Holidays, pt 4

So I'm up to day four of my Moroccan adventure.

We woke up very early and caught the bus to Essaouira, about three hours west of Marrakesh, on the coast. Sara, who left us that morning to go to a Moroccan wedding, had been there a few days before and really liked. On the bus, we saw goats climbing into argan trees (a few were actually totally up in the trees); argan is processed in Essaouira and made into eating- and rubbing-oil. We started our day with some shopping, and then found a really tiny Italian restaurant recommended by my guidebook. Chiarina, who is half Italian, was really happy being able to speak Italian with someone, and we were all really happy with the delicious (and still cheap!) food. Here we are in the restaurant, from right to left, Clare, Brook, and Chiarina, drinking some mint tea.


After lunch, we wandered down to the coast, and walked up to the old ramparts.


The canons (we're leaning on one) were from Barcelona.


The ocean was quite spectacular.
Now I've seen the Atlantic ocean from three of the five continents it is bordered by.

We continued walking down the walls and got some beautiful views of the city.


Then we walked down past the docks, with lots of blue fishing boats, to a beach.
We all (except for Clare) put our feet in, but got driven away when the incoming tide started threatening our stuff.

We got stuck in uncomfortable seats on the bus ride back, but when I looked out of the window I could see a ton of stars. When we got back to Marrakesh, we decided to celebrate New Years Eve by drinking some spiced tea in the central square. Then we went up to our terrace, where we could see fireworks from the ville nouvelle (which was developed by the French and where a lot of ex-pats and tourists stay).

The next day was a little up in the air. We were supposed to leave for Ouarzazate, a city south and across the High Atlas range, in the morning, but Sara was unable to get a bus back from her wedding, so I walked down to the old Jewish cemetery, which was massive and just had rows and rows of white stone, we spent a long time sitting on the terrace in the sun, and then walked around the souks one last time. We caught a bus at 3:45, but there were some troubles with the engine, so we didn't actually end up leaving until 4:30. Luckily, we got some gorgeous views of the mountains and the valley in the sunset, but we didn't get to see any of the most spectacular sights, because it was already dark (though I am not sure I would have wanted to see the bus navigating around some of the hairpin turns). We got to see even more stars, though, and the seats were really comfortable so it worked out.

When we got to Ourzazate, we were greeted by the gendarmerie and lots of pictures of the king, which was a little weird. (We found out later that he was visiting the city.) After we found a hotel--our most expensive night (at a whopping 86 dh), because the hotel we made reservations ate gave them away because we were an hour late, but we got hot showers and free breakfast--we ventured out for a late dinner. The only place that seemed to be serving inexpensive hot food was a little street stand of vegetable soup, so we each got a bowl. It was delicious, and the women serving it seemed very pleased by how much we liked it.

After that we settled into bed to wait for Sara to get in so we could plan our next few days.