Agadir and points south, Morocco

Leaving Essaouira

From Essaouira we headed down to Agadir, where we planned to rent a car for more independent explorations.  We caught a ‘gran taxi,’ a boaty Mercedes that was already almost full of other travelers, but of course the driver was able to squeeze us in.  We travelled at break-neck speeds on a narrow, winding road, mostly well inland from the coast until the last stretch before Agadir, where the now even narrower and windier road hugged the ledge between mountain and sea.  I think the driver was trying to impress a young Arab woman, who he kept looking at sideways as he hurtled around blind curves, always on the wrong side of the road.  

Unfortunately my heightened state of anxiety prevented me from fully enjoying the spectacular scenery. However, in shallah, we did arrive, all in one piece, in Agadir, a soul-less European city, newly built after an earthquake destroyed the entire place some time in the sixties.  We stayed just long enough to rent a little car in which we can now travel more comfortably, sedately and safely, stopping when and where we like, and enjoying the scenery.  

Built right into the rocks..

And so a quick getaway from Agadir south across a barren, desert-like landscape of red rock and clay to Tiznit, a clean, modern-looking city of red brick.  No stopping there.  Instead we carried on down and headed west to the coastal town of Mirleft.  It’s a real sleepy place with just one main road.  We stayed at a hotel run by a young French woman, her Moroccan husband, her parents and her brother.  The Moroccan husband is a school teacher.  He’s currently doing a play with his primary school aged children about the changing social order in Morocco.  

In the play the girls ask the boys “why are you playing cards and sitting around drinking tea while I am gathering wood and fetching water?,” or “why are you sitting around playing sheshbesh and smoking a hooka while I am tending goats or children, or doing laundry, or making meals or cleaning house?”  Why indeed?  I wonder what answers the boys might give… .  I can think of so many more questions: why are girl children often not sent, or not allowed, to go to school?  And why are they married off to old men who beat them, who take younger wives when they tire of the ‘older’ ones?  

And why do they still walk two or three paces behind their brothers, fathers and husbands?  And the most important question of all: how long will it take for these things to change?  I wonder what the parents, especially the fathers and older brothers of these children will make of this play.  The young Moroccan teacher is a brave fellow.  Or foolhardy.

For D.– and his old friend S.B. – both of whom were here in the 1970’s, we took a sentimental drive to Sidi Ifni.  A lovely drive over a rocky landscape that hugs the coast.  Far below, great white, or sometimes muddy-coloured, breakers smash into a red-gold beach.  It doesn’t look like a place that’s good for swimming, but maybe surfing.  Every so often we come across a ‘campground’ clogged with travel vans.  The vans are packed, side by each, with no room to move, and certainly no privacy.  All of them are topped with a satellite dishes so favourite shows will not be missed.  Almost all of them are from France, a few from Spain or Germany, all close enough that it’s an easy drive down.  And it’s a very cheap holiday for them, especially if they camp, as many of them do, outside the designated areas.  Because there are no services in these areas the travelers empty their septic tanks wherever – by the side of the road, or on any ‘empty’ tract of land.  After all, it’s ‘just desert.’  The French in particular appear to have no regard for the environment, or for the health of either Moroccans or fellow travelers.  They also don’t pick up after their dogs, of which there are often two, laying in the relative cool underneath the van.  So the landscape, roads and beaches are littered with dog shit.  Merde!

Sidi Ifni was a very sleepy little town, much unchanged from when D was here except the travel vans lining the beach.  A photo for Bill, then on, south and east, through a flat, bleak, rocky landscape to Guelmim, the ‘Gateway to the Sahara Desert.’  It was here, so many years ago, that D bought five kilograms of glass Guelmim beads, also known as ‘Moroccan Love Beads,’  Millefiori or mosaic beads, because of the many colours within each bead. The beads actually came from Venice (Murano), and in the 1800s, and up to the early 1900s, were highly prized as trading beads.  D’s cloak and dagger story of exactly how and where he purchased them – the dark alleyways and shady characters involved – is a favourite campfire tale.  It was these glass beauties financed much of the rest of his travels.  We still have several, some strung on cord as necklaces, some just to hold and admire.  And one particularly interesting one with faces on it.

Two guys on a moped trailed us through town wanting to ‘show us the market,’ and maybe to sell us some Moroccan Love Beads.  “No shukran.  Non merci.  No.  La la la la.  No!”  They are nothing if not tenacious.  But this time we weren’t there to buy.  And so, bye bye.