Tapas to Tajine : Travel to Southern Spain, Morocco and a little of Paris

No Wind in the Wind City

Essaouira was always a fishing port, not a port for trade, etc. Still it required a fort for protection giving it some dramatic buildings to see. It is also very windy so it has become a haven for wind surfers and the like. Then we show up and the wind dies. When we arrived the sea was packed and the beach was empty, now the opposite was true, it became a beach town. The surfers loss was our gain but I feel sorry for those ho traveled so far to find calm conditions.

Today we waked around the city with our guide Jamal seeing the fort, port and various markets. Jamal lives in Marrakech which is not that far (except for the road construction) so he brought his family out so they could have a day on the beach and gave Sydney some children to play with. They spent the afternoon on the beach and were very nice to her. While she was busy Jamal took Kim and I out to an Argan Oil Manufacturer. Argan is one of those plants that has a multiple purposes. To some it is a luxury item and is hard to find outside of Morocco. Look it up on Wikipdia. What was interesting about the factory we visited today is it is a woman’s cooperative. When a married woman loses her husband thru death, divorce or abandonment they will most likely become destitute. In the case of the latter two reasons the tradition holds the woman must have been at fault. So to help them out woman’s cooperatives have formed were they can work together and manufacture something to sell like clothes, rugs and in this case, Argan oil. The whole fruit is utilized, the meat goes to feed tha animals, the pit to fuel and the seed is ground up for oil. It was very tasty.

On the way back we passed many people an donkeys performing various tasks. Our guide calls donkeys ‘Berber Mitsubishis’ a very funny term. He said a man could buy a goat in the market, tie it to the donkey and fall asleep on the donkey which will then go directly to his house. Imagine that, transportation that can find its way home while you sleep. We do not have that in the USA…

Essaouira Morocco

Finally a photo of us.

The beach at Essaouira Morocco

Kim does some work a Argan oil cooperative

Syd in the sand

For 2 Dirhams more you get polished.

Bumping Down The Coast

Time to move on from Fez, We enjoyed it very much and were sad to leave. One of the nice things is the weather cooperated nicely, the oppressive heat one hears about did not happen. Jamal said it was more like January and although we did see a Bank thermometer that said it was 45C it did not feel like that. I think all Bank Thermometers must be broken around the world.

We had a 7:00am flight from Fez to Casablanca. You can guess what time we awoke… Mostly uneventful except for the fact that the Moroccan security treat all travelers like they are International travelers. We (and others like us) were repeatedly asked about where we were going, how much Dinar we had, what to declare on both ends of the trip. They were incredulous that we were only going to ‘Casa’ as they said and we repeated several times that we had a driver meeting us and were not leaving the country for several days. An interesting education in cultural differences.

The trip to Essaouira was long and made longer by major road construction going on. The King is investing heavily in his country and so is Spain we are told. It will cut down on illegal immigration into Europe. But we made it to Essaouira, a windy town known for windsurfing and the like. Very beautiful. Sydney saw her first camel, said it was bigger than she thought it would be.

We are staying at the Palais Heure Bleue, a Relais & Chateax hotel. Very beautiful with an adventuresome feel. An old world travel hotel. As promised we took Sydney swimming after we checked in. She jumped in to the pool and as she swam, call to prayers started across Essaouira.