By by the sea, by the sea - Essaouria and the cold Atlantic

The journey from Marrakech to Essaouria is not long but this road always seems rough - it really is a nice highway.  Third time lucky and I arrived in Essaouria for the first time and was not sick.  It is flat terrain with the High Atlas in the distance.  Closer to our destination we started to see more green and fields of olives and argan trees.  Argan trees are only grown in this area of Morocco and in fact the only place in the world.  They have tried to grow them in other places but they just don’t do well.

Of course that means a stop at another cooperative for an argan demonstration and you guessed it - shopping.  Argan products range from cosmetics to cooking products.  Getting the oils out is a long and tedious task.

Need to first get of the outer shells

Then remove the inside shell

Then grind - the dark had been roasted for cooking and the ligh5 for cosmetics

Then the past is kneed in water to get the oil

Just a few products

On arrival, we immediately headed to the fish market where we were met by our chef who would cook us lunch.  The local custom is to bring all you ingredients into a place and it is then cooked for you.  Our chef cooked up a feast of sea bass, sea bream, forkbeard, red snapper, sole, calamari, prawns and sardines.  It was all absolutely delicious.

Learning how to eat our sardines

Our hotel is across the road from the beach and our sea view rooms have a great and hot spot to watch the rough Atlantic.  Hot and and sunny on arrival but the next morning was a different story.

And then the fog moved in! But the last morning was beautiful again.

Eassaouria is just a lovely spot to wonder around.  There is none of the high pressure of the the medinas and sometimes you can actually look in a store and no one even comes to ask what you want.  It is colorful, slow paced and relaxing.  Musicians everywhere, coffee shops and of course lots of shopping and some is even different and the restaurants.

And it is full of cats sleeping everywhere and in any pose you like!

The biker

The reader

The walls and ramparts are always a great sight although the first view was pretty wild.

Much clearer today but still rough waters 

We are at the coast so of course seafood was a must.  Abdellah, our Intrepid leader made a great choice and we enjoyed both the food and the entertainment.

Seafood tagine

The dock is a busy place with all the fishing boats in and thousands of very large sea gulls circling the area.

And just like that our time in this lovely relaxing place was over, back on the van for our trip to Casablanca.