Morocco Day 5: Essaouira, City of Hippies
The breakfast seemed to get better everyday – this time, we had biscuits and soft, tasty bread with our yogurt and fresh orange juice. Monique had hired a chauffeur to take us to Essaouira, a coastal city offering cool breezes and great seafood. Only two and a half hours away from Marrakech, it offers an atmosphere totally different from the cities we’ve visited.Long a sanctuary for hippies, stoners and people on the fringes of society, Essaouira still draws surfers from all around the globe to ride its wild waves, and artists to draw inspiration from its glorious air. Jimi Hendrix felt at home here – in fact, stories still circulate that Essaouira inspired his famous song “Castles in the Sand.” Although this is only a tale, what is true is that he loved this coast so much that he offered to purchase the nearby village of Diabat.
En route, we stopped by a women’s cooperative that sells Argan oil. The Argan tree grows sparsely so its nut is quite rate. The road to Essaouira led through fields of Argan trees which were a favorite tourist trap. Locals would push goats up into the branches of the trees for tourists to photograph – like we did.
Of course, they end up paying a few dirhams – like we did as well.
Goats used to help with obtaining Argan nuts, which are rich in vitamin E and omega-3 fatty acids. The better quality oil is used for cosmetic products, while the poorer quality oil becomes cooking oil. The goats were used to digest the hard shells, after which the women would poke through goat feces for the tender nuts that are ground into oil. In the summer months, when food on the ground is scarce, goats really did climb trees in search of more nuts.
Nowadays, women crack the hard shells by hand, then they would ground the nuts into a dark brown paste from which the oil is made.
Inside the shop were various cooking and dipping oils, including Argan oil mixed with orange blossom, honey and mint. There were also different oils, creams and soaps, as well as kohl products. One of the shopgirls lined Joliot’s eyes with kohl – at first it burned, but afterwards, she looked really beautiful. The girl said her eyes sparkled like sunshine.
When I mentioned that Queen Jezebel used to line her eyes with kohl, Joliot’s puzzled response was why would a mermaid need eyeliner?
What was difficult was bargaining, since we were up against a women’s cooperative, but we vowed to do better at Essaouira. Soon, the hot wind blowing into our van turned cool and refreshing, and the blue of the Atlantic Ocean came into view.
The port city of Essaouira started with the Phoenician city of Migdal in the 7th century B.C. Six centuries later, the Romans came in search of the royal purple dye murex, extracted from the sea snails attached to the rocky outcrops called les iles purpuraires. The Portugese took over the port briefly, from 1506 to 1510, leaving behind their distinctive ramparts and the old Portugese name for the city, Mogada, which is still used to this day. Essaouria could been named for its walls, or from the old Arabic saouria for the beautiful “picture” it creates, or “es-saouira” meaning well-designed.
We walked through the Old Medina to the North Bastion, whose tower was protected by cannons grown green with age. Strolling through the souks was also more relaxed compared to the mayhem in Marrakech. After we reached the main streets or rues, Mohammed El Tory and Avenue de l’Istaqlal and their gates, we turned around to return the fish stalls by the sea for a late lunch. At Les Bretons du Nord, we had a seafood feast of grilled sole, snapper, and sea bass, calamari, shrimp and slightly larger crevettes, a type of larger shrimp that barely had any meat to consumer.
We walked off the large repast by visiting the Port Sqala. Essaouria has three sqalas or bastions – the Kasbah sqala, and the sqala housing the Ensemble Artisanal. Each was a strategic maritime defense point. The tower of the Port Sqala was also surrounded by cannons from Spain and the Netherlands. Beautiful views of the town of Essaouria, the port, and the bay crowded with deep blue boats could be seen from the tower at the Port Sqala, where Orson Welles filmed scenes for his movie Othello.
We clambered up the ramparts to take dramatic pictures with the seagulls.
A round porthole of a window carved through a stone wall also provided great photographs of the bay beyond.
The rest of the time we spent bargaining. The longest time we took was at the carpet souk where Joliot and I bought nomadic Berber carpets. Joliot’s rug was made from camelhair while mine was dyed royal purple. We also bought small tagine pots from a small store that served us Berber tea instead of the ubiquitous mint tea.
The shopkeeper showed us the ingredients before dropping them into the teapot, and they were myriad – about nine. I remember rose petals, star anise, ginger, and of course a lot of sugar. The final tea is much more fragrant and flavorful.
Before leaving, we stopped by one of the outdoor cafes to try Louisa, which is warm milk with fresh vervain leaves that made the taste herbal. Essaouira was a wonderful respite and we were sorry to leave.
For more pictures, click here.
posted by moan @ 9:04 PM
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