Trip to Morocco: Day Three

LORD ABOVE How has 3 weeks somehow gone by? I am so sorry (she said as though anyone was waiting impatiently to read her blog). In the time since we last spoke I have studied for and done two exams, passed one, had my family visit, been to Cádiz, lost a flatmate (she went home, I keep making it sound a bit like we had her killed) and turned 21. And now there are but 15 days left, one exam and a trip to Marbella until the non adventures of the Kane in Spain come to an end! Shocking stuff, once upon a time I sat on my bed like I am now and thought the year would never end even though I wanted it to right then... life, eh?

The mountain overlooking Agadir. The text reads: God/Allah, King, Country. A woman told us it sort of represented Allah looking over the sea and guarding it? I liked this anyway.

Today I'll get through the second half of that now forever ago trip to Morocco. I'm glad I wrote it all down in that diary I told y'all about because already I'm picking my brain to remember exactly what it was we did. We rose early for our 8.30 bus to Agadir as we had been told that there might be a scrum for tickets at the station. As it turned out, we arrived at 7.20 am, found an empty ticket office and, after a moment of thinking "yay, an hour in a bus station" were escorted very urgently by two men to the half past seven bus that we didn't even know existed. The rush of getting onto the bus was contrasted strongly by the journey itself. We had gone for the local bus because it was half the price of the 'tourist' bus, but it turns out the principal difference between local and touristy bus services in Morocco is not price but duration. Our bus stopped a number of times and seemed to wind its way south to Agadir through every second village, not, it seemed, to pick people up, rather to allow cigarette and tea breaks and to let people onto the bus to ask for money. An interesting mode of transport to say the least, but I did sleep most of the 4 hours there.

No rush, nowhere to be, let's stop the bus again for a snack.

Arriving in Agadir was as exciting as getting on the bus had been, we had to negotiate a taxi price to our hotel (the taxis in Agadir are blue, how novel!) and of course that was a bit stressful, as everything involving money in the trip was, but we all exhaled deeply when we arrived at our 4 star hotel Club Almoggar. Which cost €20 a night, I feel it necessary to add. Given how active the trip had been so far, we had a restful day on the beach where we were preyed upon intermittently by men who it seemed could spot a European a mile off. This took away from the relaxation aspect of sunbathing somewhat but it was not negative or harassing, merely tiresome after a while (though inappropriate in the extreme I do admit I found being asked "Can I smell your skin?" completely hilarious). 

Nice but no Waka Waka ;)

Dinner followed, we ate like kings for ridiculously cheap prices once again, and ended up in bed before midnight because the ever present children asking for money did wear a bit... I don't mean to sound so negative about Agadir but let's be honest, a beach resort can be anywhere, so you're not really experiencing a country, and certainly if you don't want to be bothered constantly Agadir seems like the kind of place where you wouldn't want to leave the grounds of the hotel. Perhaps that is why the swimming pool was so nice.

Hotel grounds took inspiration from Edward Scissorhands

I promise I did enjoy myself on Day 3, though it doesn't read that much like it here. Day 4 will be better. Once again, sorry for the delay. I only have one more exam in 10 days time so there'll be more opportunity for updates before I leave x

Dry countryside :)