Sun Sea Sand and Sloth in Essaouira
After a couple more less eventful days in Casablanca we bid fond farewells to the brilliant Mustafa and his welcoming family and head back to a life of cheap food but no wine. We take the train down to Essaouira, which is a seaside town recommended by one of our lifts way back in rainy France seems like an age ago. To be honest I can’t remember the train ride so maybe it was by bus? Anyways we find a camp site just outside the medina and near the beach. It’s the municipal site so nice and cheap but once we come to pitch our tent, laughably with metal pegs, we find out it’s actually a concreted car park with a bit of sand blown in from the beach. We erect the tent using stones instead of pegs. No matter that it flaps about a bit as no chance of rain. We turn in as dusk comes, much earlier this far south compared to Blighty in mid summer of course. The next day my trots return with a vengeance probably due to train food rather than good old home couscous and lamb and I visit the concrete toilet block 3 times before breakfast. I can’t really move more than a 50 yard dash from it and then it’s touch and go if there’s no spare cubicles. Simon wants to explore but I tell him to go alone and take care. And get some bog roll in as we’ve hardly any left, our paper comes from Spain as we’ve been at Mustafa’s but there’s not much left. So Simon treks off and I lounge around the tent with the door open until it gets too hot and I then chase bits of shade from the scrawny plants around the campsite which the locals must find odd. It’s an interesting day during the times I’m not staring at a concrete wall if you understand me. There are only Moroccans at the campsite and they have lovely spacious tents of canvas which are multicoloured in stripes, checks, diamonds and other designs. Puts our flappy low nylon effort to shame both in looks and practicalities. Mind you they are big and heavy. But cool! So folk get up mid morning and set up the barbecues to cook meat for breakfast.
Campsite with French buddys - which tent would you prefer in 100 degrees heat?
The ones nearby proffer me a share but by my constant urgent trips they understand why I refuse. They bring a lot camping and stay in one place for a while. During the day I find out in my poor french that there is a great beach with old broken fort, a lovely old walled city with markets (the obligatory medina) and the best seafood in Morocco. So a bit of chat in broken French (me) or English (they) but most of the day lolling around feeling sorry for myself and rushing looward. By midday the sun is crazy hot with no shade and the toilet roll used up. This is disastrous as I’m not finished at all. I scratch my head as to what to use. Then I remember the map of Europe tucked away in my rucsac. Surely a continent will last until Simon returns laden with soft luxuriant rolls? Being a clever sort of fellow I decide to start on the eastern front with that part of Russia in Europe. That soon goes and Leningrad is wiped out with one swipe so I’m bettering Napoleon and Hitler. I sweep through Poland, Czechoslovakia stopping only at the east west German border tracing the Red Army onslaught from 35 years before. During the afternoon I work my way through the red states of Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania and Bulgaria finishing at the Bosphorous then swing westwards through Greece and Italy. By late afternoon the Alps down to the Low Countries have been defiled just about halting at the Maginot line where my discomfort ceases so unlike many physically at that point. Our map and return journey is saved by Simon’s return with a thin roll of the real McCoy which he complains cost him about a fiver and took all day to find. I decide that the trots are far too expensive and from now on the local custom will be obeyed and practice with the water jug. Simon enthuses about the medina and we settle down for the evening - him cooking some local fare and me nibbling stale bread.
Next day reinvigorated we walk along the beach and see what looks like a ship stranded on the sand. Closer we see the amazing broken up fort which is stuck on a rock outcrop. It’s difficult to see where the rock ends and fortification starts.
Essaouira beach fort
We clamber over it and meet a french couple who it turns out are staying on our site. They are a lovely couple who we get to know pretty well - on holiday down here and she’s missing her young son. As the sun gets too hot we wander into town to find shade in the medina which has the usual close and confusing streets with different markets dependent on trade. It’s a lovely old walled city and very glad we came.
Gates to the Medina
That evening we wander round the port with lines of fishing boats - from largish metal ones with crews of 6 to small wooden 2 man affairs. After a few more days relaxing by the sea we decide to head inland to Marrakesh and the heart of Morocco.