily less than 10 minutes before this picture was taken. a cafe on the esplanade for coffee. After a short reading break I decided to go and look for the wine that we wanted at another off-licence/liquor store that we'd been told about that was further away from the hotel and in a dodgy part of town. Also, it gave me an opportunity to have a look at one of the other entrances to the medina/old town which had also functioned as a citadel in medieval times. I found the off-licence without any difficulty and bought the wine we wanted. The entrance gate/citadel proved rather disappointing so I was back at the hotel 45 minutes after leaving: but with very sore feet.
As Jane also has also had some problems with her feet (sandals not fitting properly) and as we weren't feeling particularly hungry we decided to go to a nearby supermarket to buy some bread and cheese for dinner instead of heading into town. Happily the supermarket was across the road from the local off-licence (the one without the wine) so we bought a few of beers to accompany our light dinner. Very satisfactory.
Sunday 13th March: the view from our window when we got up was not
very inviting: driving rain and a heavy overcast, and the road along the esplanade outside the hotel was flooded. That put paid to any thoughts of a final stroll along the beach. So we took our time over breakfast and packing our bags. We checked out of the hotel in time to get to the bus station by midday in order to check in our bags well before the 12.30pm departure time. The bus station was mostly under water on account of the heavy rain the previous night and continuing into the morning. Luckily we were the first passengers allowed on the bus so we bagged the best seats, the front row for Jane and the row behind for me: two seats for each of us; both having great views out of the front window of the bus. The other passengers must have thought that we were German tourists. Because we were sitting on the right hand side of the bus we enjoyed unobstructed views of the countryside we passed through which changed gradually from quite lush green pastures and lots of trees to an increasingly arid upland area and then into a regular desert. With the added bonus of
Essaouira esplanade road and beach but not the view in the tourist brochures
Sunday morning view from the room towards the Portuguese fort....the dimple on the beach in the distance seeing the snow covered High Atlas Mountains getting closer as we approached Marrakech. The journey was very comfortable: a nice modern bus, good quality roads, taking just over three hours for the 110 mile journey, including a 25 minute stop at the midpoint. When we arrived in Marrakech it was a dauntingly familiar scene of chaotic traffic and very busy streets. At the bus station we had a cup of coffee to help prepare us for the inevitable negotiations over the taxi fare to our hotel. We'd decided on staying in a hotel rather than a riad as we'd had such a good experience with the Atlas Hotel in Essaouira and one of the Brits that we'd met at the Atlas Hotel, a very nice bloke called Brian who is a regular visitor to Morocco, had strongly recommended the Kenzi Farah Hotel. We arrived at the hotel after not getting ripped off too much by the taxi driver, Dhs30 instead of his original final offer of DHs60. After checking in we switched rooms because the first room was in the lift lobby for that floor. The replacement room had an easy number to remember for those of us of a
Sailing Time for the Marrakech Express
The Marrakech Express ready to depart from Essaouira certain age, 1212, as in Whitehall 1212 the telephone number for the Metropolitan Police HQ Scotland Yard. Soon after we'd moved into the room it started raining very heavily which put paid to any ideas of strolling over to the Djemaa el Fna/ the Big Square, for dinner especially as we were both suffering from sore feet. So it was dinner in the hotel and bed; with hopes that the weather forecast for Monday. rain all day, was wrong.
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