by Allan McGregor

Created on: February 12, 2009   Last Updated: February 16, 2009

Lazing under a cloudless azure sky, sipping strong black coffee on the cafe forecourt, there was little to trouble me on this bright January morn on Agadir's Rue de Marrakech.

Global Warming? Not so you notice. Moroccan winters are supposed to be warm and this year has actually been unusually chilly. A comfortable 26 Celsius in the sunshine, cooler air temperatures in the shade transformed this to a mere 16 degrees, an uncharacteristic 10 degree margin that prompted many locals to wrap up in their woolly hats and quilted jackets against the perceived cold, even while we Glaswegian holidaymakers adopted a more sanguine short-sleeved attire, enjoying what to us are comfortable summer temperatures.

Locals and more seasoned travellers to Morocco simply expect it to be warmer at this time of year, and Moroccans are feeling the chill. One afternoon, molten snow from the nearby High Atlas Mountains fell as rain on Agadir, reducing street temperatures from 19 degrees to nine within minutes and certainly, what we observed accords much more closely with Russian Academy of Science predictions of a mini Ice Age to occur between 2012 and 2015, with continued global cooling until 2050, than the Global Warming hysteria so prevalent here in the West and that has so readily captivated our political and media elite.

But for mid-January Scottish visitors the Moroccan weather during our week's break there was a beautiful as the land and the people we encountered. We stayed at the Three Star Hotel Kamal, on the Avenue Hassan II (the town's central concourse). Cheap and centrally located, the Kamal is clean and unpretentious or, if you are accustomed to Five Star luxury, what might be described as 'basic'. The staff are friendly, patient and helpful, and great ambassadors for their country, all of whom speak good English, a skill not shared by every Moroccan, as this country is a former French protectorate whose children are fluent in Berber, Arabic and French, but where English is a tertiary language learned, if at all, from the age of fifteen.

Bilingual signs are everywhere in Arabic and French in a society that is a curious melange of French cafe culture and Arab hospitality. Only ten percent of Moroccans are Arab in fact, with ninety percent of the population, Berber, the indigenous fair-skinned and formerly nomadic people, who have gradually settled in Morocco over the centuries, after their westerly migration across North Africa met the Atlantic Ocean. Indeed, one of our tour

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