On the water

Valentine's weekend part 4.

Part 1 here.

Part 2 here.

Part 3 here.

After asking the owners of the hotel about how to best spend the last 5 hours of our stay, we realized how tiny Oualidia really was, and that this was about all there was to do (other than flying off of ATVs and such):

But as sandy grilled fish didn't sound particularly appealing at 10am, we wanted to find another way to spend a few hours before heading back the the metropolis. We could have headed back to the rocks we hung out on the day earlier, but once in two days seemed enough to me.

We remembered that while dumping sand out of our shoes the day before—post-ATV session, naturally—a guy had asked us is we wanted a boat ride. No boats being evident and Othman's hands needing some minor first aid, we didn't think much of it. But driving down the road to the beach Sunday morning I photographed this view and realized these boats in the lagoon were too pretty to be fishing boats.

We drove down close to the lagoon and while I took some unsuccessful pictures of seagulls in flight, a local struck up a conversation with O, and long story short, we were gonna get our boat ride. We parked the Sandero where it could enjoy the scenery, 

and walked down to the water to find our boat, the Flamingo,

and got in.

On the trip up and back down the lagoon the guy, Ahmed, and Othman talked in Darija while I took pictures and tried to avoid raindrops and the biting wind. O translated for me that the area was a big player in bird habitat conservation in Morocco due to the amount of species that thrive there. I remembered the bird from the day before, and more were certainly in evidence:

As my attention wandered from the birds and the chatter behind, I noticed cool layers inside and outside of the boat,

and a LOT of other cute tourist boats hanging around. We saw quite a few filled with people, including one that quite randomly seemed to be filled with English schoolboys, but unwilling to risk provoking anyone I just photographed the empty ones.

The ride was fun and we really enjoyed it, despite the gloomy weather. Plus O made a friend who can hook us up with places to eat and things to do if we return in the future.

Though it was rife with bad luck and mishaps, as our mini-vacation came to a close we were relaxed, smiling and very happy to have gone on it. We were determined to enjoy our time away, and the fact that we did indeed have a wonderful time just goes to show that life really is what you make of it!