Summaroc

After Casablanca I decided to follow the coast down and after 8 hours on a bus I arrived in the small town of Essaouira. Here I found a very quaint fishing port with a mandatory old medina. It is also famous for it’s surfing and kitesurfing, but the weather didn’t permit for any beach-life during my four day visit. Instead I spent my days hanging out, drinking tea, playing cards at the relaxed hostel and wandering within the town walls and harbour when it wasn’t raining. Snacking in Morocco has been excellent throughout, and Essaouira was no different, with an array of different sandwiches always on offer, fresh oysters and the incredible and cheap pastry that I have been spoilt with since entering this country.

Before leaving Sweden I had applied for a new credit card without international fees, this card didn’t arrive until after I had left, but luckily two neighbours Iréne and Peter, from back home were going on a short trip to Marrakech and they were kind enough to bring it with them. So I got a bus back to the big city, met them in the morning for a cup of coffee and could finally get my card. The weather in these parts of Morocco was pretty dismal, so I decided to cover some ground and got on a 25 hour bus south to the city Dakhla. The long journey took me through some pretty boring landscape, to my left was endless flat, dry and rocky terrain and to my right much of the same except when the road was close enough to the coast to catch some views of the Atlantic Ocean.

It also took me through the complicated and disputed territory of Western Sahara, seen by many as an independent nation, Morocco continues to occupy the land which they have been doing since the 1970’s. I didn’t notice much of a difference, and crossed the “border” at night without even noticing, there were a couple of police checkpoints where I was the only person on the bus to be checked, some confusion arose as when asked for my profession I responded “Waiter” which was misinterpreted as “Writer” and apparently they don’t take kindly to journalists in this area, but the confusion was cleared up and I now know to use the French word “Serveur” instead. We finally arrived in Dakhla before sunset without any real complications. I had intended on staying a couple days in this Western Saharan port town, but on arrival realised there really wasn’t much to do or see. There was an uninspiring centre-ville, more kitesurfing and the Dakhla Golf Club which seemed to be one giant bunker, none of this tickled my fancy so the following morning an American guy called Tre, who was staying at the same crappy hotel, and I decided to get into a shared taxi and leave the Kingdom of Morocco heading for the Islamic Republic of Mauritania.