Agadir, Morocco

 Sunday, November 10, 2024

The pier at which our ship docked is on the outskirts of Agadir.  From the ship Agadir looked considerably more inviting then Casablanca, particularly considering that it is a city of 3 million people. Also from the ship Morocco looked more like we expected; lots of hilly, brown sand/dirt mixed with scrub brush.

The first stop of our excursion was the Kasbah. We learned that Kasbah means fortress in arabian.  The Kasbah had a commanding view from atop a large hill.  Stopping here was basically a photo op.  We must say the views were stunning.  Leaving the Kasbah, we drove into the city of Agadir.  Agadir was a cleaner, more modern and vibrant city then Casablanca. We made the required stop at the principal Mosque of Agadir.  It was not as large or impressive as the Hassan II Mosque. However, Tim conveniently forgot that he was not to enter the Mosque and slipped inside for a quick picture. Needless to say, Lynda was terribly proud.

In 1960 there was a powerful earthquake that destroyed a portion of the old town of Agadir. We passed through this area where we saw much empty property that had not been rebuilt on.  Our guide also pointed out a cinema where many people were watching a movie and survived the earthquake because the cinema was not destroyed. We then arrived at a Medina, which is a small walled city.  This particular Medina was abandoned and then purchased by an enterprising entrepreneur and now has many high end craft and clothing shops.  There is still an open Mosque in the Medinda. The archetecture was also very interesting.

Our final stop was the Suak Al Hab. It is one of the largest suaks in all of Africa with some 6000 shops in it. We had been looking forward to this stop as we have loved visiting previous suaks in this part of the world. We were very disappointed. One of our fellow travelers refered to  it as a large flea market, an apt description.  Like most suaks, each shop was selling only one particular product but in the Suak Al Had there was actually more of the product then could reasonably fit in the small area, thus most shops were uninviting. Another big difference was the big diversity in products.  We walked through areas of shops with brand name electronics, followed by lots of shops with high- end, attractive rugs. Another area was full of furniture of a reasonable quality. If the shopkeepers were not waiting on a customer they sat on a stool with a very bored expression. There was none of the loud hawking of shopkeepers.  Absolutely no energy at all in the suak. It was like a large K-Mart with poorly displayed merchandise. 

The excursion was not a total loss.  We did have the beautiful views from the Kasbah and our tour guide was the most entertaining we have had so far.

It is Monday, November 11 and we are docked at Arrecife in the Canary Islands.  We had booked a tour that took us to a shop where we would learn all about Aleo Vera.  We have decided to cancel this excursion.  Tim may  take a shuttle bus into Arrecife and wander about a bit.  The next two days we are at sea so there won't be anything to blog about. We will return in a couple of days.