Blogs from Essaouira, Marrakech-Tensift-El Haouz, Morocco, Africa - page 6

Vorig jaar was een weekje Marokko zo goed bevallen, waarom dit jaar dus niet nog een keer! Met Ryan air weer goedkoop richting Marrakech........Leuke mooie drukke stad, vooral de Medina is super. Luxe hotelletje geboekt via internet (een keer wat anders) en lekker2 dagen genoten van deze levendige stad. 20 februari bijna in een opstand/ demonstraties terecht gekomen, maar toen een aantal jongeren begon te rennen, konden wij gelukkig een andere kant op! Daarna een restaurantje in en toen we 's avonds weer buiten kwamen was het hele plein leeg, alleen nog wat ME busjes en een spoor van wat vernielingen wat straten verderop. Wij hebben hier verder weinig van mee gekregen en na 2 dagen Marrakech lekker richting de kust. Essaouira, een leuke vissersstad met mooie straatjes, een leuk strand.....maar met veel te harde wind. ... read more

In the morning we headed into Essaouira Martin found a tortoise while gathering firewood, which he brought back for everyone to have a look at. He put it down outside his tent and went to get the camera... and then got distracted for a few minutes... absent a total of maybe 3-4minutes maximum – but on his return the little blighter had vanished! I mean seriously... a tortoise the size of a rugby ball managed to vanish with an average speed of .5km per week... amazing. The drive from our bush camp to town was only a couple of minutes and afforded glorious ocean views the whole way – it’s easy to see why Cat Stevens (sorry.. Yusuf Islam) chooses to live in this lovely spot. We were staying about a 15 minute walk along the ... read more

We wander down to the fish markets to have a look at the seafood coming in off the boats. On the shore is a row of little street restaurants where for 150 dirum ($19) you get 4 scampi, 1 fish, a pile of calamari and a pile of prawns, salad, chips and drinks…..oh and a groper (but that is the next tale). The fish is then cooked on the fire inside and served fresh. Delicious. The English couple opposite us were very quite and short on conversation needless to say we filled the gaps and when pressed they admitted to " being uncomfortable around fish". Oh well, poor them,,,, time to focus our attention on our large pile of seafood. On our way out we are offered a photo in the "kitchen" in we jump to ... read more

The clocks in Morocco were set back an hour. We had no idea! We were an hour early to camel riding yesterday; however due to the language barrier we thought the lady told us the wrong time. We went to dinner pretty late last night (or so we thought). When we got to the restaurant we were surprised it was pretty empty. It was packed by the time we left. We set the alarm for 9am this morning as we wanted to attend a cooking class which started at 10:30am. We didn’t have reservations so we called this morning. I woke some guy up and I thought he said to call back in 10 minutes. When I called back, he didn’t speak English so well, so I asked someone in my riad to translate. Basically I ... read more

We made the decision to take the bus from Agadir to Essaouira. We showed up at 8:30am. At 9:00am, everyone started to board. We were informed our tickets were to Marrakech, not Essaouira. Ahhhhh. Deep breaths. I ran up to the ticket guy and he remembered us from 2 days before when we purchased our tickets. He rushed downstairs and got us on the bus. Ten minutes later, he asked us to get off the bus as it was fully booked. He asked that we wait for the 10:30am bus (different bus company), but if it doesn’t show up, he will pay for a car (as he was fully aware he made a mistake and printed us the wrong tickets - my bad for not checking). At 10:40 I find the ticket agent. He claims to ... read more