Essaouira and El Jadida

Posted by Emily

On Monday morning, we left Marrakech and headed to a small beach town called Essaouira. I really really liked Marrakech but after having spent a week there, I was starting to feel restless and wanting to move on to a new place. We arrived at about 11 am and had quite a time finding our hotel! Taxis aren't allowed to come into the medina areas so we were left off at an entrance and told that the hotel was on the left. It definitely wasn't to the left (as if that means anything anyway on a street with all kinds of alleyways and entrances!) and we got conflicting answers from people when we asked them where it was. Finally, after turning off onto a large side street, we found a man who knew where it was and was actually able to show us. Really, for once we wanted to be hustled by someone wanting a tip to give directions and we had no takers! Anyway, the hotel was to the left of the entrance in overall direction only but we did find it. Although it was a little decrepit, it was clean, well located and only 8 dollars a night.

The town overall was very easy to figure out and we spent the afternoon walking around the medina and shops and checking out the beach, which was actually very clean and a very long expanse of white sand. The town had a much more relaxed feel than Marrakech so it was a nice break from all the constant activity that goes on there.

Perhaps one of my favorite experiences there was buying jewelry from a man whose brother had spent 20 years in Senegal and he himself had spent a few months there. He knew a little Wolof so I was happy to have such an unexpected opportunity to speak. Having no money the first time we walked into the shop, we came back later ready to buy. We expected the visit to be quite short, but the man's brother had come by so we talked about Senegal and then kept talking for about 2 hours while they brought us tea and crepes and yogurt. Very funny. We kept trying to tell them that we needed to leave, but like in Senegal, it's hard to get away from people who are being hospitable. It was fun though and very entertaining AND we got good prices on some pretty earrings. You just never know who you are going to meet while traveling!

We spent 2 days in Essaouira and on Wednesday morning, took a bus north along the coast to El Jadida, another little beach town that our guidebook described as being quite lovely. Well, this is one case where the guidebook seems to have let us down!

We found our hotel easily this time and it seemed quite charming during the day, but became quite eerie at night. I was HUGE with large winding staircases, large sitting areas and high ceilings. I think there might only have been one other person staying there. At night, and I'm glad I didn't think of this until later, but it could easily have been a perfect setting for a murder mystery or a real-life game of Clue. It was echoy and shadowy and just plain creepy really. Plus, the guy who works at the desk at the desk at night doesn't look like the most trustworthy of folks. Not that we really thought anything would happen, butwe were happy to have 2 locks on the door.

The town itself was equally as creepy. There seemed to be an abundance of strange men who weren't afraid to yell at us or harass us, especially at night. Two guys in a car actually pulled over by us twice to try to talk to us. Gross. In addition, there was a general lack of good restaurants and I think I had one of my worst lunches ever. Also, there was no ice cream to be found. After having such a horrible meal, we were hoping to at least find some good desert. We found fully 2 ice cream shops that didn't have ice cream, one of which told us that they didn't have ice cream until June. What? Not that food is the biggest deal in the world but it just served to make the entire experience just a little worse.

The highlight of the city was Portuguese quarter that was constructed by the Portuguese in the 16th century I believe. It is an old walled city with guard towers that you can walk up onto for a beautiful view of the ocean. In addition, there is an old cistern (water reservoir?). The water used to be 2 meters deep and buckets would be lowered from the holes in the roof to retrieve it. Now the water is only about 10 cm deep and creates a perfect reverse reflection of the arched ceilings. It is beautiful and has a very eerie, old world feel, but in a good way, not like the hotel. The site was actually used in Orson Welle's Othello, if any of you have ever seen that, during a riot scene. Luckily, we missed a huge crowd of people and had the place to ourselves. Even though there's not much there, it was quite enthralling just to observe the reflections and the light coming in from above. Nicki actually took some really amazing pictures of it.

Now we are back in Casablanca a day earlier than planned because El Jadida creeped us out and we wanted to leave as soon as possible! We are planning to take a day trip to Rabat tomorrow and then Saturday we leave for Spain. I'm very happy to be back in a normal city and to be able to spend our last day here enjoying ourselves instead of feeling uncomfortable.