20 to 27 Dec 07

We rolled south towards Essaouira on Thursday 20 December with the fertile land tilled down to the edge of a placid Atlantic.

We quickly noticed that there was much greater activity in the villages than we had seen in previous days. In particular, there were many markets set up along the road with huge crowds and much excitement.

Market day draws huge crowds. Folks arrive by grand taxi, donkey, or just walk.

At the “parking area” opposite the market, the transport waits for the shoppers. It costs 1 Dh to park.

A difference in the time between the bike clock and our watches caused us to get to Essaouira an hour earlier than planned. This gave us plenty of time to have a good look around. We noticed huge crowds in the shopping areas.

By the time we had taken over the apartment at 1500, the reason for all the frantic activity had become apparent. The next day, Friday 21 Dec, was the Feast of the Sacrifice leading into a long weekend when nothing much would be open.

When the penny finally dropped we had only a few hours to get enough shopping done to last three days. At this point it started to rain. In most places rain is just rain, but it doesn’t rain much in Morocco and the streets are not plumbed to handle it. After an hour many streets were like rivers, the crowd of last minute shoppers like salmon fighting against the current.

I got back from three expeditions out for meat and vegetables, groceries and 20L of bottled water, I was soaked to the skin and cold and the stores were closed. Unfortunately, the alcohol shop had closed early and we were without a glass of wine.

Mike and Sarah arrived without drama the next day.

Over the next week we had a relaxed and enjoyable Christmas break with no great touristic adventures but lots of sleeping in and lazing about. The rest is just the detail…and the photos!

Mike and Sarah arrived before lunch on the 21st by which time Jo and I had scrounged a bottle of Moroccan red wine.

Our apartment was in the Medina up a narrow lane.

The narrow steps up to the third floor apartment were just the thing for codgercise when bringing back 20L of bottled water.

Despite the narrowness of the lane, the local kids managed to get a soccer game going and kept the lane alive with sounds of their play.

A large cardboard box was all it took to keep the local kids happy for hours one evening.

The main feature of the Festival of the Sacrifice is that families slaughter a sheep. Each of the families around us killed theirs on the roof. There was much shouting and a general good time had by all, except the sheep. In this photo, a seagull gets a feed from the sheep skin left drying on the roof-top clothes line.

Essaouira is known as Wind City Afrika. The wide bay and constant winds make it a haven for wind surfers and kite surfers.

The wide and relatively clean beach hosts thousands of European sun seekers every summer.

This is take-away Moroccan style. Two tajines were ordered from a hole-in-the-wall a few minutes walk away. We picked them up in a couple of old cardboard boxes and dropped the empty, clean tajines back the next day.

Under the lids were chicken with vegetables and “meat” with vegetables. Both hearty and delicious.

On another night, couscous with vegetables and chicken with vegetables, olives and preserved lemons filled us up.

Stuffed!!!!

Essaouira has an active fishing fleet with plenty of fresh seafood available around the docks.

Not everyone was hard at it down at the docks.

We had our Christmas dinner on Boxing Day at a modern restaurant called Elizir. The food and wine were fine and it was a nice finish to our week with Sarah and Mike. Jo and Sarah had grilled sea bass, Mike had a lamb and fresh pear tajine, while I had a fillet steak with dark chocolate and chilli sauce.

Our relaxing week was over too soon but we thoroughly enjoyed our chance to spend some time with Sarah and Mike. For them it was off to Marrakech before returning to chilly London. For us it was back to the road.

Our landlord Jeanne visited us each day to make sure we were comfortable and produced a bottle of red at a critical time.

We found the Elephant where we had left it in a local garage. (It had been cross breeding with mopeds.) The luggage was back on and by 1030 on the 27th, we were back at the office.