Essaouira By The Sea

Departing Marrakech was a simple matter of following the major road signs and since we were starting from well clear of the centre of town there were no traffic issues. It was about a three and a half hour drive to Essaouira and with a good road - much of it divided - it was a pretty easy run. We stopped at a little town market along the way and bought some lovely fresh tomatoes and bread rolls to make lunch. We had to park in the shade of a tree with the air con running to have our little picnic lunch in comfort.

Tree climbing goats.

 About an hour short of Essaouira we stopped to see some goats standing on the branches of an argon tree to feed on the nuts. I couldn't help thinking that maybe their owners had at least encouraged them to climb into the tree right next to the road, as they were happy to solicit baksheesh from tourists who stopped to take photos of the spectacle. We ended up giving them a bottle of water and a peach since we didn't have any small change. So what's the big deal about goats eating argon seeds? It's a fact that the goats digestive system only strips the coating off the argon seed shells, which makes the seeds easier to break open and crush to extract the precious argon oil. It is widely believed that this involves retrieving the seed shells from the goat's poop after they have passed them, though more recent investigations have found that most of the time the goats spit the seeds out as they are too big to pass through.

We arrived in Essaouira a little before 3:30pm. Since our riad was inside the medina walls where no cars can go, we had to pay to park outside the walls near the gate nearest to our accommodation. It wasn't a long walk to the riad from the gate, though on our first pass we did over shoot the turn-off into the short dead end lane where it was hiding. Our host - an old guy of Italian origin - had just finished checking in another couple when we arrived, which was pretty good timing since the the check in included a run down of the layout of the medina and some likely places to eat and to watch the sunset.

The magnificent bath.

Actually checking into our room was a bit of a surprise. It turns out that a "private bathroom" is not the same thing as an ensuite. Our bathroom was for our use only but it was in a separate room to our (small) bedroom. The bonus though was that it contained the biggest bath we had ever seen, beautiful tiled in Arabic style, so we determined that we should make use of it during our stay.

Once we had ourselves organised we set off to explore the medina. The town's name of Essaouira apparently means "designed" and the laneways were certainly wider and more organised than we'd seen in other towns. We strolled down the main "street" all the way to the port at the seaward end.

 A view of boats in the port.

Two boys playing with the catch.

Some of the fish for sale.

It appeared that all the fishing boats had been in for a while so there wasn't much still left on the docks to be sold. It was still fairly bustling just the same, with some strange looking fish for sale we'd never seen before. We walked all the way our to the end of the breakwater which protected the harbour. At this point we had to engage in a little creative apparel adjustment to turn Laura's skirt into something like a pair of culottes as the swirling winds were playing havoc with it.

We walked back to the main square, and since we'd had a relatively modest lunch we figured we were due an early dinner. We settled on one of the less swank places which still provided us with a pleasant repast with time to spare to catch the sunset. The sunset in these parts was not until about 7:40pm, which gave us enough time to walk up to the Skala de la Ville, a castle like tower on the northern corner of the medina. It seems this was the place to be at this time of day with lots of people, foreign and domestic, taking in the unobstructed view of the sunset over the Atlantic.

Laura's makeshift culottes.

Viewing the sunset.

After watching the sunset we made our way back through the side streets of the medina to the "main street" we'd taken down to the port. We noted the different individualised craft work available and sellers who were far less "in your face" than those in Marrakech. After the purchase of some water and fruit we were back in our room at the riad for the evening.

After our tasty complimentary breakfast next morning we set off to explore the beach - as you do in a coastal town. First of all we found the post office (for postcards, the sending of) and looked for the Royal Air Maroc office to check that all was still good for our flight to Cairo in two days time. Although we found the RAM office it didn't look like it had opened any time recently so we just continued with our plan for a long walk on the beach.

Laura testing the water.

Camel rides on the beach.

Reflections on the beach.

We ended up walking quite a long way, at least 45 minutes before turning around. Laura dipped her feet in the Atlantic near the start of our walk and immediately decided it was a bit chilly for her taste. About half way up the beach we reached the point where the camel rides started, but we declined the offer of another camel ride, having ticked off that experience in Erg Chebbi. Around the same part of the beach there were a number of wind surfers making the most of the fairly strong winds. The more experienced riders were getting plenty of air over the waves and fanging it out the back. There were also some first time surfers having lessons on big foamies, but no serious surfers were out in the miserable wind blown swell.

Eventually we reached an outcrop of rocks on the beach and used this as our marker to turn around and head back. Along the way I decided to go in for a dip, mostly because I though a bit of salt water up my nose might help clear my sinus after a recent cold. Despite Laura's earlier diagnosis the water actually wasn't so bad and once I had ducked under my first wave it felt good.

I was able to change out of my swimmers in one of the WCs at the back of the beach as we walked back into the medina to look for some lunch. We settled on a little place in the "main" street of the souk that had seating on two upper levels. We had our usual staple of a green salad, a Moroccan salad and a couple of different meat dishes. As usual it was cheap, tasty and filling.

With lunch accounted for we went for a further explore of the medina in search of dessert. We started out looking for a patisserie recommended in LP but when we found it we were a little underwhelmed. It only seemed to have small biscuits and cakes and looked more like a sitting room than a shop. Instead we went for the second choice which according to LP used to be great but had faded somewhat. We considered it to be at least OK and found a couple of nice things amongst those we decided to sample.

Exploring the medina.

Lots of spices for sale.

Once the treats were consumed we did some general exploring. We ended up stumbling upon the Jewish Quarter, though we only knew because someone told us there was a synagogue nearby. Continuing on a roundabout way back to our riad we passed a shop selling little figures and sculptures made by welding together various kitchen implements, tea pots and motor parts. Impressively creative.

Once back in our riad it was time to sample the huge bath. It took a long time to fill enough to make a decent splash but it was nice and relaxing. After resting for an hour or so until the heat started to go out of the day we set out again for one last explore of the medina. We took a few aimless detours and random turns, and at one stage I started taking photos of the many different types of doors that we encountered. We ate dinner, restocked our fruit and water supplies and headed back to our riad.

After another good sleep and another nice breakfast it was time to pack up and head back to Casablanca. It wasn't a long stay in Essaouira but it was very pleasant and I'm sure we could have enjoyed another lazy day there exploring the town and the environs. We considered a detour to see Cape Sim on our way out of town, but we weren't really sure of the way and we had a fairly big drive ahead of us to get back to Casablanca so we decided to just hit the road.