mohammedia to el jadida

saturday: woke up as van being buffeted sideways by very strong winds! lots of rain too....packed up
before it really got started and onto the road - moroccan time - 9.30am.
weather got worse and worse, driving conditions not great either. we had decided to use toll roads,
mainly to avoid casablanca, and were very glad we did as they are not so busy as the other main ones.
we are headed to el jadida, a small seaside town, about an hour and a half away.
hoping to visit the old portugese city there - which has been assigned world heritage status.
we arrived at a large campsite, camping caravaning intl., not well kept at all (but we knew that from
the book, and our friends derek and tish, who are about 2 weeks ahead of us), but super busy.
we found a spot on semi-hardstanding, managed to find an electric socket and plug in, and then had
our lunch. its definately a van day today!
sadly the internet is very flaky, and the weather is still not good, rain, rain and more rain!
we plan to stay one night here at least and see what tomorrow is like....

sunday: lots more rain in the night, but woke to a sunny day! : ) horray.
quickish brekkie as forecast said am best part of the day, and then walked into town, about 3km, to
find the old portugese city.
walked in along the amazing beach - where everyone seemed to be playing football! - there were lots
of western style cafe's and pizza restaurants too.
found the old city easily and went in, its sadly in a very bad state of repair - very delapidated. people
are living there right amongst all the rubbish and building works. it was interesting, but v. sad too; there
were old canons lying around rotting and covered with grafitti, plus lots of rubbish and other un-
mentionables....heres hoping that the unesco funding can help keep it together!
one nice thing was the old water cistern, a cavernous, quiet, room with one massive shaft of light in the
centre which dimly lit the place. there was a french guide - who tried to expain it to us - but we couldn't
really get it! (looked it up later on and found that it had been used as a set in the 1954 film of othello!).
after looking at the cistern, we walked onto the ramparts for a great view of the old fishing harbour, the
atlantic and the city walls, then decided to find somewhere for some lunch - which was much harder than
it sounds!
we wanted something more traditional than a pizza, but everywhere we looked all we saw was panini's
and burgers! we did stop for a drink in one of the cafe's we'd seen on the way in - + watched a bit more
beach football - they had even drawn up full-sized pitches on the sand!
then after a lot of walking around, via the super busy shopping streets of el jadida, we gave up and decided
to have a late lunch back at the van.
on the way back we bought some oranges for am juice, + p tried to barter a stall holder down on a raffia
mat for outside, but failed! (we'll try again in essaouira).
we got back about 3pm + had our lunch outside in the sunshine - everyone was milling around - it was
very busy around the site - people taking advantage of the good weather!
after we had washed up we decided to get better internet we'd walk back into town and find an internet
cafe! (which is where we are now).
leaving here in the am - heading to safi - a pottery making town about 2 hours away.