Out of Hiding

The lagoon at Oualidia

We are out of hiding (from the intense heat) and back in Marrakech. We went to Oualidia on the Atlantic coast, which I have blogged about before here and here. It`s one of my favourite places in Morocco. It has a beautiful lagoon, where the waters are warm and sheltered. It was very hot but at least we got a couple of cool breezy evenings.

We are back in Marrakech, which continues to swelter along with the rest of the country because of the hot and dry Saharan wind called the Chergui.

We swam and ate fresh fish and paella and now we are back.

While things are due to cool down at the weekend, our laptop is melting in the heat poor thing and so I don`t know how often I`ll be able to blog over the next few days. I have a new tablet but haven`t yet worked out how to get photos from my laptop on to it.  So I hope you`ll bear with me while I am slow to catch up on blog reading and emails.  This is the Moroccan equivalent of `snow on the lines`.  My UK readers will know what I mean!

Back soon.  I can`t wait to see what you`ve all been up to!

A Postcard from Sidi Bouzid #3

We`re on the home stretch of our holiday and I`m imagining  that your diet of seaside shots is starting to become satiated. Before you leave, here is a photo of an illegal and very laden peddler at the beach in Oualidia. This small beach resort is becoming quite upmarket and has banned beach hawkers. This can be quite irritating when the urge for a can of something or an ice cream takes you or a lollipop for your young child.  It is all the more unusual given the king`s recent instructions to authorities that people should be allowed to earn the simplest of livings without interference.

Those orange inflatables are certainly a summertime treat for someone. 


As always, wish you were here! Annabella

Linking up with Summertime Treats at The 52 Photos Project here.

A Mud Lark in Oualidia

Yesterday, we celebrated my mum`s big `0` birthday by hopping in the car and traveling south for an hour to the pretty coastal town of Oualidia, which I blogged about here in March.  It had a very different feel to it yesterday with the lovely sandy beach and lagoon crowded with Moroccans enjoying their summer holidays together now that the Baccalaureat results are out and before the onset of Ramadan in a couple of weeks time.

To me,the beach had a feel of yesteryear about it with the small pleasure boats and kids mucking about in pedaloes, and so I edited the photos by applying a 1960s effect to them.

There was the sand boy - as happy as...or a mud lark...

..the birthday girl enjoying her moules...

...and me playing at being incognito

Hope you had a great weekend whatever you were up to!

Morocco Monday Part I - A Blue Lagoon

After almost 3 weeks of feeling decidedly under the weather or as the French would say - not in my plate, I was suddenly much brighter.  With this in mind and my mother here for her annual spring visit, my husband suggested we all go away for the weekend.  He suggested here...the beautiful small coastal town of Oualidia.

When my husband proposed almost twelve years ago I accepted immediately. He said we would honeymoon here - in Oualidia. We would swim he said, eat fish and run on the beach. For those who know me well, they will be able to tell from these words that my husband and I hadn`t known each other long! You see, my husband runs.  He`s slim and built for it. I`m not. I do not run. In the end, we didn`t honeymoon here but have spent several weekends and summer days in Oualidia.  Known for its safe swimming for children in the lagoon, oysters and bird watching, it`s where my husband came as a child every Sunday with his father.  Still relatively unspoiled and undiscovered, it`s where Moroccans holiday as well as a few in the know.

So on Saturday, we took the road from Marrakech north west. It`s really not a good idea to take short cuts in Morocco.  Stick to the main roads.  We took a `short cut` and ended up adding an hour to our journey. There were however compensations...we took in the simple unhurried ways of life in the country...

You`ll see from this last photo how bad the roads were...and this one wasn`t the worst.  No matter, because we ended up here...

Oualidia has a beautiful blue lagoon which provides safe and warm swimming in the summer. Just the other side of the houses in the distance are rough waves for the more adventurous.

Small pleasure boats provide rides...

to the sand banks that appear when the tide is low...

 

...and a fisherman messes with a bucket...

So we inspected the catch of the day (sea urchins (?!),mussels and oysters), ate fish, enjoyed fragrant gardens..

and basked in the sun but there was no running...it was just what I needed.  Part II tomorrow.

With a renewed sense of energy, I hope to have something creative to show you  - very soon!