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Published: March 14th 2011
Seaside North of Agadir
Very beautiful and very cleanOnly about 160km for Enis to drive today. At least he was earning his keep one way. I was very happy about that. Not so happy about all the money I loaned him to buy carpets for his shop in Selcuk, Turkey. I'd begun to realize just how difficultu it would be to get it back. But I digress.
We had breakfast at Yacout in Agadir. Yep, bread again. And some kind of strange soup that was not good. It was like watery grits. If you're from the South, you know what grits are. Yacout is listed as 'the' breakfast spot in the Lonely Planet. Sorry LP. You are one of my dearest friends but I think you got this one wrong. We were served bread and more bread with little jam and butter, strange soup, and fresh OJ which was lovely, and coffee at a reasonable price, but on a dirty tray with dirty utensils, which was a common experience for us in Morocco.
Went to an internet cafe, took pictures of the big mosque, and we were on the road. I was interested in buying some argan oil which is only found in Morocco I believe. About
En Route to Essaouira
Us, not the sheep. We saw five that must have gotten separated from their flock. 80km north of Agadir is a village that hosts Cooperative Amal. I forget the name of the village and it is not mentioned in LP, but Cooperative Amal is. These cooperatives ensure that the women who extract the oil are paid fairly. We saw them hard at work cracking the nuts, and let me tell you, it would be hard work to collect the argan after the goats eat and digest it, crack the nuts, extract the middle part, and press it to get the oil. We just saw the cracking part of the process. The women sat on the ground in a large clean room. They looked comfortable enough and some had their children with them. Their hands were very skilled at cracking the nuts. It looked like a clean and professional enough operation and we bought 200 ml of pure argan oil for about 45 USD I think and Enis got his mom some hand cream for about 9USD. Hmm. That's odd. He hadn't bought me anything yet. Or paid for anything, for that matter. Argan oil is not cheap, but the processing is difficult. Hope it does half of what I hope it will do for my
Cooperative Amal
They are cracking the argan nuts. hair. Water in Selcuk is very hard and is taking a toll on my hair.
After our productive visit we were on our way again. We had a beautiful drive from Agadir to Essaouira. The seaside north of Agadir is stunning and very clean, which surprised me given how dirty the towns and cities are. When we arrived in Essaouira we managed to drive straight to a parking area only a few meters from our hotel. We were staying at Villa Maroc (990 MAD for a double) and I had booked this hotel as a splurge and a surprise for Enis. I regreted this expensive surprise later as Enis Gullu did not deserve it. This hotel totally exceeded my expectations and we just enjoyed being in the hotel and wandering around. It is absolutely beautiful and so tastefully decorated. The service was professional and the staff was friendly - and when Enis tipped the bellhop he didn't ask for more! The bellhop, that is. I will let the pictures speak for themselves.
I was not just excited about the hotel. I had read about Essaouira in a book and a magazine and had high expectations of the town
as well. We managed to drag ourselves away from Villa Maroc to walk around the medina. We were both glad to have arrived in early afternoon. The medina was not so big and had a very different feel than the one in Fez. It felt safe! We took some photos of the bright, colorful textiles and beautiful things for sale. We ate a Moroccan style sandwich from a small stand trying to recreate the one we had in Fez. It was good, but not as good as what we had in Fez and not as cheap. We wandered for a while and of course, ended up talking to a carpet dealer for about an hour. Of course. I guess this was a working holiday, for one of us anyway. For one of us, it was a lovely holiday with long moments of frustration and boredom while the other did business. We went to Gelateria Dolce Freddo at the big square by the seaside, and very close to our hotel, for gelato. Enis had never had Italian ice cream. He liked it and said he would definitely eat it again. I didn't mention that I hoped he was paying next time.
Argan Nuts
after they've been digested by the goats.... This place is in the LP and for good reason! We decided we were ready to go back and enjoy our lovely hotel, so we went to enjoy a drink in the bar by the fire. This was my favorite place in Morocco so far and probably our most relaxing day.
The next morning we enjoyed breakfast on the lovely terrace. Our best breakfast in Morocco and all the dishes were clean! It was very French in that we drank our coffee from a soup bowl and had lovely porridge with fruit. Finally! Not just bread! The seagulls were pretty cheeky though and one managed to get a sugar cube from the table next to us and he knocked over their fresh OJ in the process. Fresh squeezed OJ is very common in Morocco and very cheap!
After our gorgeous breakfast on the terrace, we decided to go for a walk on the beach. It was stunning. Spotlessly clean. And almost no one was out. As we were walking, I saw a woman selling knitted hats she had made herself. She was carrying them in a cardboard box, and may have been on her way to set up
somewhere for the day. The hats were beautiful and I wanted one, so she stopped and let me look. She spoke no English. As I looked at the hats, Enis lit a cigarette and several men walked over and were suddenly curious. I didn't really pay attention. I only had 100 MAD with me, and the woman didn't have change. She hadn't sold anything that day. She was asking 30MAD and I didn't want to buy 3 hats. One of the men said he had change, so I said okay. He gave me 70MAD and took my hundred, but he didn't give the woman 30MAD. I asked him why he didn't give her her money and he said he didn't have it and would give it to her later. Said he saw her all the time. I looked at her face and knew she would never get her money.
At this point, all the men are talking at once, one of them touched my right arm several times in an effort to get my attention or distract me from the money issue, I don't know. What I noticed was that Enis had moved away from the circle, about 10
feet away from me, and was calmly smoking his cigarette. Meanwhile, this woman and I were surrounded, but I didn't really feel threatened. I told the guy who was touching me to stop, and I said 'haram' which means forbidden in Arabic. He stopped. I then insisted that the man who took my money give my 100 MAD back. He did. I gave him his 70 MAD back and I stood close to the woman and gave her hat back to her because as I said, I knew she would never get change. I said in English, "I'm sorry" and in English, she whispered, "Thank you." After I got my money back and started talking to the woman, the men quickly dispersed. Enis continued to smoke his cigarette.
We started walking further down the beach and I was pretty upset. I was angry that he hadn't stood by me. I was angry that he didn't tell that man to stop touching me. He saw it and did nothing. I didn't want to fight, but I had to know. I calmly asked him why he didn't help me. Why he didn't stand by me. He had no idea was I
was talking about. No idea why I might have needed his help. So I explained. His response was that I am like a man and can defend myself.
That is actually true. But that was not the point. He never got the point. He never even said thank you for that night in that stunning hotel. I was starting to question my decision to bring him on a nice holiday to Morocco.
As much as I loved Essaouira, it is a small town and we felt like we had seen it. I also wanted to get to Marrakech before dark to make it easier to find our hotel. I was stressed about driving in Marrakech, but it turned out to be easier than Casablanca I thought. But I wasn't driving. When we got to the outskirts of Marrakech, the police were diverting traffic around something. Well, I didn't want to go a different route because I had just found where we were on the map. So we thought we went around the commotion and turned back on the main road, and ended up driving right into a protest!!!!!!!!! In our obviously rented car!!!!!!! There must have been 100
police and about a 100 young men standing around. But they all looked pretty bored to me and there were loads of people just doing their shopping, drinking tea in the cafes and eating lunch in the restaurants where the protest was, so we figured nothing much was happening. So we turned around, drove out another way, and managed to find our way to a parking garage very near the medina without too much trouble. The first guy we saw charged us 100 MAD for two nights which we thought was normal, than another guy came and said 120 MAD. Enis was furious, took my money back, got in the car, and I had no idea what had happened. Then the first guy said, no, it is only 100 MAD and we stayed and gave him our leftover pizza from lunch.
We knew our hotel was in an alley off the Djemma El Fna, but we didn't know which alley, so we decided to just walk in a circle and look down all the alleys. It was very close to the post office and there was nothing else in that alley! Yeh! We were staying in Hotel Cecil (I
chose it for numerous reasons but it won out over others because Cecil is my dad's name!) It was obviously under construction, but our room was very nice and clean. I think we paid about 550MAD for the two nights. Breakfast was also included, so we had a great location, but a quiet one, nice room, hot water, and breakfast. What a bargain!
We put our stuff in the room and went to check out the Djemma El Fna before dark. We saw a snake charmer and I took a couple of photos. Then he came around and put a small snake around Enis' neck and insisted on taking our picture together. Fine. I'd read in the LP that it is customary to tip 5 to 10 MAD to the performers. So I gave him 5 MAD. He asked for more. I gave him 10 MAD. Here we go again. HE THEN ASKED FOR 200 MAD!!!!!!!!!! I said something my father really would not approve of, tried to take my 10 MAD coin back but he closed his hand, and we stomped off. But we did give his snake back first. We walked around a bit and then headed
Moroccan Lamp
as it is meant to be used. to food stall number 15 for dinner. The guy trying to get customers inside was pretty charasmatic so we sat down and had some chicken and beef and salad and fries. It was good, but not the best we'd had in Morocco. After dinner we wandered around watching the musicians and soothsayers and all the weird people on the Djemma El Fna. We went fishing for Coke, but while Enis did better than most people, we just couldn't catch one. After a wander through the medina, which was fairly clean, and some local streets in the medina, which were filthy, we had some excellent and cheap gelato, and then went back to Hotel Cecil. Our room was surprisingly quiet given how close we were to the Djemma El Fna.
We have one more day in Marrakech and a drive to Casablanca the next day to meet Mr. Ahmed and pick up Enis' purchases... Business again. I hope we at least have time to see the famous mosque there.
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