Part 3 of our Moroccan Adventure; you can find Part One here: Morocco, Marrakech, Souks and Sunshine… and Part Two here: The Sahara.

The next morning we were again up at the crack of dawn, our time in Marrakech was over and we were going to catch the 8:30am bus to Agadir. We arrived at the bus station early to buy our tickets and waited. Finally our bus was loading, we went to put our bags on the bus and were advised that we needed to pay if we wanted to bring our luggage, So we walked back into the station to the desk we brought our tickets from and asked for the luggage tickets, thankfully they only cost about 3 euro each. Luggage on board we climbed onto the bus. The bus was only half full and most people had crammed themselves into the front of the bus, so Guada and I headed towards the back of the bus and stretched ourselves out across to rows of chairs and prepared for a relaxing 4 hour trip to Agadir.

Once we arrived in Agadir we headed straight to the hotel, it was Christmas day and I had not yet had the opportunity to call my parents and wish them Merry Christmas so was looking forward to the WiFi to make a quick call before they went to bed. We arrived at the hotel, wished my mum and dad a Merry Christmas, dumped our bags and headed to the beach. 

The weather was about 21 degrees, had I just come from Australia that would have been baltic, but after almost 2 years in Ireland it was ideal weather for sun bathing. For the next 2 days we strolled along the Agadir esplanade each morning, we would then break to lie on the hotels private beach for a little while before retiring to the hotel pool for the afternoon. Once the sun began to drop we would again venture out to walk along the esplanade and find somewhere to eat.

On the second day we had decided a little spa treatment would be the perfect way to end our trip, so we ventured out to a local spa to try Hamman, a spa treatment everyone was recommending. We arrived at the spa and were ushered into a massage room and given bathrobes and disposable underwear to change into. After a few minutes later a woman walked into the room and showed us to a bathing room, the woman proceeded to disrobed us and started to pour warm water over our heads. Once we were both drenched the woman lathered us in a wax, indicated we should sit back and relax then left us in the warm room to look at each other, shocked and in fits of giggles… this was not what we had expected!

After a few minutes the woman returned and using a body scrubber began vigorously scrubbing at our skin removing the dead skin cells on our arms, legs, tummy, boobs and bum. My poor bum, which was still suffering with the scars of the camel ride from the two days before, did not appreciate the scrubbing! Once we were scrubbed clean our bathing lady lathered us up again, this time in mud. Our bathing lady was very funny, she could not speak English so to try and make us feel comfortable she would use her hands and facial expressions to joke with us as she washed us. After covering us in mud we were again left to lay back and soak in the mud’s natural …exfoliates? dirtiness? honestly we have no idea…. Again our bathing lady returned, she shampooed our hair and washed the off the mud before towel drying us, and helping us back into our robes. We returned to the massage room to dress, and finished off our treatment with a massage / manicure. It was an unexpected but brilliant experience, and the woman who bathed us were such fun and gentle women. We returned to the hotel glowing from our experience.

Although we found a lot of unwanted attention from the men in Agadir which stopped us from spending more time on the beach or strolling the esplanade, the hotel pool side provided us with plenty of entertainment to stop us from really feeling like we were missing out on anything. Ultimately we were happy with our experiences and our tan lines from Morocco. Finally, almost a week after we arrived we reluctantly left the hotel pool and caught a taxi to the airport and back to Dublin.

A week in Morocco was definitely not enough, we didn’t get to visit Casablanca, Essaouira or Fes, and they are just the popular places that the tourists know about. It would have been great to learn more about Berber culture and spend more time in the desert. But ultimately we had an amazing trip and for two girls on a budget we had an amazing time.