Not wanting to leave Essaouira just yet, I decided to finally take part in the included breakfast, and as it turns out they do a better breakfast here than at the Ramada in Milwaukee.

Lounging on the rooftop terrace, it was finally time to pack up my bike and go, except the riad proprietor totally disagreed with my plan. Standing there and ready to leave with my belongings, he told me that I didn't want to go deal with the extreme hassle of getting a grands taxi, plus I wasn't likely to get a good deal at this time of day.

Instead, he insisted that I should stay in Essaouira and go for a nice seaside walk or enjoy the medina some more, and he seemed genuinely interested in making my afternoon more pleasant - which he reiterated would occur if I instead took the cheap, relaxing scheduled bus to Agadir later this afternoon.

Ignoring him, I found my way to the northern medina gate yet again, this time looking for the grands taxis area. It was underwhelming. I was hoping for some hubbub and people looking to head to Agadir, but instead it didn't look like there were any passengers looking to go anywhere.

Finding it hard enough to even find the guy in charge of the grands taxis, he told me the price to Agadir was 600 dirhams ($82 CAD). Instead of sharing the car with 6 people and paying 100 dirhams each, because no one was around, I was given the full price of paying for the whole car right off the bat.

I came back with something at the other end of the cost spectrum, which he laughed at and said 500 dirhams. Continuing to try and work my angle, this guy was like bald-headed Rick from Pawn Stars and laughing at my offers.

The price was apparently going to be 500 dirhams or I'd be lounging around Essaouira for the afternoon like my riad proprietor wanted.

I started to think and I know about my responsibility to haggle to help future tourists, but this was also a matter of making a stand over 25 Canadian dollars. Here I was, with only so much vacation time, spending a good amount of money to get to Morocco, and this may be the greatest adventure of my life. I'm going to miss out on a new city I want to see in Agadir, over a difference of 25 Canadian dollars?

Ending my little theatric performance of walking off towards nowhere in particular to show the grands taxi guy I was serious, I returned and said 400 dirhams would work. "500 dirhams" he amusedly replied, and soon enough I was in the back of the old Benzo with cloth interior and a blanket seat cover, sitting there while the man tried in vain to see if anyone in the nearby cafes wanted to go south to Agadir.

Soon enough we were off but I was only in the Mercedes for a very short time, before I was transferred to a van that had a couple other passengers. We'd also stop at about 5 random places before we could even get very far from Essaouira, picking up some people who remained in the van, while also picking up some people who only went minute distances usually covered by a typical city taxi back home.

It was going to take a while to get to Agadir at this rate. I started wondering if that bus would've got me there quicker, but I was also loving the whole experience of stopping in all these places and this unconventional way of travelling.

In a country where they have a system of selling all six seats in an old Mercedes Benz sedan, I was wondering if I was going to have to pay for a seat for my bike on all of these grands taxi journeys I had planned.

Instead, the van driver swung my bike/golf bag up on the roof and gave me a comforting smile as he tied it down with a system of ropes he pulled from the back. Tugging on the ropes and making sure I approved, I supposed it seemed secure enough.

I made a note to keep an eye on the side mirror for a bike tumbling down the highway, like my War Pig on the Windsor Expressway fifteen years ago.

We dropped off most of the people in short order and only a few passengers continued through the thick of the journey between Essaouira and Agadir.

One of the things I loved about this means of travel was that my driver would stop to try and pick up people, stop to attend to some business, and stop for tea or a smoke here and there. All of this allowed me to get out of the car in places I'd otherwise wouldn't find myself on foot, appreciating the hectic pace and sights of towns like Smimou and Tamanar.

If only Panoramio was still around to add these pictures to my map.

At this point I'd only been to the airport and train station in Casablanca, explored one street of Marrakech, and then got around Essaouira, Ouassane and Sidi Kaouki - which were all really sleepy and/or polished.

To get out in these non-touristy dusty villages, felt like I was getting into greater obscurity and another side of Morocco.

As we got closer to Agadir, we stopped right outside of a lighthouse, but just a tad too far away for it to count. The driver asked me if I wanted to go and take some pictures, but I couldn't inconvenience the fellow passengers just because I have this strange obsession with lighthouses. I'm sure I'll be back 40km northwest of Agadir Morocco soon enough anyway, right?

Another place I was tempted to stop was in Taghazout, where they have a decent-looking DIY skatepark (above). This even went as far as having accommodations booked, but I simply had to eat the $5.50 CAD cost when there wasn't enough time.

I'll have to visit Taghazout when I go back for the Cap Ghir Lighthouse one day.

It felt like I must've paid a good sum for this ride to Agadir, because it seemed like I was getting a bit of preferential treatment, my new friend asking what hotel I was in and trying to get directions from me to drop me off right in the area.

Grabbing my room at the hotel and free from my heavy belongings, I rushed back out to head up to the bus station in order to buy a ticket for tomorrow. The above picture shows the street that I thought the bus station was on.

As it turns out the bus company is marked on Google Earth, but it's the bus warehouse, not the bus station. A handful of confused dudes peered over me as I walked up into their doorway, only to see a warehouse of boxes and roller conveyors.

Next door there was a tiny cafe with no one inside and I figured it was a good place to get caffeinated and take a break from walking around Agadir. The cafe was run by a young woman who didn't speak a lick of English and it was fun to simply hand over my phone for the WiFi password, instead of working through the language barrier of numbers and letters.

I could've used a North American-sized coffee, but this thing was still good. The lunchtime mille-feuille pastry was downright fantastic and I briefly considered grabbing another, but didn't want the woman thinking I was some kind of gluttonous animal.

The bus station was only a short walk away from the mille-feuille cafe, where unfortunately I passed a really interesting looking market, but I didn't have any extra time.

After grabbing my ticket at the station, I decided on a cab to get back to the hotel as time was running tight. The cabbie told me the rate was 50 Moroccan dirham, which is absurd for a 3-km ride, but I again found myself spending the money instead of spending the time to argue about money.

Getting my bike together and racing back out of the hotel and into the evening, I went over to the nearby Shell and used another one of those fantastic overseas air pumps. My headset was still loose and now my back axle nut was partially stripped, so I gingerly tightened it just enough that it was at that breaking point, then wrote off rotation into grind tricks that exert force on the back end.

I also briefly considered that I should maybe fix my bike before spending the money and effort to bring it somewhere like Morocco.

That thought was especially frustrating here in Agadir, where an earthquake flattened the city in 1960 and resulted in the whole place needing to be rebuilt. Considering the year, it was rebuilt with the style and architecture of a 1960s Spanish seaside resort. This means all kinds of biking plazas and squares, to the point that distant Agadir attracts pro BMXers.

My intention is not to be callous about the Agadir earthquake here. It was a horrible thing with 12,000-15,000 people killed, and in areas where all of the buildings consisted of rammed earth, everything turned to dust and you had survival estimates such as 10 people out of 5000.

The destruction was so bad that they couldn't get rescuers or cleanup to Agadir anywhere close to quick enough. As the dead started to decompose and create dangerous conditions, the decision was made to spread quicklime over those areas to destroy the corpses, accepting the fact that buried survivors would be collateral damage. Helicopters and trucks sprayed DDT over the destruction to control the flies, rat poison was spread to kill the rats that had fled the destroyed sewer system, larger stray animals were shot as they fed on corpses.

The rebuilt Agadir is now a strangely different city compared to all of the bustle and condensed intensity of other Moroccan cities. It can be quiet in some of the squares, with some of the boulevards nearly empty just like unwalkable boulevards of North America, while the remainder of the city shines in its plazas, parks and beachside esplanade.

Continuing to ride around, there was yet another public square with smooth curved ledges and a big out ledge. I had to laugh as I underestimated the straight-out ledge from the stairs and ended up riding off something I normally wouldn't have done on my own.

There were also some great, white painted ledges along a staircase from the restaurant and market road, up to the road with my hotel. This was the problem with Agadir though, that there were such great spots that it hurt to leave some of the tricks on the table when I didn't want to do them by myself at night.

I even got into broken record-mode riding up to something and thinking about doing it alone because it was just so perfect, but eventually decided against it.

Dinner was at the English Pub, which was right next to those white ledges. I can't remember why I thought the English Pub was so funny - maybe its gaudiness? - but it was a giant mediocre pizza with a giant mediocre beer with some mediocre football clubs playing on the TV.

Going to the English pub was one of the worst decisions of the trip, lol.

Thankfully Rebel Wilson was on the TV when I got back to the hotel!

This meant I was able to send a picture of this to Donnie and Steve because, you know, they just can't get enough Rebel Wilson's crass humour. Except I didn't really come out ahead with making fun of them, as they wondered WTF I was doing in Morocco sitting in my hotel room watching Pitch Perfect II. Drats.

Speaking of the hotel, I was excited by the options in Agadir because there were a lot of lingering holiday relics like I'd imagine I'd find in Las Vegas or Atlantic City. Booking one that looked really outdated but had okay reviews, the Hotel Adrar felt like when you visit a mid-sized American city and you stay at that one hotel that's past its glory days, where the new owners are hanging on and settled into the budget market. It was the Moroccan version of the Millennium Hotel in Cincinnati.

(I actually love the Millennium Hotel in Cincinnati and I hope it never changes/closes.)

As for Donnie & Steve, they can go away, because I was back at the hotel to get up early and hit the Agadir skatepark before moving along after less than 24 hours in this city.

Riding along through the quiet streets around 8am, the fear of God was put into me as I rode into a city park and along a sidewalk towards the skatepark. From joy and happiness to be out riding towards something I was excited for, suddenly I skidded sideways as two hell hounds lost their minds barking and growling at me from up on a wall.

It was only in the realization that neither dog wanted to jump down from the 5-ft wall, that my heart rate slowly clicked back down to its normal rate. I was happy to still have my jewels intact as I instead left the city park for the safety of a nearby road.

As it turns out, the skatepark was a total bust.

The funny thing is in a city such as Agadir that's known for its incredible ridable architectural objects, I'm not such a park rat that I would still seek out the skatepark. It's just that I saw pictures of Agadir's skatepark and it looked so unique and fun that I had to ride it.

Except that as I went to ride the obscure, overly wide bank-to-ledge with wall behind it, I went for a back peg stall, dropped back down, then noticed a head peeking out of the square building's doorway. Apparently the parks maintenance building houses one of Agadir's homeless.

Dude went back inside, but I'm not so self-involved that my riding a ledge was worth bothering this guy in his home.

There were also beautiful down ledges with various configurations, but someone had stolen the angle iron and left behind only the supporting screws as effective skatestoppers.

I couldn't believe I almost got rabies for this place, but then again, I suppose I often flirt with frostbite for the lowly Corner Brook skatepark.

Leaving the skatepark early just meant more time at this unbelievable rail spot that already caused me to wake up even earlier.

So after riding the curved ledges of Place Al Amal again, it was right back to this rail as I just had to savour a few last licks. It blew my mind the craziness that you would see go down on this thing if it was in your hometown, not to mention the craziness I'd already seen pro-BMXer Alex Donnachie do to it in video. A random old lady smiled as I hopped the rail over and over again while thinking about working up to something else.

Begrudgingly, but also tiredly, I rode back to my hotel and got everything apart and ready for the next town. Funny enough, this time the cab ride was only 30 Moroccan dirhams, haha.

Continue to Part 6...