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Travel bargain to Morocco

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I penned this having just flown in to the Disunited Kingdom for a brief sojourn before returning to Ha-ha-ha-rare (Africa’s fun capital!) by Air Zimbabwe on what proved to be the national carrier’s last southbound flight from Gatwick.

I penned this having just flown in to the Disunited Kingdom for a brief sojourn before returning to Ha-ha-ha-rare (Africa’s fun capital!) by Air Zimbabwe on what proved to be the national carrier’s last southbound flight from Gatwick. Column by Dusty Miller

My rough plan on these occasional month-long treks is to spend a week in rural Oxfordshire with my daughter and grandchildren, a fortnight “somewhere interesting” with warm snorkelling and a more reliable climate than Great Britain’s, then a week in Scotland with my son and daughter-in-law. (Before they moved to Australia.)

Parts one and three were interchangeable. I rarely have an idea where the two-week sandwich break will be, until checking on-line and usually face-to-face at a High Street travel agency on where current travel bargains are to be found.

Fairly recently, for substantially under the then cost of a tourist class AirZim return flight from Harare to Gatwick, I managed a two week all-inclusive sanity break in a very acceptable hotel: The Agador in Agadir, Morocco, with scheduled return flights from Heathrow, to regional hub, Marrakesh, on a half-empty British Midlands International Airbus A319, with much leg-room, an agreeable in-flight sandwich and a few dops thrown in. (Since then BMI fly straight to Agadir saving a bus or taxi fare for a long, tiring journey through the Sahara Desert to the coast.)

For those unfamiliar with “all-inclusive”, it means a comfortable double room, albeit with minimalist furniture, walk-in shower, separate loo, cool, shady balcony and satellite TV. Three substantial meals a day, plus the odd snack if needed, use of water sports facilities, gymnasium and fitness centre, free Wi-Fi (if it works!) and what most Zimbabwean hoteliers would regard as a killer: free drinks, alcoholic and non-alcoholic, teas, coffees, milkshakes, etc , from 1030am until 2am next day!

The Agador Hotel didn’t make much profit on me, nor a brace of 40-something Polish sisters I befriended and lost fortunes on some heroic marathon boozers from London, Belgium and Germany. Most of the Russian “lads”, who attacked triple vodkas at breakfast in Egypt, eight months previously, seemed to have shunned the Mysterious East like the proverbial plague since the Arab uprisings began. Serious lack of moral fibre there, methinks?

Candidly they aren’t missed, but SOMEONE still drapes almost all poolside sun-loungers with bathing towels two hours before the sun rises, thus claiming them for the day! This was a German speciality, which noveau-riche post-communist Russkis perfected.

In Egypt and Tunisia, if a lounger remains unoccupied two hours, it’s deemed to be free and bath towels and other katundu are turfed off. Sound thinking there!

I ate almost exclusively in the hotel’s two massive table d’hôtel buffet restaurants, where grub was reliable, if not world-shattering. Of international standards, it had much emphasis placed on the local, now world-renowned, highly seasoned Moroccan cuisine. There was also a steakhouse and fish a la carte restaurant and others (they’re all free, including house wine) serving Chinese and oriental fusion foods, a separate Japanese outfit, snack bar and pizzeria and The Medina where Moroccan food was served exclusively.

There were six bars and a tea lounge serving free grog, an attached night club with professional cabarets, a theatre of (say) the calibre of REPS, and scores of outside activities, especially for children. All non-motorised beach water sports were also free.

I found Morocco’s tourism sector one of the most welcoming and — by and large — professional I’ve encountered for some time, but with loads of room to improve the product, to everyone’s long term advantage.

Depending upon which statistics you check, travel is either Morocco’s second or third highest forex earner: definitely behind phosphates (the relatively small state is the world’s third highest producer of phosphates, a vital component of artificial fertiliser, after geographical giants China and the USA) and, arguably, agriculture.

Farming is amazingly diversified for a country at least partly within the Sahara Desert, but is periodically decimated by devastating droughts.

Morocco is relatively politically stable in a region which sure isn’t. Ignoring major activities in classical antiquity BC, the history of the country spans at least 12 centuries since it was first unified by the Idrisid Dynasty in 780AD becoming the first Islamic state in Africa autonomous of the Arab Empire.

Before the arrival of Islam, it was a Jewish kingdom.

Early Morocco dominated the whole of the Maghreb; much of Spain and Portugal was ruled by “The Moors”. It fought off Ottoman and Portuguese invasions; the Black Guard booted the English out of Tangiers in 1684, driving the Spanish from Larache in 1689. The country was reunited under the Alaouite Dynasty in 1666 (the year of the Great Fire of London!) and it has reigned ever since.

The dynasty distinguished itself in the 19th century by maintaining Moroccan independence when all other states in the region succumbed to European interests. But in 1912, following the First Moroccan Crisis and the Agadir Crisis in which the German Navy almost began World War I a little early! The Treaty of Fez effectively divided Morocco into French and Spanish Protectorates.

In 1956, after 44 years’ occupation, the country regained independence as the Kingdom of Morocco. Present monarch is King Mohammed VI. Born in 1963, he inherited the throne in 1999. Morocco has consistently refused to join the OAU or its successor the African Union but — rather optimistically, perhaps, certainly ignoring geographical realities — has asked to join the European Union!

Morocco was the first foreign nation to congratulate the USA after its declaration of independence and to recognise that country and establish diplomatic ties. Moroccans fought alongside Britain, America and their allies in two world wars. Population is about 32 million, of whom about 10% live in the Diaspora.

Many Europeans, especially French and Germans, stay permanently in Morocco or have bought or built holiday homes there.

A leading member of this community was the late fashion designer and couturier Yves Saint-Laurent, who lived in rakish Marrakesh for many years, where he and his boyfriend bought the run down zoo, turning it into an international attraction.

 

  • dustym@zimind/co.zw