Wednesday, January 24^th, 2024

Agadir, Morocco

Today we arrived in Morocco. It is a new country for us. It sounds so mysterious and romantic. I couldn’t wait to go ashore.

Then I realized that one of my sandals was broken. I had gone to all the trouble of having a pedicure so my toes would look good in my sandals, and now one was unwearable. Never fear, Brian and his trusty duct tape are near. With the care and precision of a surgeon he utilized his duct tape, and the sandals were wearable again. Crisis averted!

There is no cruise port, and we were docked in the cargo port.

The speech the captain gave before we headed ashore was a bit worrying. He announced “please be safety conscious if you plan to go ashore. Please consider going in groups, keep to the tourist areas and do not walk on the back streets. Remove all jewelry. Do not feed or pet stray dogs. Keep your wallets safe and out of reach. You must take your passports with you”

I suppose this all makes good sense and what we would do in any port (except the stray dogs maybe), but the way he said it sounded so ominous. Also, if this was such a scary place, was it really a good idea to walk around with our passports? I remembered that on the Seabourn world cruise when the passengers were on a ship’s tour in Port Elizabeth, they were held up at gunpoint and had to hand over their passports along with their valuables. Losing your passport on a cruise must make life difficult. Did we really need to take our passports?

The answer is yes.

When we reached the bottom of the gangway there were immigration officers there to check our passports.

We had booked a private half day tour with Couscous who was to meet us at the port. When we disembarked there were the usual ship’s tour buses, and a collection of taxis, but no Couscous.

One of the port staff kindly called Couscous and apparently although he is usually allowed in to the port it was not so today, so we would have to meet him at the port entrance.

There is a shuttle bus provided that runs from the port to town, so we boarded the bus and requested that we got dropped off at the port entrance. This must have been lost in translation or something, because when we arrived at the port entrance there was no stopping the driver and we headed straight into town. Mind you, there was no sign of Couscous either.

Once we got off the bus in town, there was still no sign of Couscous. There were many stray dogs, but no Couscous. Finally he returned my call, and we arranged to meet near the shuttle bus.

It took him a while to arrive, but eventually he did and we climbed into his van and we headed off on our half day tour of Agadir.

Our first stop was the old Agadir Kasbah, on top of a hill just outside of town.

This had been a thriving settlement for centuries, but had basically been leveled by a devastating earthquake in 1960. There was a huge loss of life, and 95% of the buildings were destroyed.

All that remains now are the walls, the interior has been undergoing restoration and although according to the guide that I read saying it is open for visitors, Couscous said that this has not happened yet. There was another earthquake here in September 2023, so I suppose that has delayed things.

Anyway, we walked around the outer wall, and had a good view of the Atlas mountains in the distance, and the new city of Agadir along the coastline.

Our next stop was a look at the Mohammed V Mosque. The mosque is the largest mosque in Agadir and it is name after the late King Mohammed the 5^th. We could only take a look from the outside as you are not allowed to go inside if you are not a Muslim. It was a very impressive building with beautiful huge carved doors.

Agadir is well known for Argan oil. Agadir is one of the only places where Argan trees grow, and the city has a thriving economy related to Argan oil. Not only can you use the oil on your salad, it apparently has a very curative effect on wrinkles, dry skin, dry hair, and any number of medical conditions. This is all apparently being studied scientifically,

The oil is actually extracted from a nut, and we got to watch a video on its production, and try samples.

I must say it seemed a bit like peanut oil which I think is great for stir frying, but I’m not too keen using it on salads. We rubbed the samples over our skin, but my wrinkles didn’t disappear, and Brian didn’t want to use his phone to take any more photos because his hands were all oily. I guess we are just not Argan oil fans, and we left the Argan Palace empty handed.

Our final stop was at the Souk. This is absolutely huge, as was the entrance door. We had a great time wandering around.

Initially all we saw were the junk shops, and we though it was going to be disappointing.

Then we could smell spices, and we followed our noses to the most amazing shops full of every imaginable spice. It was absolutely wonderful.

The there were the nuts and dates

And birds

And tangine pots

But what blew our minds was the produce.

I mean I had never seen so many oranges in one stall before

Or tomatoes

The produce looked so fresh and delicious. It really made you want to buy loads of it and go home and start cooking.

But wait there’s more. There were also shops with all kinds of other things. It was absolutely fantastic. The hour we had to spend there went by way too quickly. All too soon we had to work out how to get out of there and find Couscous again.

Then it was time to say goodbye and head back to the ship for our sail away. There was a great party going on by the pool,

And our tug came along to escort us out of the harbor, and out to sea.

We waved goodbye to Agadir. Although our visit was short, we had a fun time there, and it was a great introduction to Morocco.

We had dinner at Vasco, the Goan restaurant. Surprisingly it was almost empty as the food was very good, and we had a great meal sitting looking out at the pool.

Morocco really didn’t feel at all exotic or mysterious. It just felt like an interesting place with friendly people. I’m looking forward what lies ahead with our overnight stop in Casablanca.