africa – Tyler's Travel Tales

Setting the scene

After the chaos of Marrakesh I decided to take the trip out to Agadir for a placid & tranquil retreat. My 3 days of relaxation here were much needed! There are no direct trains from Marrakesh to Agadir, so you need to take a bus, which is an experience in of itself! After only 30-40 minutes on the road, the driver decided he was stopping for a half hour to get lunch 😂. However, the circa 4 hour trip was well worth it, Agadir was wonderful.

Modern day Agadir

Agadir is a beautiful city, situated on the shore of the North Atlantic Ocean, in the shadow of the Atlas Mountains. The city is less populous than Marrakesh & as such is a lot more chilled out & not as fast paced.

Unfortunately it was hit with a deadly earthquake in 1960 & killed around a third of the people living there. It also destroyed a lot of the inadequately designed buildings & some of the historic sites, such as the Kasbah.

There is a lot to do & see in & around Agadir, however I didn’t do a whole lot of tourist activity as I just wanted a relaxing beach trip. But you can go to Markets, Jardins, the incredible Kasbah, quad biking in the desert, Paradise Valley, Crocopark & different cooking classes.

Whilst I was there during quiet season there was still a lot of locals & backpackers hunting you down for money etc. On my first day 2 French backpacking ladies approached me saying that they needed help but weren’t selling anything. Now usually when I am walking around, I am head down & not stopping to speak to anyone. However, at the risk of sound like a sexist pig, it has been a long time since 2 girls as pretty as that have smiled at me 😂. Whilst it is unwise to get into these types of situations, the devil in me did think if I get robbed I can always make more money. Out of nowhere 2 strapping French guys appeared, much bigger, stronger & mental looking then me, inviting themselves to stay in my hotel. I caught a sudden case of amnesia & forgot how to speak English & scuttled off. I would suggest avoiding the backpackers more than the street sellers!

Agadir has really cool cable car tours that take you up to the Kasbah Oufella, the centre piece of the city. Of course, when I say really cool, I actually mean bloody terrifying! It took all of my courage to go into them, however the experience was worth overcoming the fear! I do have a videos of me inside the cable cars, but they are are filled with vitriolic expletives & subsequently not appropriate for a family friendly blog. If there was a swear jar, I would have about 1,203,478 Dirhams by the end of the journey!

Tourist sites ☀️

Without a doubt the most stunning site to visit in Agadir is the Kasbah Oufella. It is perched on a mountain at over 200 metres above sea level, the remains of the Castle are captivating, but it is the view of the city & the mountains that make this a must visit! Important note; when you come to the castle entrance, it looks like you have to scan a QR code, set up an account & buy your tickets online. However, you can actually pay just inside the Castle doorway, just ask the guards. Whenever we see a queue of people outside trying to sign up for tickets, we automatically think someone must have already checked & you can’t buy tickets inside. But you can, cash or card, don’t bother with the QR code outside.

There are a couple of lovely Jardins that are worth a wander. Jardin Ibn Zaidoun & Jardin Olhao (although the opening times on this are very random so check ahead before visiting). The Agadir Amazigh Heritage Museum is pretty cool if you are interested in art. I went around in under 1 hour but it was only 40 Dirhams to enter. Then obviously anywhere along the beach is a must visit! I would recommend renting a deck chair/bed for the day. They only charge around 30 Dirhams & it is good value for money.

Entree 15 beach view of Kasbah Oufella
Kasbah Oufella
Kasbah Oufella
Kasbah Oufella
Jardin Ibn Zaïdoun
Kasbah Oufella
Danialand Cable Car View
Danialand Cable Car View
Kasbah Oufella
Agadir Amazigh Heritage Museum
Agadir Amazigh Heritage Museum
Kasbah Oufella
Entree 13
Kasbah Oufella
Entree 15

Where to eat? 🥘

In days gone by I have usually stuck to food I know & rarely ventured into new territory. However, I decided I was going to try anything & everything I came across. In most restaurants I visited the Moroccan section was loaded with different Tagines, therefor I decided I had to complete the Tagine circuit. I had a seafood tagine that had all sorts I had never tried, like Octopus, Shrimp & John Dory. I needed to give myself a pep talk before ordering it, but glad I did 🤠

Le Jardin d’Eau

Loved this place, the food was really nice. If you are an out of control degenerate like me & eat all of the table bread before the starters come, they top you right up!

The Moroccan soup starter was decent & the Fish Tagine was epic too! They do have a live singer, it’s a little cheesy but really nice vibe!

Le 20 Restaurant

Lovely little restaurant, not far from the beach. The starter was a bit strange with Lime on the Beef Carpaccio but it wasn’t terrible.

The Lamb was incredible though & by far the best Tagine I had while in Morocco. This place is definitely worth a visit if you are in town.

Ô Playa

This restaurant on the beach front was awesome. I was only in quickly for lunch but you get a great view of the Sea.

The Fish Tagine accompanied by cous cous was really tasty. Although it is a little more expensive than other places & they never topped up my free bread!

Keeping Safe 🥷🏼

Agadir felt quite safe, there are a lot less cops than Marrakesh, but also a lot less people. Something to watch out for is if you see camels etc & try to take photos, the owner may try to charge you for this. But there is all sorts, people singing to snakes, people with monkeys etc.

I would say to avoid these people unless you are happy to part with some Dirhams. I don’t know how much they were charging.

Getting around 🚕

Agadir airport is in the middle of nowhere. Whilst I took a bus into Agadir, I did fly out. You can pick up street taxi’s easy enough, however most places I wanted to venture into were within walking distance so I can’t attest to the charges etc.

The airport is a bit of a shambles, even if you do not have hold luggage you still need to check in! You also need a printed boarding pass. They check your details 3+ times so keep your boarding pass & passport handy.

Bonus tip ✅

Bring a spare pair of jeans! Given that I had loaded up on Casablanca beer, Tagines & everything in between, I was carrying a little extra podge.

This led to me ripping the arse out of my jeans trying to tie my laces. Walking through the crowds with my bottom hanging out was a shambles! The last night I made an executive decision to go to dinner in my kilt much to the bemusement of the fellow diners.

I am completely new to blogging & only set this up to help people out on their journeys. If you have any questions about the article or feedback, please do leave a comment & I will get back to you. You can also subscribe for free to get a notification when my next post goes live. Thanks for taking the time to read through. Over the coming weeks & months I will be covering some beautiful places in Spain & Belgium!

Setting the scene

I decided to pull a rash trip to Morocco for some winter sun with only a couple of weeks notice & little planning. The trip consisted of 3 days in Marrakesh & then 3 in Agadir (which will be my next post). Marrakesh was an incredible experience, however a series of unfortunate incidents definitely took the wind out of my sails! This article will cover some tourist sites, money, keeping safe & of course the travel tales for your amusement 🤭

Modern day Marrakesh

Marrakesh was founded in the 11th Century & has a truly unique authenticity. The architecture of the buildings bear such beautiful intricate art work without being unnecessarily ostentatious.

I am guilty of over using the term ‘hustle & bustle’, however I have never felt it more appropriate than to describe Marrakesh. Imagine visiting a real life Diagon Alley, the entire place is just buzzing with energy & dynamism.

In Marrakesh you can visit the most amazing Palaces, Medinas, Holy Buildings, Jardin’s, Museums & Restaurants. Whilst Marrakesh is utterly alluring, the trip was certainly not without hiccups shall we say!

For the first time, I brought my Kilt on this trip & bought a camera tripod so I could try & get some semi respectable photos to share on this blog. This is where the dramas began. I had found a beautiful place to take some photos (Parc El Harti), getting there early doors to avoid the massive crowds. Like a true amateur I had not done a trial run with the tripod / camera delay for photos. The tripod came with a little bag, which I placed on the ground beside the tripod when taking photos. As I was pulling a pose, a stray dog came running by & scooped up the camera bag & hightailed away from me. So I had to chase after the dog to get the bag back, he was having the time of his life, completely mugging me off, eventually I successfully managed to retrieve the bag.

As I returned to my tripod out of breath & almost dead, a couple of the gardeners had spotted the commotion & were fairly amused, I tied the bag around the neck of the tripod & then I tried to reattach my phone to the tripod stand. Disaster strikes, I drop my phone on the ground, the screen doesn’t even smash but it goes black & switches off. Now, not having a phone isn’t the end of the world, so long as you aren’t in a different continent with no idea which streets are which & you don’t speak any of the languages the locals do!

The gravity of the situation suddenly dawned on me, I had no way of knowing my way back to the hotel, but also lost my flight details, travel plans to get to Agadir (there isn’t a simple direct train, you have to go by bus) & didn’t even know the name of the hotel in Agadir I was supposed to be staying at. I was also upset that I had lost all of my photos from the first night.

I kick into Bear Grylls survival mode & manage to get myself back to my hotel (all whilst still in my kilt & attracting a fair bit of attention from locals). The hotel reception let me log into my Outlook account so I could print out everything I needed, as you can imagine I forgot my password, so had to do one of the ‘prove you are not a robot’ tests, but the test was bloody hard, you had to match off icons to an orbit, which I failed at twice. Not to panic, I checked Skyscanner & there was a flight home for the measly price of £450 (when the original flight to Morocco only cost £55 return) 😂.

Undeterred, I formulated a new plan, I would just buy a new phone, get logged into my Ryannair, booking.com, google maps & Barclays accounts from there, if I managed that I would be able to stay. I mainly needed the map capability. I found an Orange store on the map in hotel computer, went round & sat outside until opening time, turns out they don’t open on Sundays. The chap at hotel had forgot it was Sunday so said it would open, he then told me no phone stores would open on a Sunday. So I decided to go for a walk around a couple of blocks & clear my head. By sheer chance I stumbled upon a tech shop. From the outside it looked like your Young Gangsters Paradise, selling electric scooters & big ass speakers but I thought let’s give it a try & luckily I managed to get a phone. This whole ordeal almost broke my spirits, however I am truly blessed to even be in a position to go on a trip like this, so you just have to laugh when these things occur & power on!

The new phone cost me £250, which was pretty much my whole fun budget for Marrakesh🥲. This ordeal took up a half day & subsequently I did not get to see as many tourist sites as I had hoped. However, the ones I did visit were stunning!

Tourist sites ☀️

Marrakesh has a plethora of amazing things to do & see. I did not take a guided tour & walked everywhere as my hotel was only 15 minutes walk from the Medina & all of the action. It is important to call out, a lot of the tourist sites only accept cash & most of them charge 100 dirhams. This might sound trivial but the sites aren’t massive, so you could be getting through 4 or 5 in a day & the cost quickly adds up.

Places that I would definitely suggest visiting; Bab Doukkala, Dar El Bacha Museum, Ben Youssef Madrasa, The Medina of Marrakesh, Jemaa El Fnaa Square (utter chaos!), Le Jardin Secret, Koutoubia Mosque, Bahia Palace, Tinsmith Square, El Badi Palace & Le monde des Arts de la Parure. Although my phone broke, I have managed to salvage some of my photos from the first day, as I sent them to my friend Raj that evening, so he sent them back to my new phone, which was very lucky! Here are some of my favourites…

Dar El Bacha – Musee des Confluences
Koutoubia Mosque
Le Jardin Secret
El Badi Palace
El Badi Palace
Hotel Racine Rooftop
Marrakesh City Walls
Dar El Bacha – Musee des Confluences
Marrakesh Medina
El Badi Palace
El Badi Palace
Le Jardin Secret
El Badi Palace
Dar El Bacha – Musee des Confluences

Keeping Safe 🥷🏼

Whilst Marrakesh felt very safe, it is still important to take reasonable precautions. There is a common scam where someone will accost you & say they work in your hotel & recognise you. This happened to me in Egypt too & isn’t so easy to spot because the person doesn’t have anything obvious to sell. My advice here (unless you do actually recognise them from hotel) is to tell them to jog on, or if you prefer the more polite approach just say they are mistaken.

Just always stay aware of your surroundings, making sure to keep your bag etc zipped up. Generally speaking though, most Moroccans are some of the loveliest most hospitable people I have met! So it is not worth letting a small minority of people ruin your experience. Realistically you could find a horror story online of any city that a tourist has experienced. The Medina streets are very tight & busy so can be a little overwhelming, but the experience is worth powering on through.

Money 💷

When I visited it was around 12 dirhams to £1 GBP. However, certainly in Marrakesh the cost of things worked out fairly similar to the UK. Some places only accept cash, so make sure to keep some on you. Most big hotels have ATM’s in the lobby, so you can withdraw there.

I wasn’t hassled for tips in most places, but it is still good to have some bills for good service. I suggest buying a water somewhere like McDonalds to break a big bill as when you withdraw, the ATM usually gives 200 / 100 bills.

Getting around 🚕

I walked everywhere & Morocco doesn’t have Uber. There was talk of a similar app on a couple of websites called InDrive, but it may be illegal to use, so not sure how wise it is. If taking a street Taxi just ensure they use the meter & you are absolutely clear where they are taking you.

Bonus tip ✅

If you don’t want a Magician to steal your watch, don’t go to the show! Unfortunately there is a lot of poverty in parts of Marrakesh & people have to do what they have to do to get by. If you don’t want someone to try & sell you things or take you on a magical mystery tour, tell them a polite but firm no. In particular people seem to congregate around the Carrefour markets, so just keep your wits about you & stay aware of your environment. It’s important to call out that whilst it is a pain if people are trying to sell you things, I never once felt threatened to hand over money or anything like that. A polite no was sufficient to be left alone.