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| Owner:
squiz Member Member#: 6644 Location: Registered: 27-05-2007 Diary Entries: 3071 |
5th January 2012 Hiking - Walking: Sidi-Kaouki-Morocco Wind Direction: Wind Stength: Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: Sea Temperature: Weather: sunny Max Speed: Distance Covered: We leave the mountains and head for the coast for 4 days at Essaouira and have a long walk along the wonderful beach at Sidi-Kaouki :) on the 5th Jan Wednesday 4 January 2012 Woke up in our luxurious room and went down to explore the pool as Mag is a keen swimmer but the water was freezing so decided to give it a miss and went to breakfast instead:) Met a couple who were in Morocco in their camper van for a month and had stopped at the Ibis for a night of luxury! We were interested in chatting to them as I would love to come for longer in our camper van next winter. Checked out and drove to find the sea and have to say that until you reach the sea front the state of Essaouiria is shocking! However, when you reach the beach it is lovely and we had a great walk along the beach to the old fishing port. As usual it was me taking photos of the boat building going on which resulted in me being given a guided tour and having to find some dirham at the end! There are literally hundreds of little blue fishing boats moored up in the harbour and stalls selling fresh fish and shellfish of every description set up along the quay. Unlike in the mountains the cats here are huge! And I have never seen so many seagulls in one place in my life. We continued our walk through the walled town and had our picnic up on the city walls overlooking the sea. Parking is quite a way from the walled town so went and put some stuff in our rucksacks and set out to find a room. We were yet again approached by a young man with the perfect rooms for us! This turned out to be correct and we checked in to the Riad Saltana. Lots of original features in what was obviously once a very opulent house with a roof terrace and sea view, perfect for sunsets:) We even had rose petals sprinkled on the bed! Walked out into the town in the evening. Lots more souks and Mag and Hannah both bought some really colourful lanterns. We had a chicken kebab meal from a rather suspect restaurant but it was very tasty. Rob offered hash and ‘space cake’ numerous times – he is definitely not interested but they are always asking him!!! Thursday 5 January 2012 Woke up to cockerel crowing on a neighbouring roof and the sound of crashing waves. Unfortunately also a slight whiff of drains! They are repaving and sorting out the drains all over Essaouiria and starting a bit in every road! Had a shower after I fixed it up with black tape and went into town to buy breakfast at the street vendors. Pancakes, savoury ring doughnuts on a string and some sort of bread. Also bought enough for lunch on the way to the car. Drove down the coast to Sidi-Kaouki, a beautiful virtually deserted beach with camels grazing by a sea flooded lake. There were a couple of surfers out on a fairly big surf and Mag played with their dog which had been left to amuse itself on the beach. She kept us company for our whole walk:) We made our way back to the car seeing lots of crested larks. We drove a bit further until the road turned into a track then turned back and returned to the very end of Essaouiria beach where there are lots of camel, horse and quad bike rides available but we managed to avoid all the salesmen and walked to the rocks with our picnic. After a nice couple of hours on the beach reading and relaxing Rob and Hannah took the car back and Mag and I went to have a look at the windsurfing outlets including Club Mistral and sat in the surf cafe for a coffee on their very comfy leather sofas:) Wandered back along the beach, taking photos of camels in the sunset. Had another kebab meal from a different outlet, as there is not very much choice of meal, unless you want to go to a swanky restaurant. We had an ice cream walking round the port and went back to sit on the terrace outside our room and play cards. Photo Gallery 1 here Photo Gallery 2 here |
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