Essouaira (Pictures to follow)

Adam turns to me and says, “Is it just me or has Morocco started to lose some of its charm?” I agreed that the novelty we felt in the first few days of our visit to Morocco had started to wear thin. We had arrived in Essouaira, a fishing port town on the Atlantic, and were not impressed. It was admittedly nice to be in a new city and one much smaller and with wider streets, which made navigation much easier. Also, since we were on the ocean, the weather was much more bearable – the temperature had dropped from 40 C to 22 C.

The first night we walked the medina in search of food. Unfortunately, my stomach was already queasy from the dinner I had cooked the night before, and after the 7 hour train ride without air conditioning through the dessert, followed by the 2.5 hour bus ride, I was not eager to put up with the sales people of the medina. We thought our search for a restaurant would be short, but we unfortunately went what turned out to be the opposite direction of the main restaurants in our search. Along the way, we passed many vendors and then arrived at a very dodgy gate to the medina where there were homeless begging for what coins they could and hiding in the dark corners making ready for the night. I was put off by the scene at first because of the hassle, but when I saw a man lying on the ground using his open wound on his leg which looked like rotting flesh for money, I was immediately disgusted.  Outside the gates our search for food did not meet much more success, and at this point our nasal cavities were being bombarded with the stench of sewer water in the street. On top of that there was garbage everywhere – pretty much as there has been across the entire country in both urban and rural places. I hate to say it but Essouaira is dirty. My appetite was gone. I was ready to call it a night.

The next day we started afresh. We first had breakfast on the rooftop of our riad followed by a walk under the blue sky to the fishing port. There we visited the fishing market which was full of an equal amount of hustle and bustle as the medina store fronts – one thing both Adam and I will attest to is that Moroccan’s work hard. We then walked through the boat repair port where boats where hulls for big fishing boats were being cut crudely in wood. And last, we continued along the beach which is the main draw for tourists to Essouaira.

The beach was nice and not too crowded swimmer wise, which makes sense in a Muslim country, however, the commerce on the beach was aplenty. You could windsurf, kitesurf, surf, camel ride, horseback ride, ATV tour, get henna tattoos, rent umbrellas and lawn chairs, and find plenty of dining.

We looked into Adam going kitesurfing, but the prices were similar to those in Canada, and I didn’t think he would get as good a service as he would back home. Instead we had a nice lunch, before I was again ill. It was at this time that Adam and I had to concede that maybe Morocco had caught up with us and was possibly kicking our butts.

My travelors gut was not getting better but worse, and he was feeling tired and wanting to get out of the sun too. So we decided since Essouaira didn’t have as much to offer as we hoped, we would take the afternoon off and escape into our hotel. It was a good plan until we ventured out to dinner and the restaurant we chose had bugs crawling everywhere, the food was half cooked, and I again got ill.

Not feeling the draw of the city so many other tourists had also flocked too, we decided it best to leave and start afresh in Marrakesh. Before we left the seaside though, we did make a point of taking a camel ride along the beach and sand dunes. The camels are really impressive creatures. Much larger than I had thought them to be, I think the humour in their character put Adam and I both in good spirits again.