Then we got back in the Dodge Sedan, which Papa had parked in the shade beside the town walls so it wasn’t too much of an oven inside, and we carried on down the coast.
Our next stop was Oualidia and we reached it by lunchtime. Papa had planned that we were going to stay the night there in order to break our journey and also to visit the lagoons, which are famous for their bird life. Our small hotel was nice and comfortable and Annette and I had our own beds, so that was a relief.
There wasn’t much homework for me to do at Oualidia. There had once been a harbour there but because of the currents in the ocean it silted up quite a long time ago. That was quite an interesting fact to write down in my geography book, but there wasn’t much more to say about the town and its old port.
The next morning, we left our hotel early so that we could visit the lagoons. It was a spectacular sight. The morning sun slanted on the calm surface of the water, protected from the ocean by a line of sand dunes, where about a million birds were starting their day. Elegant flamingos stood in the shallows, ruffling feathers the colour of the sunrise and arching their long necks. Their graceful movements made me think of Josephine Baker: they were just as exotic as she is too. Occasionally a group of them would start all walking in the same direction at once and the way they carefully placed their feet at the end of their long legs reminded me of the ballet dancers we watched performing in Swan Lake at L’Opéra when Papa booked a private box for us as a Christmas treat in Paris last year. That feels like another lifetime ago now.
Larger, duller storks stood around here and there, enviously watching their more flamboyant neighbours with baleful eyes. And everywhere else you looked there were smaller birds, busily going about the business of searching for their breakfast in among the green stems of the papyrus plants – all sorts of different kinds of ducks and gulls and a bird with an interesting upwardly curved beak, which Maman says is called an avocet. It’s hard to describe the memorable sight of all those birds who have made their home on that peaceful lagoon, but here are a few words from the thesaurus: a remarkably magnificent multitude; a splendidly spectacular extravaganza; an astonishingly marvellous throng; an impressively resplendent horde. All in all, I would say it was utterly superlative.
I picked up a flamingo feather that was floating on the water as a souvenir and collected one for Nina too. Maman explained that the feathers of flamingos are really white, but they turn their beautiful coral colour as a result of the tiny creatures the birds eat, sifted from the water with their bills. She warned me that the colour might not last on the feathers I’d found, but I didn’t mind that, as long as it lasts until I can give Nina hers so that she can get an idea of what a sight it had been. It was the middle of the morning by the time we tore ourselves away from the lagoon and set off on our way again.
We stopped for lunch at Cap Beddouza and admired the lighthouse there, but there was no port and the beaches looked wild and inhospitable, with powerful waves. Once again, I jotted down the answers to the questions on the sheet Miss Ellis had given me and drew a sketch of the lighthouse. And once again I noticed Papa writing in his own little notebook and then tucking it safely back inside the pocket of his jacket.
We had to open all the doors of the Dodge Sedan to let the seats cool down a bit so they wouldn’t burn our legs, and then we carried on to our next overnight stop, which was to be at Safi.
Three very interesting things about Safi are:
It is one of the main centres for the weaving of Moroccan carpets;
There are many argan trees growing along the road to the town and goats like to climb into them to eat the tasty and nutritious nuts;
It is the main fishing port in Morocco for sardines.
Apparently the Portuguese like sardines very much, which may be why they settled in the town in 1488 and built another of their fortresses to defend it. The fishing fleet in the harbour was so big that I had to make a rough estimate of the number of boats as there were too many to count precisely. Some of them were bigger than the boats we’d seen in the other ports so far on our journey, which led me to deduce that the channel leading into the harbour and the port itself must be deeper than in those other places. I sketched the fort and the harbour and answered the questions on the sheet, and then we went to look at the weavers at work in the medina. Their carpets are beautiful, made from yarns that have been dyed in vivid shades of pink, purple, red, blue and orange. They reminded me of the wildflowers on the farm where the horses live. I wished we could buy one to replace the rather dull rug beside my bed at home in the Boulevard des Oiseaux – it would be like stepping on to a cloud dyed with the colours of the sunrise every morning. But I knew it would be a waste of money as we’d have to leave it behind when we go to America. Watching the weavers at work, I could see why some of Nina’s stories involve magic carpets that can fly. Women work at the frames, tying thousands of tiny knots in the different coloured yarns, and I was fascinated as the complicated patterns began to take shape beneath their deft fingers. I have no idea how the women keep the designs in their heads. I asked one of them and she explained that it’s a tradition that has been handed down from generation to generation. She’d learned the patterns from her mother and would teach them to her own daughter when she was old enough. She let me try my hand at tying a few knots, but my attempts were pretty clumsy and she had to redo them. The women all laughed, but in a friendly way, their fingers still flying even as they watched my efforts and chatted to each other.