(Rest assured: today’s slightly cryptic corny pun will be explained.)
Weeks after returning from Morocco, my feet still have the stripe of a sandal tan across them from wandering around the windswept seaside town of Essaouira. It’s a daily reminder of what a wonderful (but far too short) time I had there.
The central part of Morocco is not as well-serviced by trains as the north is, so bus is the only way to get from Marrakech to the necklace of seaside towns that drapes Morocco’s central Atlantic coast. When we went to the bus terminal to book our tickets, we were told that we could only book our return journey to Marrakech once we got to Essaouira. We soon realised that this was because the bus company keeps track of reservations by crossing off seat numbers in a single big bound notebook. And how could we possibly book seats for a bus whose big notebook was 150km away? Duh, silly westerners.
Our bus left Marrakech’s French quarter on a sunny afternoon, and we gazed out the window as we passed the palm stands of the swish neighbourhood of Palmeriae, kilometres of olive groves, and the towering forest of cranes cranking out new construction on the outskirts of the city.
Soon, we were out in the countryside, which spring had transformed into an aesthetically pleasing palate of colours. Low-slung mud-brick villages were scattered among lush fields exploding with yellow blossoms. The sky had that uninterrupted, dominating presence I’ve only seen in Alberta and Montana. Punctuating the gentle slopes were plucky palms and the odd flock of sheep. And no matter how tiny or remote the village, there was always a group of kids playing soccer in a field somewhere. It was a bit like watching a feel-good FIFA World Cup advertisement.
The only thing spoiling my bucolic trance at this point was the tinny bus radio spurting generic Beyoncé/Sean Paul/Lady Gaga songs throughout the three-hour journey. Why? Why?!
Finally, the bus came up over a crest and I got my first ever glimpse of the Atlantic. The sunset was turning the whitewashed walls of the medina bright orange as we pulled into the bus station at Essaouira. Porters milled around the cargo hold with metal barrows, waiting to relieve travellers of their loads – the town has a vehicle-free medina. The barrows looked big enough to hitch a comfy ride in. This guy was using his to catch up on some zzzz’s.
The riad we stayed at in Essaouira was as amazing as the one in Marrakesh. There’s a line in the Morocco Lonely Planet saying that the term “boutique hotel” seems invented for Morocco’s riads, and I have to agree. Many of these old villas were tucked away forgotten in the back alleys of Morocco’s medinas for decades, neglected to the point of falling down. As the Moroccan government started to dole out generous tax incentives to foreign investors, European couples looking for a sea-change started to buy up these old ruins and restore them to their former glory, reopening them as B&Bs.
Each riad has its own feel to it, imbued by the taste of its owner. In this case, the aesthetic was Berber-meets-rainbow-abstract-art, which I loved.
Early the next morning, we ventured out before dawn to watch the sun rise over the medina. In the tiniest of back alleys, shop owners were picking up the day’s supply of fresh bread right out of the clay ovens of local wholesale bakeries. At the fishermen’s docks, the old sea dogs were having a smoke and getting ready for a day out on the Atlantic. Mountains of tangled netting sat between the rows of colourful, upturned boats waiting on shore.
Essaouira’s fisheries aren’t what they used to be – nowadays, the town lives off the tourism brought in by its World Heritage-listed medina. and the crazy Atlantic winds that draw kitesurfers from around the world to its beaches.
But at one point, the Mediterranean’s most powerful people – Numidian kings, Byzantine emperors, Roman senators – had their eye on this isolated little coastal fort. Why? Because the foam-drenched rocks along Essaouira’s shores were (and still are) home to a unique species of shellfish that were unwittingly worth their weight in gold.
Tyrian purple, that quintessential colour of nobility since classical times, comes from the secretions of a small predatory sea snail called the murex. Ten thousand snails produce little more than a gram of purple dye – enough to give a single robe just a trim of violet. Until I heard that fact, I never truly understood how extravagant it was that Cleopatra had the sails of her royal barge dyed purple.
(And now that you’ve read all that, you can go back and look at the title of this post again, and roll your eyes properly this time.)
But back to the present day, and our early morning walk around town. Essaouira is, as I mentioned, a walled city, and one of the cool things you can do is walk along the old, cannon-lined ramparts facing the Atlantic. You breathe in the fresh sea air, get rained on a little bit, and laugh at the little stray puppies play-fighting over bones. And thereafter, have The Star-Spangled Banner stuck in your head for the rest of the day: “O’er the raaaamparts we watched…”
At lunchtime, we headed for the row of fish grills lining the beach end of Place Moulay Hassan, the main square that faces onto the fishing harbour. Here, a mediaevally-themed sign erected by Essaouira’s “Professional Association of Grilled Fish” states the going price for a seafood lunch.
We wandered past the stalls and solicited prices from each of the vendors. There are half a dozen employees at each stall who rotate between working the barbie and stealing potential customers from neighbouring grill stands.
It’s a cutthroat business – there isn’t really much differentiating one stall from the other in terms of the food served. (That’s why, like the stall holders in the souks of Marrakesh, the grillmeisters of Essaouira have swotted up on as many languages as their brains can hold. The guesses as to my mother tongue tended to follow this order: “Buenos dias? Bon jour? Namaste? Salaam alaikum? Hello?”)
The competition’s great if you’re the customer, though, because for a paltry $5 or so, you are served up a feast of delicious grilled fish, seafood, salad and bread (and some stalls differentiate themselves by throwing in a bottle of Coke).
It’s hard to explain what I liked so much about Essaouira. It certainly wasn’t what I was expecting. I thought it would be a touristy, beachy town, but the beach wasn’t actually that appealing – it was so windy, day and night, that walking there was more forced exfoliation than relaxation. There aren’t a lot of traditional touristy sights to see, and the medina doesn’t have the bustle and excitement of a big Moroccan city like Marrakech. No, what makes you fall for Essaouira is its relaxed, coastal vibe – the chilled outdoor cafés, the rustic, tumbledown buildings, the merchants pushing their barrows around the car-free medina like they’ve done for hundreds of years, and the friendly smiles of every single person you meet. All the while, the sun is ducking in and out of clouds like a confused meerkat, and the unending breeze bends the skinny palms in Orson Welles Square. Life just moves at a different pace around here.
