Taroudannt (Dh70, six hours), Tan Tan (Dh130, six hours) and Rabat (Dh90, six hours).
Supratours, the ONCF subsidiary, runs buses to Marrakesh train station (Dh70, 2½ hours,
five daily) to connect with trains to Casablanca from the station near Bab Marrakesh. You
should book several days in advance for this service, particularly in summer.
Local bus 5 to Diabat (Dh5) and Sidi Kaouki (Dh6) leaves from Blvd Moulay Youssef outside
Bab Doukkala. There are about eight services a day.
Taxi The grand-taxi rank lies immediately west of the bus station. The fare to Agadir (or
Inezgane) is Dh75.
Getting Around
To get to the airport take bus 5 (Dh10, 15 minutes) or a grand taxi (Dh200). The blue petits
taxis are a good idea for getting to and from the bus station (Dh10) but they can’t enter the
medina. If you’re happy to walk but don’t want to carry your bags, there are plenty of
enterprising men with luggage carts who will wheel your bags directly to your hotel (about
Dh20).
You can hire bikes from Résidence Shahrazed ( 0524 47 29 77; 1 Rue Youssef el-Fassi;
per day Dh100) and Résidence Hôtel Al-Arboussas Offline map Google map ( 0524 47 26 10;
24 Impasse Rue Laâlouj; per day Dh100) .
Cars can be hired from Wind Car ( /fax 0524 47 28 04; Rue Princesse Lalla Amina) for
around Dh450 per day. Avis ( 0524 47 49 26) also has an office at the airport.
Around Essaouira
If you have your own transport, it’s worth taking a trip to one of the small women’s cooperatives
around Essaouira that sell argan products, natural cosmetics and foodstuffs. Try Assafar
Imitaghant ( 0661 55 35 86) 8km from town on the road to Marrakesh or the Coóperative
Tiguemine ( 0524 79 0110) 7km further on. The tourist office has a full list of places to visit.
Best of all, travel south to the village of Tamanar to see the whole argan process at the
Coopérative Amal (Click here ).
ARGAN OIL
Organic argan oil is ‘the new olive oil’, increasingly used in hip restaurants around the world to season salads with its nutty
flavour. The wrinkled argan tree is unique to this part of the world and, as a result, the argan forests of the Souss Valley and the
Haha Coast south of Essaouira have recently been designated by Unesco as a biosphere reserve.
The tree, Argania spinosa, is resistant to heat and survives temperatures up to 50ºC, so is an essential tool in the fight
against desertification in southern Morocco. It has become vital to the local economy, providing firewood, fodder for the goats –
you can see them actually climb into the branches – and oil for humans. Berber women harvest the fruits in spring. They then
feed them to goats, whose digestive juices dissolve the tough elastic coating on the shell. The nuts are then recovered from
the goats’ dung, and the kernels are split, lightly toasted, pulped and pressed.
To produce just one litre of oil takes 30kg of nuts and 15 hours of manual labour, solely done by women. In a recent change
to this tradition, some cooperatives have decided to cut the goats out of the process and are hand-picking fruits from the trees
to produce a more subtle-tasting oil. You can see this whole process in a guided tour at the Coopérative Amal ( 0524 78
81 41; www.targanine.com, in French; Tamanar; admission free; 8am-7pm Mon-Fri), 80km north of Agadir, whose organic