Agadir Local Customs

The wide beach of Agadir, in the afternoon, looks like a series of soccer fields. Hundreds of youngster share the large space in a never ending animated competition.

The wet sand is hard, making the games look more like the regular soccer than beach football. I think that only in Brazil we saw something alike.

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Well after 5 years or more of much involvement with Morocco Ive had my first meal of camel - as far as Im aware anyway! Camel meat is of course eaten in Morocco but many families would eat what is more easily obtained and prepared for meals being chicken, mutton or beef, or fish or even rabbit.

But following my Agadir friends and their knowledge of good places to eat at a bargain we ended up at Ibttissam restaurant where I noticed camel was on the menu - to be told that this would probably be one of the best restaurants in Agadir to try camel for both the good cooking and that by comparison many other restaurants with camel on the menu would charge much higher prices.

My Norwegian friend said that when she had her first experience with camel meat she had not been prewarned that it was camel and the meat appeared with huge big bones - when she told me this I asked the waiter to please not serve me with big bones!, feet, eyes...or anything other than camel meat and the vegetables he had told me would be served together in the tagine.

Anyway it was delicious - the restaurant did indeed have an excellent cook to make a wonderfully flavoured tagine and the camel was much like beef. And it only cost me 35 dirham or £2.50!!

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When we made a trip to the Paradise Valley we had breakfast en route. We had a stop at a restaurant in Tamraght 15 KM north of Agadir along the coastal road. It was not on the menu, but my Moroccan friends ordered breakfast Moroccan style for the four of us.

We had delicious round local bread. It looks and tasted like my favourite bread baked in the saharan sands during my deserttrips. We dipped the bread in the plates with honey, olive oil, argan oil and very fresh goat cheese and of course we drunk fresh mint tea (picture 1). It was my best breakfast those days.

Med and Hassan ordered harissa for themselves. I know harissa (soup) as we know soup.... salty. Their pale morning harissa did not look like soup at all (picture 2). I tried it, it tasted like porridge, meaning it was porridge made of flour.

Poverty is a serious problem all over Morocco but not seen in Agadir, especially on and close to a beach full of foreign visitors. I stayed at a hotel located close to CTM bus station where I discovered different world full of average, poor locals waiting for a bus or sleeping on a street day and night.

Each day I drove to a beach and I parked my car at a parking lot of a fancy hotel - El Tikida Beach Agadir. And each day very nice, smiling local, parking guard asked me whether to wash my car. First day I agreed and when I came back my car was perfectly clean. When I paid him (only $2 or so) the guy looked unbelievably happy, started to dance with my money and promised me to clean a car next day for free. And he did it!

I surely knew that most Moroccans were very poorly paid and that their immigration to Europe for economic reasons is quite large.

I could easily watch how do locals prepare national meal of Morocco (and northern Africa) - couscous in special pots.

A very amuzing waiter and the only staff member of one of the local, cheaper restaurants located close to CTM bus station tried to explain me how to prepare the best couscous but I couldn't understand his mixed French-English-Arabic language :-) although that guy informed me that he could speak 6 languages :-).

Look what young navives create from sand at Agadir beach. You do not need to pay them for looking at the sandy camels or even for taking pictures but they surely wold like you to do it haha :-). I did it once (ca $1) and I was immediatelly asked with a smile to pay more :-). I did, $1 again :-). And each day the two guys welcomed me with a smile and warm "hello".

Agadir is very different from any other city in Morocco. Built after the earthquake of 1960 that killed 15,000, it differs in architecture from the rest of the country. It looks like a typical West-European city with many block buildings.