We left Laayoune at about 1900, the time which happened to be the exact time in the bus schedule as well. That was surprising, considering so far none of our transportation in
Morocco had been on-time. Quite refreshing, isn’t it?
This time, it wasn’t just the locals and the two of us in the bus. The third tourist in Laayoune, the English teacher was heading back to Agadir as well.
Like on our way from Agadir to Laayoune, we again saw something like ten or more police stops. And we were asked for departure and destination (this case we had to say Laayoune and Agadir) and our occupation. After having answered „Student” to yet another policeman, he looked at me and replied with a rhetorical question – „Still a student?” I’m not 100% what triggered this question, but it might have been one of two things. I had grown a little beard and I don’t look too young anyway. The second possibility is that we met the same policemen on our way to Laayoune and he recognized me. And meant it as a slightly ironical joke. After all, I believe most of those tourists who go to
Morocco or Laayoune and don’t want them to know their real occupation for one reason or another, are either students, English teahers (yes...) or anything else that don’t look too threatening.
We reached Agadir about 10-11 hours later, probably at around 6am or slightly before that. The main bus station in Agadir is about 10km from the center so we decided to take a taxi – me, my friend and the English teacher – the only 3 tourists coming from Laayoune that morning. The English teacher spoke good French, so we let him to do the talking in the taxi, just to make sure the driver would switch the meter on. Upon arrival in the center we discovered he still hadn’t turned it on, but that’s usual in Morocco.
The English teacher had a reservation in hotel Bahia and we went there – the taxi driver was helpful (or was he) enough to come with us to try to wake up the receptionist in the hotel. He came to the door and even though the teacher had told them he’ll be arriving early on the morning, the receptionist said they had no room, no reservations, no whatsoever and went back to sleep. See the usefulness of making a reservation in Morocco?
The taxi driver was still with us and now suggested that he’ll guide us to the next hotel ( there were 3 or more hotels in 50 meter radius ). Considering we hadn’t ever needed help getting a hotel then we said thank you but no, we can handle ourselves. He wasn’t too happy – I’m pretty sure he would have got a percentage for delivering us to some hotel. So he kept insisting and saying it’s not secure in here and there are lots of criminals around and so on. Well, we still didn’t really buy it and off he went, not being too happy.
Around 25 meters around the corner, there were 3 nice cafeterias on a nice square that were open. We had a coffee and the most criminal-looking guy might have been the 60-year old bartender. While I agree
Morocco can be dangerous at times – you usually shouldn’t believe what locals are telling you in hopes to earn some extra dough from you.
About two hours later we found a cheap hotel (150 Dirhams for a room for two) just about 100 meters from the cafeteria. It looked okay even though there was no toilet in the room this time, but at least the one that was in the corridor, was a normal toilet instead of the local traditional ski-jumping-board. We rested for about an hour, woke up the English teacher and started to walk towards the beach.
Continued in next post....
