Compared to West Africa and Mauritania, Dakhla in Western Sahara had a distinct European atmosphere.  It was obviously a place which was administered according to a plan, with clean streets and manicured gardens.  However, it was still a town in the middle of nowhere.  With Agadir, we are back in the Western world, with some of its excesses - a McDonald’s on the beach front for example...

Nested around a lovely beach, Agadir is a resolutely modern town which had to be rebuilt from the ground up following a devastating earthquake in 1960.  Already a popular sea-side resort for the locals, Agadir has now devoted itself to mass tourism, i.e. exactly what we are not !  Of course, it was a bit of a shock after 4 months in Africa, but the warm moroccan hospitality more than made up for it and we were quite happy to stay there a couple of days.  Besides, we had no choice, we had to drop the car at the local Mitsubishi garage - once again !

 

Comparee a l’Afrique de l’Ouest ou la Mauritanie, Dakhla au Sahara Occidental avait deja tres apparence bien europeennes:  une ville propre avec de jolis jardins, ou les choses semblent apparaissent bien organisees.  Toutefois, cela reste une ville au milieu de nulle part.  En arrivant a Agadir nous avons par contre retrouve l’Occident et certain des exces qui le caracterise, comme par exemple le McDonald’s sur le front de mer !

Construite le long d’une plage magnifique et bien protegee, Agadir est une ville moderne dediee au tourisme de masse, c’est-a-dire exactement ce que nous ne sommes pas !   Naturellement ca a ete un choc de debarquer ici apres 4 mois en Afrique, mais heureusement la gentilesse des marocains et la plage ont rendu notre sejour ici bien agreable.  De toute facon on n’avait pas le choix, il fallait amener la voiture au garage (encore !).