Jeudi le 26 fevrier- Morocco!

Up at 3:00am. Much less of a struggle than I thought to get out of bed so early – must be excitement that we are off to Africa!
Taxi at 3.30am, arrived at airport by 4:00am. 65€ later! Unfortunately we were far too early to get the airport shuttle and this was the only option – talk about hidden costs!
Arrived and went to the Thomas Cook counter to check in - Got a free travel bag. Then over to the ‘real’ check in counter. We waited in queues for ages as the baggage conveyor belts were not working then everyone changed counters and it still took ages to get them to go. However this all meant less time then to wait to board. Unfortunately nothing was open to look at!
However we were on the plane at 5:30 and the plane finally left at 6:00am. We were on Air Mediteranee and the seating was relatively comfortable. We were hardly up, 15 minutes, when we started our descent to Marseilles to pick up a few more passengers. 30 minutes on the ground then off again.
Amazingly we did get some breakfast –Juice, bread roll, croissant, yoghurt and cheese.
I really enjoyed the flight as we watched night turn into day, one side of the plane was looking at night and out the other side we could watch the sunrise. Beautiful! I liked looking down and seeing the line on the ground at the contrast between each.
We could see the mountain ranges and towns in Spain along the coast.
It was incredible to see the first glimpse of Africa in the distance and yet we still could see Spain – not much sea in between, I think 14km’s. Places we never thought we would get to but always dreamt of.
As we flew over Morocco and neared Agadir I was amazed at how green the countryside was – flat except for the snow capped Atlas mountains which run down through Morocco.
There were also many covered buildings, looked like big rectangles from the air – not sure what they were but were to find out later they were covering orchards – bananas, tomatoes and I think orange groves and other citrus fruit.

We touched down into Agadir airport by 9:30 am. Morocco is one hour behind France in time zones so I guess it is 11 hours behind NZ. No air bridge but a modern looking airport – descended to touch Africa terra firma. WOW! However it had just had a torrential downpour and the ground was very wet.


We were met at the airport by our rep, a man right beside him was very fast to gather all our luggage and take it to the bus for us. This was our first introduction to people wanting money, of course we were not to know at this stage that he was not part of the service provided by Thomas Cook so we let him and Neville tipped him with a €1.

All the mercedes taxis at the airport!
We bussed to Agadir – 20 minutes, got to really look around – first impressions of huge development, poor areas, police on every roundabout, donkeys hauling supplies, carts, old public buses. Architecture completely different for their buildings. The main roads were well upkept and had beautiful landscaping with lovely flower beds.
In the hotel by 10:30am and the resort is fabulous!

The main reception area was impressive and a bit further down there was a huge lounge with Moroccan furniture and bars. This area was busy as it was grey outside and had been raining – the ‘animators’ were busy playing games with groups of people and there was a general ‘buzz’ about the place. Very exciting.
When we checked in we were very pleasantly surprised to discover we had been given two rooms – side by side each with a terrace! We all had to put wristbands on – just like when you go to hydroslides etc… These were dark green – later to find out that all resorts have these in different colours and very easy for staff and security to know whether or not you should be there! I suppose too if you get lost you can easily read your band and know where to return too!
The porter took our bags and we followed him to our room – he pointed out places on the way and then handed our keys over. Very nice rooms. This is the view from our rooms!
Time to orient ourselves around the complex – map in hand we headed off to find the money exchange and the restaurant reservation booth. It is a very large complex with 8 restaurants, 5 pools,6 bars, tennis/squash courts, spas, petanque, table tennis, basketball, minigolf course, archery, kids clubs, discos + many more things! Shops too and market stalls. Even animal enclosures including tortoises and rabbits. However there were many cats in the complex – very friendly, kittens too. The girls were in heaven!
We exchanged some money into dirham – this is a closed currency and cannot be exchanged outside of Morocco, nor can you take anymore than 100 dirham out of the country. You can also only exchange money back into other currencies at the airport! Every hotel has a money exchange and has the best rates. For $25 you get 100 dirham. However we were changing euros and that was basically €11 for 100 dirham.
At the resort there are 6 theme restaurants and you can eat at each one once each week. You have to book in so we went and booked all 6 at once to save us going back each day. If you don’t go to these restaurants you eat at the main large buffet restaurant.
Lunch was a huge buffet – probably 600 people+ can eat at one time. However the queues were basically non existent as people can come and go over 2 hours. There were also many different areas within a central place for getting the food – very well organised. Salad bars were huge and varied, soups, appetisers, mains- many to choose from, desserts, bread, drinks –alcoholic, fizzy, water, tea/coffee.
The day hadn’t improved much – however we didn’t mind too much as we could then explore the complex. The children went to Kids Club in the afternoon and met some other girls and played a few games.
Nev and I amused ourselves finding all the different bars – alcohol is included in the price – then I decided that it was such a grey old day I might go and get my legs waxed! Very cheap – I think it was 80 dirham! Nev too had a brain wave – he would get his legs done too, the excuse being that when he goes for a run it will be much better and streamlined! I think there might also have been a mention of chaffing too.
Off we went – I was out first and what a sight to see him walking back. He looked like he had been on a horse for a week! Have you seen 40 Year Old Virgin?
Must admit to feeling rather tired – had been a long day so far…
Tea was at 7:00pm and we were off to Madam Butterfly – Japanese. The girls had met some lovely girls at Kids Club and we had met their mothers, who were on holiday together. Amazingly they were at the same restaurant too so we met for an aperitif first then headed to the restaurant. Girls at one table – adults the other. Donna and Lorette were both from the northern part of France – Donna is British but married a Frenchman (he died) but still lives in France and Lorette is a French divorcee. So the dinner table conversation was multilingual – great practice for me!
Tea was 5 courses – Tomato and Egg soup, Japanese rolls, Sushi, Fish and Rice and can’t remember dessert!

Feeling shattered we retired for the night and skipped the show!