[Our hotel's Internet VPN is currently blocking all Flickr accounts. Consequently, I'll be unable to post the accompanying photos for the eJournal posts for the remainder of our days in Agadir, unless tech support comes to the rescue and provides a work-around. I will have to 'backfill' the missing photographic evidence later.]
Day 23 - Jay and I are now settled in Agadir, a major coastal city in southern Morocco that primarily runs on beach tourism, commercial fishing, and the agricultural output of the surrounding Souss Valley. The day started off cloudy but the weather improved as it progressed. It is not hot and there is very little wind compared to our last coastal town.
We decided to finally address the ocean this morning. We walked six kilometers down to the original section of the beach. It was a leisurely walk that took a few hours. Along the way, we encountered a polite boy selling snacks from a platter. We bought a few dates stuffed with walnuts for roughly $0.14 CAD each. We ate them while watching a mix of local families and tourists stroll along the seaside promenade. The long walk provided a very clear look at how this city actually operates. We eventually found a place for lunch near the water. After eating, neither of us felt the need to repeat the physical exertion. We simply hailed a taxi for the trip back to the hotel.
Agadir feels like a 1960s master-planned resort that bloated on grand plans but failed to grow organically. After being leveled by a 1960 earthquake, planners rebuilt it using a top-down modernist grid, handing prime real estate to massive all-inclusive resorts that now wall off the water from the actual town. The inland area remains a mix of excessively broad boulevards and strange empty lots baking in the sun. Despite this stalled architecture, the odd urban experiment maintains a loyal following. Decades of established winter sun-seekers now mix with a newer youth crowd who ignore the resort sunbeds to run ATVs through the nearby coastal dunes, successfully keeping the tourist economy churning.
I went for a dip in the hotel's swimming pool this afternoon. Later this evening, we will walk out to the local streets for dinner. We have to think about how we will spend our last full day here tomorrow.