Agadir, Morocco

We waited off Agadir for a few hours before the pilot came on board. The problem was which peer to dock at. "They" wanted us in the "marina" but at low tide there was only one and a half metre of water and Sørlander draws just over 5. Even at high tide it would be impossible. We ended up in the container port with a 20 minute walk to the gate where police were reluctant and sometimes prevented taxies from entering.
The day after we arrived all the students and teachers went off on their four day excursion to the Sahara. Pia, I and Stephanie stayed behind with the professional crew. We ended up having an absolutely fantastic time.

We, Pia and I, Stephanie and Kathryn called for a taxi. We waited and waited and then started walking. Half way out the taxi came and the driver was absolutely apologetic - he had been held up by the police at the gate. Monty (Montheseh), the taxi driver, turned out to be amazing. During the next three days he took groups of us on 9 to 10 hour tours of this area (100 km radius of Agadir). But, on the first day he showed us Agadir. He dropped us off at a large Souk (market). We asked if we should pay him for his driving to that point but he said no no, we could pay him at the end of the day. The Souk was amazing - so much food and everything else you can imagine. We had tea with a spice merchant and we bought some clothes. It was lots of fun to barter not hat I am any good at it.
The next day Pia and I went on our anniversary (24 years) trip with Monty. We had an absolutely amazingly filling day. We saw he local ship yard where there were 25 to 30 fishing boats being built -they were in various stages from just being started to nearly complete.

Then we went to the fishing port where the boats are rowboat size where three people go out for up to 3 days at a time. They are longliners and come back with all kinds fish.

Can you see Pia in this picture? She is there!

We saw a recycling place where everything under the sun was bartered and sold - plastic bottles, plastic sheets, scrap metal, electronics, washing machines, car parts, etc. It looked like a garbage dump where everything had been sorted.

We left Agadir and entered an arid landscape - rocks, dirt, cacti and Argan trees scattered.

There were nomads living in tents, small villages with clusters of cement houses which all had satellite dishes on the roofes (apparently if a man wants to get married he will be out of luck if he does not have a satellite dish and a colour tv).

You can't see the satellite dishes but they were there.


We drove into the Atlas mountains where we saw a reservoir and had tea on top of a mountain top.

And tried on scarves.

We saw a pottery factory, a silver smith shop. We saw walled towns, and markets. We drove to a National Park where later there will be all kinds of migrant birds from Europe. We had meals in local restaurants.

At 1 pm Monty went to a Mosque and we sat at a cafe in a small village. As the sun was going down we visited a beach where the was a cluster of houses just above high water on the beach where only men live and they fish. It was well after dark when we made it back to Sørlandet. It had been an absolutely magical day.