Agadir: Morocco for Beginners

I LIKED BEST: The mild temperature all year through. This was my second visit to Agadir, and this time it was winter, December. In fact I was in search of sunny skies and a mild climate. And most of this came true.

Winters in Agadir are mild. Some days give clear blue skies, on other days it is overcast. The temperature is a pleasant 20-24 degrees C. At night it drops to about 10 degrees C. It is not quite warm enough to sunbathe on the beach, although some confirmed sunworshippers do. Also, in winter the beach front is a pleasant place to be, a slight breeze, hardly any tourists, and fresh air. The occasional camel trodding along the beach, seeking customers. It is a very relaxed place.

Quick Tips:

Winter is very pleasant to explore the city on foot. Agadir is a good place to be but if you want to get the feel of the 'real' Morocco you must visit Tiznit or Taroudant or Essaouira. If you have time enough I would suggest you go to these places for two days. There are enough hotels in these places and if you are a bit adventurous you can easily get there by public transport.

The first time I visited Agadir was in the months of July and August. The scene is completely different. Hoards of tourists everywhere, some hard selling. The climate is still pleasant: 25 to 30 degrees C. There is one disadvantage. Mornings are hazy, the sun is shining through thin layer of clouds which drifts in from the Atlantic. From about 11 o’clock it has burnt away the clouds and now it is time to go the beach. However, some days the clouds linger. Once you go 20 km inland the sea’s influence is no longer felt and it is scorchingly hot. Only in summer, winter is a different story.

Best Way To Get Around:

PRIVATE TAXIS
‘Le petit taxi’ or a taxi, which you can hire for the day. Agree on a price when you hire a taxi for the day. You flag down 'Le petit taxi’. They are red, and only take three passengers. If you are the only occupant it may stop to pick up others but never more than three. They are metered.

LONG DISTANCE BUSES
Go to the ‘gare routiere’, the bus station here you will find offices of several bus companies. If you go long distance south or east go to the bus station in Inezgane, 10 km south of Agadir, for better connections.

GRAND TAXIGo to the ‘grands taxis station’, lots of Mercedes' and people waiting. Someone will come up to you asking where you are going. He will then lead you to the grand taxi for your destination. They depart when full: two passengers in the front seat, four in the back. Grands taxis are faster and a little more expensive than the buses And a lot cheaper than a private taxi. Car rental is expensive at 300 Euro per week. Advantage: you can reach villages, disadvantage: you meet fewer Moroccans

Look!

Look what?

The receptionist proudly showed me his first euro notes. It was 3rd January 2002, memorable day for him.

As from 1st January 2002 the euro has become legal tender in all euro-countries. I had seen the coins but I hadn’t seen the banknotes yet. We studied them carefully and decided that they looked quite good after all.

The rooms of Hotel des Palmiers are large and airy. There is one double bed and one single bed. So that the price is in fact for three persons. A large well-equipped bathroom and everything is kept meticulously clean. It is close to the beach, a ten-minute walk. There is no swimmingpool and no airco, but in winter this is not a disadvantage. In summer you’d better go next door to Hotel Kamal, double and some rooms triple the price of des Palmiers.

When I looked out of the window, I had to stick out my head then turn it sharply to the left, I could just see two palm trees. Once they must have been in the centre of a shady courtyard. The hotel has undergone several renovations and the courtyard became smaller and smaller. It may even disappear altogether as builders were construction a new wing. when we were there.

This did not disturb us. As all we heard was soft hammering and some men talking. I have often notices that in less developed countries building is done by hand, no big noisy machines, which disturb peace.

Hotel des Palmiers looks on to a large empty square, in summer it’s unbelievely hot as there is no shade. In the evening it’s pleasantly cool, the fountains have been turned on and Moroccans come for their evening stroll. Across the square you will find ‘Uniprix’ a supermarket frequented by long-term winter tourists who emerge carrying western comforts: cereals, milk, wine, beer you name it they have got it. It’s a good place to spend your last dirhams on souvenirs.

Moroccan Breakfast
Cafe au lait, crispy French loaf, margerine (real butter only in 4-star hotels), apricote jam, a wedge of ‘La Vache Qui Rit’, soft spreading cheese and sometimes orange juice.

Double room 250 dirham = 25 euro
Breakfast 23 dirham 2.30 euro

During our previous visit to Agadir we discovered this restaurant quite by chance on our last day. Tourists usually stay at the seafront close to the hotels. Here are numerous restaurants, these are usually patronised by the tourists.

Restaurant Ibtissan is not all that difficult to find, once you know where to look for it. When you are in the centre, near the Uniprix, follow the sign to the bus station, ‘Gare Routiere’. The restaurant is next to it. It is one of three restaurants serving the same, charging the same: 35 dirham (3,50 euro) for a three course meal. When approaching them Ibtissam is the one on the far right.
For non-French speakers the menus have been translated into German, Dutch and Finnish. Thus showing what fellow-tourists you can expect.

There is also a vegetarian menu at 30 dirham (3 euro), it’s only two courses and not much choice: vegetable soup and second course vegetable couscous or vegetable tajine.

Tajine is a trqaditional dish served in an earthenware dish in which it has been cooked. As earthenware absorbs smell and taste, your vegetarian tajine smells and tastes as if lamb or beef are one of the ingredients. In fact, you are almost right your vegetarian tajine is simple an ordinary tajine. The meat has simple been left out.

Beautiful golden, sandy beach, almost deserted in winter, very animated in summer. Agadir beach is overlooked by a hill with the old ruined Kashbah. There are three words in white on the slope meaning: God, King and Country.

Agadir is a favourite tourist destination. So it is no wonder that when the city had to be rebuilt after the earthquake it was the needs of tourists which more than any other thing made the street wide and straight, houses low and minimalistic and which placed hotels between the city and the beach.

Some people hate Agadir because it is not Moroccan enough, while others find it very attractive because it is universal, an easy place, not much different from home.

True to say Agadir might not be all that spectacular. And not all that oriental, either. But as soon as you're down on the beach, it is easy for anyone to really enjoy life.

The beach is simply spectacular. It is clean, long, wide and there is a continuous breeze coming in from the Atlantic which makes it a pleasant place all through the day. The only drawbacks are the undercurrents, which can be strong and dangerous.

Although the beach stretches to the south as far as the eye can reach you can only walk for about an hour. There you are stopped as the King has his summer palace close to the beach. For security reasons no one is allowed to walk on.

The resort hotels each have their own private beach with parasols and sun beds. If you have a city hotel there are so called ‘ beach clubs’. These are fenced in places with a restaurants, sunbeds etc where you can sit ‘one next to another’ enjoying the sun. We went to ‘Palm Beach’ (no palms) whose entrance is in between Hotel Agadir Beach Club and Club Med. The restaurant has ‘beach prices’ so they overcharge slightly. Sunbeds and parasol are for rent at: 20 dirham (2 euro). I am not very fond of these types of holidays therefore I stayed in Agadir for a short time, took the bus and went further a field.

No, his mother is no longer alive. How old? No, he doesn’t know. In those days births weren’t registered.

’I don’t know either on what day I was born. I must be about 50.’

While talking he piloted us skilfully through slowly moving traffic, warns us not to step on fish heads and helps us disentangle from nets.

’I used to have a boat, I’m a fisherman. The engine is broken, I can’t go to sea any more.

Truth or ploy? We decide to follow him thus committing ourselves to giving him some money after this ‘guided tour’.

The port is lively and huge. A forklift truck loads carton boxes from a fishing boat on to a truck. Fish deepfrozen on board ship, ready for despatch to Spain and Europe.

‘Three million dirham (300,000 euro). That is the purchase price of this boat.’

The construction takes up one year. It begins as a tree trunk, the end product is this boat, all made by hand.

The commercial fish auction is in full swing. Tuna fish and sardines are not auctioned. They go straight to the factories. The north European consumer doesn’t know better: sardines and tuna fish come in cans.

‘Le Maitre Renard sur une arbre perche....’ recites on old berber who sells cigarettes per piece at half a dirham (5 euro cent).

‘He learned the fables in school. When Morocco was still a French protectorate’, explains our fisherman-cum-guide.

We buy cigarettes, but we don’t smoke. So we give them back to the old man, so that he can sell them again.

Our fisherman-cum-guide warmly shakes hands. The end of the tour? He doesn’t ask for money, .... yet. We don’t produce money, .... yet. He gets ready to leave. Turns to us: ‘Some money for food?’


All over Morocco crooks and friends will walk along with you, offering their service under the guise of friendship. They like to earn a few dirham.

Decide beforehand if you want to be ‘guided around’ or not. If you want to see things on your own clearly tell them.
I would advise you to have a ‘guided tour’ in the port of Agadir, it’s a huge place and your ‘friend’ knows the shortcuts.
The resort hotels sell this trip as excursion, you pay over the odds for it. And most importantly the money goes to some international hotel chain. Much better to do this on your own, at the same time you help your fisherman-cum-guide.


The fish market of Agadir has been turned into the surprise tourist attraction. The reason is simple enough: with the lack of typical tourist attractions in Agadir, all the tour operators throw in the fish market as an attraction. Impressed by its size and its vitality, the tour groupers take it in as a true gem. I must say it worth seeing but a true gem, I doubt it. Besides, in summer there are too many ‘tourist parties’ walking about to make it attractive for me.

You have seen everything there is in Agadir. You have been to the beach. You have been to the the ‘Vallee des Oiseaux’ a tiny zoo. You have been to the museum. You have been to the fishing port. You have seen all the souvenir shops, which all sell ceramics, jewellery, leather coats, camels in all sizes ....

Then it is time to venture further a field, to see the ‘real’ Morocco. Every Thursday it is ‘souk day’. The ambulating souks of this region come together in Tiznit, making up the largest market within miles. Such markets are exotic to visitors, but they are really just a necessary part of everyday life. They are not set up for tourists, they are REAL.

As most Moroccan cities Tiznit consists of two parts: the newer part, outside the city walls and the less newer part inside the city walls. Tiznit is not old, the boom came about 100 years ago. It is a huge group of salmon red houses blue iron doors. And then there is, in summer the burning sun. It is a comparatively young city, but constructed after old patterns. The old city (or the not-so-young part of the city) is modernistic in a way. There are few ornaments, the city walls are straight, and everything seems a little bit too neat. It is a very good place to start for the ‘not so seasoned beginner tourist’ in Morocco.

If I were you I would stay overnight as the main square and the winding streets near it are more vibrant when the sun has set and it becomes pleasantly cool. The half darkness, the movement of people the colours make it very exotic.

Sooner or later some friend-cum-guide’ will show you the ‘source bleu’. It could have been great, but the source has almost dried up. All you see is a murky pond filled with rain water. This source, also called spring of Lalla Tiznit, is named after the city's patroness. She was a prostitute, who later came to repent her sins, and become a holy woman, a marabouta. At the place where she settled, a spring appeared, providing for her and other people settling down here.

Your ‘guide-friend’ will now take you to the mosque. Its minaret is punctuated by a series of perches. These are said to be an aid for the dead in climbing up to paradise. This type of minaret is more common south of the sahara.

HOW TO GET TO TIZNIT
The easy way is to rent a car. The best place is: ‘Afric Cars’ on Boulevard Mohammed V.

Undoubtedly it is much more interesting to go by public transport, the ‘grands taxis’. It’s best to take a ‘petit taxi’ to the grands taxis station which is at the far end of Boulevard Mohammed V. For the energetic it’s about a 30- minute walk from Agadir’s central square (with the Uniprix supermarket).