Essaouira (Essa weera)

Our second Riad for a couple of nights seems to be in order as we have not been able to contact our couch surfer in this town as the internet always seems to be down. First impressions. White-washed buildings with blue window shutters and blue doors. Sunny blue skies and crashing waves sounds idyllic doesn’t it? Well it is. This place has fantastic surfing beaches and with it a community of surfers as anywhere in the world. It is amusing to sit in a café drinking that wonderful mint tea watching Bob Marley look- a -likes from all different nationalities. It was a hang out for Jimi Hendrix in the good old days. From the age of the hippies that live there I don’t think they left when he left. Bit of a drug culture happening there..could have bought a bit of hashish there. Nick was offered it several times not me. Must be the grey beard, long grey hair plaited, balding on top carrying a raffia bag. The mix of people promenading was interesting from devout muslim women to men wearing jellibabs, to tourists in skimpy clothing, to torn jeans on dropouts and all nationalities. The intrigue of it all. We climbed the parapets of the walls surrounding the old medina for a bird’seye glimpse of the happenings in the port as we imagine have happened for centuries. We saw another magnificent sunset shared with the many gulls. The best fun we had for the two days here, have been at the port. The activity there was incredible. From 3.00 pm until 5.00pm the flotilla of fishing boats returns with its catch for the day. The boats are all blue, wooden and very old. The same ritual occurs every day. On return there is a flurry of activity as they unload the fish which consists of huge eels , scampi, seabass , prawns ,sea urchins, calamari and all sorts of sea life. The whole boat is cleared of the motor, all gear and stored in a locker for tomorrow. The fish is auctioned at the market first to the restaurants and the remainder on the pier to the locals. Men clean and fillet the fish. The seagulls have a great time of it all. We had never seen anything like it. The gulls are huge and plentiful. The cats also hover for the leftovers. The place smells like fish guts to some but to us it is wonderful. We could have watched that scene forever actually we came back the next night to do it all again. As we wandered around we saw they fished with the long line which consisted of hundreds of salted pilchards baited onto large hooks onto a long line. This was being done with incredible speed for the next day’s fishing. It made us realise how much tourism plays a part in the economy. If another terrorism attack occurs in Morocco as did in 2003 and 2007 and tourists and travelers stop coming. These and related industries come to a halt. No wonder countries struggle in bad times. The economic crisis is already affecting the numbers coming to Morocco. It was relaxing in this town and one can understand people coming here year after year as they do.