Ken, I love your pictures. How this captured our day! The sights and sounds are truly different from what we are used to. I especially love the picture of the pottery with Ngaire reflected in the mirror.....

To sum up the port, the highlights were the goats in the trees. See bottom pictures.

As you know, we hired a private guide to go to Tourandant. We began our day a bit after 8am and a Mercedes van was awaiting our arrival. We had both a driver and a guide.

We first visited the fort and the former old section of Agadir, which was destroyed by the earthquake in the 60's. All of the city is new and is post 60's. At the time of the earthquake there were 45000 people living here. 15000 were killed in the quake. Today there are 75000. There is building everywhere. All of the coastline is designated for only hotels. There is an expansive beach in the town with many large hotel complexes running up and down the beach.

Ken's first pics were taken from the fort location at the beginning of the day...the camel and the group photo. From there, we ventured about 1 hour through the countryside to Tourandant. There were vast apartment complexes, citrus farms, the goats in the trees and small towns dotting the countryside. The terrain was flat with a range of mountains generally to our left, the highest peak being 12000 feet.

The rest of the pictures are of Tourandant. We arrived at this walled city and proceded to an herbalist who makes skin care products, some being based on the nut from the trees that the goats are in. If you remember Suzanne's post, the goats eat the fruit, digest it and excrete the nuts. The nuts are then collected, roasted and turned into cooking oil or not roasted and turned into skin care.

From there, we walked through the souk. It was very clean and smelled wonderful... full of spices. The colors were vibrant and the market rather quiet, save for tourists.

Much of the wares are modern and for the Moroccan, with t-shirts and western attire. There are marvelous sections with olives stacked in the shape of tagines, in shades of red, purple, black, yellow and green.

Only two of us bought anything today. I bought a small cooking tagine for $10E (this was a good deal) and Suzanne bought a small votive tagine for $7E. There were some deals to be had, but once you relay interest, it is hard to really look and make a decision properly. It is overwhelming. However, I looked up the costs on the internet, when we returned back to the ship, and the cheapest I saw my tagine was $38US and Suzanne's, $26US. Doug saved us some money by giving a shopworker his hotel pen instead of cash.

From the souk, we stopped for a drink at a beautiful 5 star hotel outside of Tourandant. Most had cokes, but I had an outstanding cut of hot moroccan mint tea. It was a wonderful respite despite my getting pooped on by a bird.

Our trip home's highlight was stopping to see the goats in the trees...see above. It was great fun.

We had the ship pack us a picnic lunch which we ate on our way home..the yoghurt was a bit warm and the chocolate had melted, but the sandwiches, fruit and cookies hit the spot. What we didn't eat, we offered the goatherder who allowed us to take a picture of his tree climbing goats.

We arrived back at the ship hot and tired, but no worse for wear at about 2-2:30pm and freshened up for trivia (which our team won today!!)

Again, the weather was beautiful and warm, with a cloudless, blue sky. We set sail at 3:30.

To sum up the day from ourselves and others who took the Regent Agadir trip, the tours are mostly shopping oriented. Going to Tourandant allows you to see the countryside, how people live, a traditional souk, and the goats. Staying in town allows you to see how modern day Moroccans live in a large metropolitan city. However, there were mostly shopping stops, a visit to a modern casbah and the requisite trip to a rug store. Neither of the tours offer any true history. What was good about a private tour, was the ability to say "no" to shopping or stop for goats. Our time was in our hands and we got to enjoy one anothers' company.

I would suggest, if you plan to buy, that you look things up on the internet and determine what you are willing to spend and go armed with information. Things to purchase included leather coats (mid $200 in Agadir), perfume bottles, jewelry, herbal remedies/skin care, spices, ceramics, slippers.

While I have enjoyed other ports better, we were glad we left Agadir and took the Torandant tour and that we did it on our own. Folks had mixed reviews for the Regent tour, for probably the same reasons that we had..there wasn't much to the general area to oo and ah about. The main criticism of the Regent tour was that is wasn't paced well. If I hear anything else, I will post.

Tomorrow is Casablanca. Our tour guide said Casablanca is just a big, modern city with only the new mosque to see. We will try to take in the Mosque and go to Rabat for some history and to see the Royal Palace.

Off for drinkies...