{"id":828,"date":"2009-12-05T09:42:01","date_gmt":"2009-12-05T15:42:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/?p=828"},"modified":"2009-12-05T09:42:01","modified_gmt":"2009-12-05T15:42:01","slug":"agadir-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/?p=828","title":{"rendered":"Agadir (part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The drive to Taroudant was less hectic than that from Agadir.\u00a0 We went through rural areas with farms and fields.\u00a0 We also went through large areas of\u00a0 Argan\u00a0 trees (argania spinosa) which grow well in the\u00a0 harsh environment, surviving heat, drought and poor soil.\u00a0 These trees are often seen in pictures of the famous “Tree climbing goats” who climb up to eat the higher leaves.\u00a0 We didn’t see any goats in the trees, at least not close enough to the road to get a photo from the moving bus.<\/p>\n

\"Taroudant\"<\/a>Taroudant is a walled city with ramparts about 6 km long.\u00a0 It was first settled in 1056 and the walls were built in the 16th century.\u00a0 Today it is known as a market town and our main purpose for going there was to visit its souk<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"SpiceSouk\"<\/a>Because of the approaching Muslim holiday the town was busy, especially the souk.\u00a0 Every kind of goods were available there.\u00a0 Clothing, leather goods, food, \"Click<\/a>spices and shoes to name a few.\u00a0 We visited a shop where cosmetics and medicinal substances were made from the fruits of the Argan tree.\u00a0 Women there grind the seeds on stone mills and extract the oil which is \"ArganOil\"<\/a>used for all sorts of products. (Excuse the not very good picture on the right.\u00a0 I didn’t want to use a flash).<\/p>\n

We decided to buy a souvenir at one of the shops in the souk and we had been cautioned that the merchants expect to bargain over the price.\u00a0 That was quite an adventure.\u00a0 Eventually we managed to get what we wanted for only 1\/3 of originally quoted price.\u00a0 I’m still not sure if this was a good deal but it was an interesting <\/em>process.<\/p>\n

We left the souk around 4 pm and it was starting to get very <\/strong>busy.\u00a0 In fact the guide had to enlist the help of several others to make sure our group kept together so no one got lost in the narrow, twisting side streets.\u00a0 We learned later that many people believe they can get the best bargains toward the end of the day when the merchants are tired and ready to go home.<\/p>\n

\"PalaisSalam\"<\/a>Before returning to Agadir we visited the Hotel Palais Salam for refreshments.\u00a0 Jan and I tried the national drink, Mint Tea.\u00a0 Very good but quite sweet.\u00a0 The Hotel was beautiful though it appeared to not have many guests at that time.<\/p>\n

Our return to Agadir was rather thrilling.\u00a0 Incredible traffic with cars, trucks, motorbikes and bicycles everywhere.\u00a0 The school children sometimes attend school 15 km or more from their homes and ride bikes back and forth.\u00a0 The bikes have no reflectors or lights and there are no bike lanes on the narrow roads.\u00a0 Then back in Agadir we encountered a terrific traffic jam.\u00a0 Some of the most aggressive driving I have ever seen.\u00a0 We were almost 1 hour late returning to the ship but they waited for us. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

That evening they had a fabulous barbecue on the ship with lobster, a whole roast pig, lamb, beef, chicken and more other food than I can describe.\u00a0\u00a0 After dinner we went to the lounge where the performer was doing a “TV Theme Song Trivia” contest.\u00a0 Our team won the first round and a bottle of champagne.\u00a0 Of course, with eight team members the bottle didn’t go too far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The drive to Taroudant was less hectic than that from Agadir.\u00a0 We went through rural areas with farms and fields.\u00a0 We also went through large areas of\u00a0 Argan\u00a0 trees (argania spinosa) which grow well in the\u00a0 harsh environment, surviving heat, drought and poor soil.\u00a0 These trees are often seen in pictures of the famous “Tree […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cruise","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}