Day 59 - Essouria to Agadir

Woke up on time, had a poo in a bush nearby then went back to others. We had breakfast whilst they were getting up then they had breakfast which delayed the agreed leaving time by maybe 15 or 20 mins. It was good just being the three of us - it was like our previous 'Istanballers' tour again. We stopped at a cafe/tourist shop area for breakfast at around 10-10.30am and it was starting to get pretty hot. We sat in a nice courtyard area and ordered large omelettes. I got chatting to some Belgians who were doing some charity work with schools further north in Morocco. The omelette was really nice and of course came with the standard round bread. I got the speaker out as there was virtually no other customers around and had a nice chill out after the food. We creamed up and left between 1 - 1.5 hours after arriving. The next section (as was the majority of the day in fact) was inland, undulating and hot. There were no big towns all day and the scenery was awesome. At one point just before we stopped for lunch I had a pretty close call with an overtaking car driving in the opposite direction - I wasn't in imminent danger just had to slow down to let the cars pass. Another standard bread and chocolate spread lunch break in a small town and we pushed on. When we got within about 25-30km of Agadir the road we were on changed from a southerly direction into an easterly direction causing our tailwind to turn into a sidewind. We didn't expect it to be as mental as it was - easily the strongest cross winds I have ever ridden in we had to take it slow and steady, lean into the wind to stop getting blown over whilst having to move out of the way of passing vehicles which themselves created a strong draft when overtaking. So it was a case of trying to maintain a reasonably straight line somewhere in the middle of our side of the road (we would have been blown over had we been at the edge) Tom even fell off at one point. These conditions slowed progress significantly - thankfully this only lasted about 30 mins/about 6 or 7kms as the road turned south again. After the winds it was fast and relatively easy riding. Chris stopped at a beach and wanted to go on a jet ski. I told him he could go on a jet ski if we were still on budget when we got to Dakhla. We arrived in Agadir just after 6pm, saw a McDonalds as we headed into the centre so decided to stop here to check where the Ibis budget was (we had looked this up last night when having dinner in Essouira). Chris and Tom had a meal as didn't eat that much at lunch - I was ok as had a massive lunch. We got the directions without having to wait too long for wifi to load so collected our bikes from the car parking bay and made our way towards the hotel (Chris was very tired and wanted to go to one of the other hotels we had passed to save having to go this few extra km's to the Ibis budget). Anyway we followed the road towards the hotel. We had passed the standard Ibis and were now heading towards the cheap Ibis in a less attractive part of town. Some guys invited us over for some food when they saw us cycle past which was nice and we may well have joined them if they'd been next to our hotel. Anyway we found the hotel soon enough next to a major road away from other houses and people. We left our bikes stood in a corner in the trusted hands of the car park security guard. Then came to paying - they were asking 100 dirhams or so more than what was advertised for the same room on their website. I wasn't having this and after some discussion the price was matched to the price on the website. We went up to the room - it was pretty small but had everything we needed (decent beds, shower, toilet and wifi). Shortly later the receptionist came to our room. Saying he'd made a mistake when checking us in and had not charged us enough for our room and that someone would have to go down to reception and pay the balance. I was tired and irritable so well up for an argument. So I went down to reception in nothing but a pair of shorts to talk with the manager. After about 10 minutes of me repeating to him that 'it's your problem for not charging us enough for the room, we are already in, and have already paid what we agreed on arrival, we will not pay the extra money you are asking for' he finally gave in and let it go. I then forgot what room we were staying so had to go back down and ask at reception. Tom had got the gas stove out and was knocking up some slaggy tuna on the window sill. I went down to use the hotel computer by reception for a Facebook session. I managed to eventually upload 5 photos out of maybe 50 that I wanted to due to the computer being a bit dodgy. By the time I went back to the room Chris and Tom were in bed getting ready to go to sleep. I had the slaggy tuna they had left me and went to bed promptly after at maybe midnight.