Blogs from Doukkala-Abda, Morocco, Africa - page 2

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

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

The best possible escape from hot sandstorms of the Marrakech region is the breezy Atlantic coast. I got to spend the two weeks with fourteen other PCVs and four JICAs (Japanese International Co-operation Agency) in a camp close to downtown El Jedida, and only a five minute walk from the beach. There are lots of camps sponsored by the Moroccan Ministry of Youth and Sports, but four are billed as English speaking camps, of which this camp was Session 3. English Language camps are partly staffed by PCVs from the Youth Development sector; there are also professional Moroccan staff and some Moroccan volunteers who work with us. A typical day breaks down like this: breakfast at 8:00. National anthem and announcements at 8:45. English class 9:00 to 10:40. Beach from 11:00 to 12:30. Lunch at 1:00 ... read more

We spend a relaxing five days in Essaouria recovering from the mountain experience of woe. Essaouria was a really fab place, busy but relaxed with a combination of artists and rastas who made the whole town have a very chilled out feel. Spent our time sitting and watching and learning to walk again. In our time there we managede to swim in the seam eat freshly caught sardines, flood our bedroom, have a home cooked meal and meet someone who's grandma new Jimi Hendrix (he had a house there). We also made incomprehensible music with some very drunk Moroccans and had our first sip of wine in more than three weeks. We purchased orange trousers and Alice got straight back into the shopping mode - flinging hangers around and having sevaral assistants on the go at ... read more