We spent an extra day at El Jadida in order to visit the old town, a World Heritage site. It was built by the Portuguese in the 16th century with surviving fortified walls, and was subsequently modified by the French and Arabs. An important part of the defences was securing a water supply, and a huge cistern was constructed in the centre of the old town for this purpose. It’s open for visiting and a shallow depth of water has been left inside to produce amazing reflections from the sunlight entering through the circular roof opening. The cistern was used as a film location for Orson Welles production of Othello, which I gather was a box office flop, but which has since acquired critical acclaim due to its age. There’s hope for the Carry-On films yet. Shame they didn’t make a “Carry On Cistern”.
Continuing with the frivolity theme, I couldn’t help recording the café sign below. Could this have been Jacque’s dream when he retired, to run a little café in a run- down street in El Jadida?
There also appears to be a thriving ship building industry, for traditional large fishing boats. There were several in various stages of construction, and the one in the picture is in the early stages with just the wooden skeleton. The basic designs are all the same and must go back centuries. Anyone notice a similarity to Noah’s Ark?
Walking back to the campsite from town in the early evening we saw a huge roost of eagrets within a large walled enclosure not open to the public. The photo only captures a small part of it and as dusk was falling hundreds more were flocking in, so there were eventually many thousands of them. It was interesting that within this mass of eagrets was a group of half a dozen crows that were determined not to be intimidated by the influx so stayed firmly put- we’ve got as much right here as you have, mate.
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