Sadly, our last day in Morocco

Sadly, today is our last day in Morocco. We woke up in Essaouira but we’ll already be on our way to our next adventure by the end of the day.

In the meantime, we travelled back to Marrakesh from Essaouira this morning. There wasn’t a lot of interest along the highway, and Abdul kept us occupied reviewing the previous 14 days. It is amazing to consider how much we’ve done in that short time. Everyone talked today about how fast it has gone by.

You may recall that yesterday we stopped alongside the highway to take pictures of goats actually climbing the Argon Trees to eat the nuts. Abdul told us that there have been a lot of “staged” pictures on the web but that the herd that we saw had actually climbed the trees and were obviously feasting on the nuts. Today along the highway we saw a tree with goats in it again, but the goats weren’t eating, and in fact it looked like the trees were dead. Someone looking to make some money asking people who want to take pictures of them for some coins no doubt.

The traffic got busier and busier as we got nearer Marrakesh and Lahcen, our driver, had his work cut out for him. But he steered us expertly through the chaos.

Before checking into our hotel we had a stop to make. We visited the beautiful Jardin Majorelle along with hundreds of other people. It’s one of the most visited tourist sights in Morocco. In 1923 a French artist by the name of Jacques Majorelle started collecting plants from around Morocco for the garden he created. It’s fairly small, only 2 acres in size but it had hundreds of varieties of cactus and other plants. In the 1980’s the property was purchased by Yves Saint-Laurent and fellow designer Pierre Berge who added to the garden and opened it to the public. Despite the number of people in the garden it still had a feeling of serenity, as most gardens do. There is also a Berber Museum but it was closed for renovations today.

After an hour of wondering the garden taking pictures we headed back to the Delarosa Hotel where we stayed the last time we were in Marrakesh. We had some free time this afternoon and Nanci and I relaxed to conserve our energy for our voyage this evening.

Abdul organized one more dinner for us and we traveled to near the medina to a terrace restaurant overlooking one of the very busy streets surrounding the Square. It was our last traditional Morocco meal and we spent it talking about the fantastic adventure we’d just enjoyed.

We spent a couple of hours at the hotel having a final drink with our new friends and then Nanci and I headed for the airport to travel to our next stop on our adventure. It’s currently 6:30 in Madrid (5:30 in Marrakesh) where we are waiting for our flight to Tel Aviv. We join the tour of Israel this evening with the welcoming meeting. And then we’re right back at it. Hopefully after a good night’s sleep tonight.

I can’t say enough great things about Morocco but I’m going to wait until my brain isn’t in a fog to do a wrap up post. Stay tuned.