To the coast for the last few days
We left Marrakech this morning and our weather luck finally ran out. We had gray skies and rain the whole drive. I can't really complain, though, as we have had almost 2 weeks of sunshine. Also, as Abdul pointed out, the Moroccan people are very glad that it's raining. This is an arid country and they utilize all the water they get. Trees and crop fields have berms around them, so that they can be watered without wasting water. It all seems very water frugal.
But it meant a rainy drive to Agadir. Agadir is an interesting city. It was totally destroyed by an earthquake in February 1960. It wasn't that powerful a quake (5.8) but it was a shallow earthquake and everything collapsed. A third of the population died. Rescue had to come from outside, since there was no rescue infrastructure left in the city. After Abdul told us about it, I read the Wikipedia entry on the quake and one of the worst parts to me was that they had an unseasonably winter heat wave and the temperature was 104˚F. Image having to dig through debris in that heat. Oh, and it was Ramadan as well.
So it's a new city, and appeared very white. We drove to a viewpoint above the city, where they are restoring an ancient fortress (the only structure that didn't collapse in the earthquake. To the southwest was the sandy coastline, and directly below was the port. Apparently a lot of sardines leave Morocco through this port.
Then we headed to our hotel, another fancy one. It was early afternoon, and, unfortunately, our rooms weren't ready yet. We ate lunch at their fabulous buffet, then waited some more. The room is worth the wait, though. It's large with a nice balcony with a view of the ocean. I immediately put on my rain gear and grabbed my camera and binoculars for some birding. By the time I made it through the property, my shoes were already soaked. I just stopped worrying about it. I walked down the beach and looked at and photographed birds. It wasn't raining too hard, so the birds were still out. I did add two new birds to my list!
I was pretty wet, so I headed to my room. There is no way my shoes and socks will be dry by tomorrow morning, when we leave for Essaouira. From my balcony, I could still hear birds, so I started the Merlin app. It's pretty good at identifying birds from their songs, but not foolproof. Almost immediately it had detected 4 different birdsongs, and one of them was my grail species for this trip, the Eurasian hoopoe! This isn't my photo, unfortunately!
I immediately suited up and ran back outside. Relevant here is that one of pairs of shoes is soaking wet and I'm now running out in the rain in my only other pair of shoes! Anyway, I didn't find the bird, but maybe tomorrow morning? Hope springs eternal. And I did get to see a sunset.
Dinner was another giant buffet. And that was when I realized what this hotel reminds me of: a cruise ship! It's a large, stationary cruise ship. In other words, not my thing! But it's just one night.
Yorumlar