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Published: September 22nd 2018
Greetings from the town of Essaouira (pronounced ”Essa-weera”), located on the Atlantic coast. Unfortunately Susan is sick. She started to feel not very well last evening at dinner (we left the restaurant early) and went right to bed when we got back to our riad. She had some yogurt for breakfast, but didn’t enjoy the pancake, Moroccan crepe, and fried egg as I did. I sure like their homemade yogurt and fresh orange juice.
We headed out about 9:15, for our drive to Essaouira, a drive of about 3 hours including stops. I don’t think I mentioned that the buildings in Marrakech are mostly all constructed with a pretty pinkish stone. We travelled through the Ville Nouvelle, quite a nice area of Marrakech. It is now just the 8 of us in the minibus so we have more room to stretch out. Susan and I were at the front, in case she had to quickly exit for the WC, but she ended up moving to some seats in the back where it was quieter (Abdul and our driver Mustapha were chatting). A lot of our group has had stomach issues, and now it seems Susan has it. (She is napping
now in our room).
The drive from Marrakech to Essaouira was through mostly flat, dry landscape. After we left Marrakech we passed pomegranate orchards, and vineyards. There is also a winery in this area. We passed some mud brick structures and mud brick walls. Lots of olive groves, and sheep grazing in the fields. We passed small town schools with girls walking nearby in their white coat uniforms and colourful headscarfs. Children go to school on Saturdays in Morocco. They only get Sundays off.
We passed rocky dry fields, but something must be cultivated here because I saw a group of people in the field, either tending or harvesting plants. We stopped at the town of Chichoua where Abdul picked up some water for us. This area is known for its watermelon and honeydew melon. We’ve been enjoying both those melons. We made a coffee/WC stop after about 1.5 hours, and I had another excellent coffee with milk. Susan stayed in the minibus.
As we neared Essaouira the only trees in the area are argan and olive trees. Argan is a type of nut that is used for cosmetics (unroasted) and eating (roasted). We passed a few
trees filled with goats. Yes, goats. The goats climb the argan trees to eat the leaves, particularly when there is little vegetation on the ground for them to eat. This year there has been a lot of rain so the goats don’t need to climb the trees for the leaves. Because seeing goats in trees attracts tourists, some unscrupulous people tie numerous goats in the trees, where they are stuck all day. The tourists stop, and give money for photos. Because this is unethical and definitely not good for the goats, we didn’t stop to encourage this practice. I did, however, snap a few photos from the bus as we passed, just because it’s such an unusual sight.
We stopped at Afous Argan, a women’s argan product cooperative. They explained how the nut is extracted from the outer and inner shells, and how the oil is produced from the nut. It is extremely labour intensive though I assume it is not all done by hand today. I bought some cream and soap (Susan wasn't well enough to come into the shop and stayed in the minivan). I was glad there was a WC here, as I suddenly was in
need of one. I think I may be having stomach issues of my own.
About 20 minutes later we arrived in Essaouira, a town of about 80,000. The name of the town means “ramparts” for the protective walls that surround the town. We are staying in Hotel Miramar, located right across from the beach and we all have rooms with sea views. Nice big room and bathroom, but no air conditioning so it is very warm in the room. We have the door to the balcony open to get the breeze, but there is not much of one now. It is usually quite windy here and cooler than the 34 degrees it is now. Even a ceiling fan would help but there isn’t one.
I can hear the waves crashing now, which is nice, and also the guy on the beach playing 80s and 90s pop music (there has been a selection including Tracy Chapman and Michael Jackson) which isn’t quite as nice! He isn’t bad though.
We will meet Abdul at 4 for a walk around the area, ending up at a silversmiths. We want to have pendants made with our name in Berber. Unfortunately Susan
is not up for the tour. I’m hoping my friend Immodium will do the trick and I won’t have to make any emergency WC stops!
Well, it’s now close to midnight and I am ready for bed but wanted to finish the blog first. I wasn’t feeling too great, but met Abdul, along with Barb, Annie and Linda, for our walking tour of Essaouira. It was really good and I am loving Essaouira. We walked to the fishing port where all the small blue boats head off each morning to fish. Abdul will select some fresh fish from the fishermen tomorrow morning, and will take it to a little restaurant in the medina where it will be grilled for us, along with veggies.
On the way to the port we stopped at an ATM so I could take out some money. The machine ate my bank card! Luckily the currency exchange office next door (part of the bank I guess) was open, and luckily I had my passport with me, so the woman working there was able to retrieve my bank card for me. Phew! Later as I was walking I realized I had put in the wrong
PIN (for some reason I only used the first 4 numbers of the 6 number PIN). So it was totally my fault. And on the way back I tried again, this time with the correct PIN, and it worked fine. 😊
After the port we wandered through the medina, which is the nicest, most picturesque medina we have been in. It is much smaller than the Fes or Marrakech medinas, and there are no donkeys pulling loads or crazy people on motorbikes. It was really enjoyable walking around and looking at the beautiful art work, woodwork and other goods. And taking loads of photos of all the beautiful doors. This morning Abdul was playing some beautiful music in the minibus, so I bought a CD of the same music from a shop in the medina. It is instrumental oud music.
We ended up at a school where people are taught silversmithing, and checked out the shop full of beautiful silver jewellery. The prices are set but Abdul gets us a small discount. I ordered a necklace for both Susan and I with our name written in Berber, and a small plain Berber symbol pendant for me. They will
be ready the day after tomorrow. We leave Essaouira that afternoon at 1 pm, so I can pick them up in the morning. And I will leave lots of room for additional shopping, because hopefully Susan will be better by then and will come with me. I hope she likes the design of the necklace, because she wasn’t there to give her opinion. (Mom, I got your message and I‘ll look for earrings for you when we pick up our necklaces.)
We got back to the hotel about 7 pm, and I asked Barb (who is a nurse) to come check on Susan because I thought she had a fever. Barb kindly came over, and had a look at Susan. Barb said that Susan could take the medication that Annie and Linda had given her (from when they were sick earlier), and said that should bring down the fever. We gave her the medication, I made sure she was as comfortable as possible, and I headed out to meet the others for dinner. We ate at a restaurant just a few minutes away, which was really good. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast and I wasn’t sure how my stomach
was going to handle the food, but I feel pretty good now. I had a Flag Special beer, and a fish tagine. The tagine was good but the fish had a lot of bones. I brought back Susan a Schwepps Lemon and a packet of plain rice, and a couple of pieces of the very nice baguette. She ate a little bit. I’m really hoping she feels a lot better tomorrow. My friend Immodium once again came to the rescue, and I was fine on the almost 3 hour walking tour.
Off to sleep now, tomorrow we are meeting at 1 pm to head out for our fish lunch. I’m not setting the alarm, so it will be really nice to sleep in! Breakfast is served until 10:30, so we can have a leisurely morning.
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Dorothy Smith
non-member comment
Poorly You ...
I do hope you both feel better very soon.