Essaouira. Week 1

Essaouira is a small town, at least the Medina where we are staying is small. We're told there are over 75,000 people here but it doesn't feel that big. It only takes about 10-15 minutes to walk any place within the Medina. We managed to cover most of that within the first couple of days quite easily. Most people probably don't visit for 3 weeks but that's our plan and humbly, we are not most people... We have seen many different types of traveler here so far, a large majority French. We've run into our second group of "Cannonball Runners"; that is what I call them anyways. Apparently many people like to drive their version of the Europe to Africa Rally. We ran into an English couple in Chefchaoen that were driving from Sheffield to Banjul, Gambia during a three week "race." They had purchased a car for £500 and were planning on donating it at a charity auction upon completion of the drive. We have now run into a group of Austrians doing a proper Paris to Dakar drive. This is a thing people do. Who knew?

How about some photos instead of me blathering on?

Bait and switch, how about a couple of videos instead.

Lots of interesting Terrasses to explore.

To the left was a weird glass-walled bedroom, I should've taken a photo...

Our first beach walk after dinner.

Not bad for our first sunset.

Pretty sure these guys were the horse ride salesmen filming their promotional video.

Mogador Island.

The view from our first breakfast.

The tide was pretty high on our second day.

No shortage of sand here.

Cat ladies are universal. This one was celebrated in the Christian Cemetery.

The first headstone we've seen that mentions Covid.

They lied, totally not open.

Sadly this is the only photo I have of the best sunset we've had so far. I took it for granted...

Moral of the story, not all sunsets are created equal.

From the Portuguese wall.

Oh yeah, Lucy is still alive.

These are part of the purple islands. I'll let Lucy tell you all about them.

[Okay, I could spend a LOT of time talking about Phoenicians, snails, and textile dyes. Because I am an absolute nerd about this stuff. However, you're just here to look at pretty pictures. So I'll keep it brief and say that when we use the phrase, "to the purple born" or "royal purple" we do so because the dye to make the color was extremely rare, difficult to make, and expensive and thus reserved only for the highest ranks. It was made by using the secretions of the snail Murex, found in a few places in the Mediterranean and here - in Essaouira. There is evidence it's been sourced from Mogador Island since at least 100 BCE. Which is really cool.] 

[[Even more nerdy: did you know that the very first petrochemical dye developed was also a shade of purple? We now call it mauve.]]

Hey bird, get outta my shot.

We've had some pretty nice days here. Obligatory camel shot.

Ho hum

French tourist trap, but it had a nice terrace. Good company too...

So at this place we were speaking to a guy messing with the music and playing with two small dogs. Lucy asks if he owned the place, he said "No, I'm just the sound designer."

Lucy and I about broke our eyes rolling them at that. He was absolutely French.

Bottom line we are enjoying Essaouira so far. Most of our days involve a leisurely prepared breakfast on our rooftop terrace, much reading, and a sunset walk after dinner of 2-3 miles. Life is tough.

~ Brian