Essaouira, Safi and El Jadida, Morocco
Friday, January 11, 2002
We jumped on a bus to take us across the Atlas mountains. The bus driver was 80 in the shade, he drove, he smoked, he drank mint tea and he read a newspaper. This was all at the same time. People were throwing up everywhere, but Lucy and I held our nerves faced death, and survived another bus trip. We were kicked out of the bus and placed in a taxi to take us to Tarroudannt, a town that would hold us till the morning. There was nothing to see, so first thing in the morning, we jumped into another taxi and we went to Agadir, only to jump into another taxi as we were going to Essaouira. Essaouira being an important town on the hippie trail as Jimi Hendrix had stayed here and it was the premier place to surf. Not that I was going to do any, it was way to cold and there were no waves to report about anyway, so we walked the souq and ended up buying a load of wooden goods. The place was nice, but a little rundown with the old fort being the highlight of the town. Next stop was Safi. There was a Portuguese castle here called Qasr al-Bahr. Orson Welles filmed part of Othello here on the walls. The views were superb and you could see the old town walls, but the place realistically was one big industrial town, with a railway going past the old castle and into a chemical plant. Nice !!!!! The next morning, we caught the bus to El Jadida to look at the Citerne Portugaise. An old cistern, built by the Romans, still being used today. Orson also filmed part of Othello here as well. We walked the ramparts, and realising that there was nothing else here, we consulted our book and decided to be one of the 6% of people who do return to Marrakech. It was a good place to finish as we went to look at the Palais el Badi and the Dar Si said museum. If we were to recommend one place to visit, that would be Marrakech
