Essaouira

The city through a fog of seagulls.

Essaouira is a hip little city on the coast. It’s the most liberal place we’ve been to in Morocco – chic European styles seemed more common than headscarves and traditional dress. It was also much cooler, temperature-wise, than everywhere else we’ve been. A good breeze off the ocean kept the air pleasant, even in the middle of the day. We loved it.

Tidepooling! Loads of sea hares!

We stayed in a lovely hotel in the medina, the old part of town that’s totally free of cars. Every morning we heard the clippity-clop of the mule-drawn delivery trucks and ate breakfast in the “breakfast saloon.” The medina is ringed by the old city walls, some forty feet high. Most of Morocco’s old cities have these perimeter walls, but in Essaouira you can get up on top of them. There’s an amazing section, right by the edge of the water, that looks out over the ocean. We enjoyed going up there for sunsets, as did the locals.

Amber taking in the view from one of the towers on the city walls

Just outside the medina is the port, which looks a lot like ports all over the world. There’s an amazing wooden boatworks on one side, where we got to see new boats in various stages of construction. Very cool.

One completed and one under construction

During our time in Essaouira, we got to explore a few more of the local foods. One definite highlight was garbanzo and fava beans, served by a friendly woman who set up her cart on a corner every afternoon. She ladled them out of a huge vat, wrapped them in cones of used printer paper, and sprinkled them with cumin, salt, and pepper. Yummy! And a fist-sized amount was only 2 dirham…about twenty five cents! We also partook of the local seafood. The Atlantic coast of Morocco is famous for its sardines. And these are not the little finger-sized sardines that come in a tin in the US. They’re 6 inches long, meaty, and just as oily as the little ones. The boats bring em’ in, the outdoor fish grills buy them, and then cook them according to order. We had sardines, along with sole, white-fish, red snapper, shrimp, and squid, at one of the grills right by the port. Lastly, we had some of the best ice-cream we have ever eaten – incredibly rich, pure, and not too sweet. One day Matt had ice-cream three times it was so delicious!

Local fishing boat in drydock. Some of these looked really old, and barely afloat.

Essaouira is also well-known for its Eleonora’s Falcons, which nest on the off-shore Ile de Mogador. They’re a very local species, found only in the Mediterranean and North Africa. We saw individuals here and there, flying to and from a nearby island. But we saw most of them at night on the enormous lighted beach zipping to and fro catching bugs.

Sunset from the Essaouira city walls.