Essaouira: Day 1

The old medina of Essaouira is surrounded by ramparts, built by the French to protect the city in the 1760s. There are a few spots where you can still climb the walls to take in the killer view, and so we decided to start our first day in Essaouira there in order to better orient ourselves to the city. 

Unfortunately, the North Bastion was closed for renovation during our visit, so we followed the walls around the circumference of the medina until we reached the Skala du Port. For just 10 dirhams each (just over $1) we were able to explore the old fort overlooking the city port and fishing docks. After we had our fill of old cannons and sweeping panoramic views, we wandered down into the port to explore the fishing market, look at the boats up close, and grab some lunch. 

Essaouira is famous for their seafood, and there is no fresher place to get it than at the outdoor grills just outside the fish market. All prices are fixed per pound: you choose what fish you want from a huge cart, which is refreshed frequently with the latest haul, and they grill it whole. Rachael is not a huge fan of seafood, but luckily Nate is more adventurous and persuaded her to try some new things: we had sea bass, red snapper, prawns, and calamari. And it was great! 

After lunch, we spent the rest of the afternoon walking around town, familiarizing ourselves with the winding streets, peeking into shops (but not too obviously, or else we would be ushered inside by an eager salesperson!), and absorbing the atmosphere.

Essaouira is famous for its artisans. The products here tend to be higher quality and lower price (at least from a bigger city) for pretty much anything you might want to buy from Morocco: carpets, argon oil, jewelry, tea cups, slippers, you name it. However, it's specialty are products carved from thuja, a local aromatic hardwood. It so ubiquitous that pieces can be found on almost every street. However, the best thuja products are from the woodworkers souk (market), built into the ramparts of the city. These are the craftsmen who come up with the creative designs that so many smaller shops nearer to the tourist center copy--craftsmen like Yassine, from Le Cooperative Artisinal. 

Yassine's family has been woodworkers for three generations, and he himself has been making tables, chests, and other smaller thuja pieces for the last 18 years. His work is covered with graceful webs of complicated inlay: smooth thuja trunk, rippled thuja root, yellow lemon wood, black ebony, shiny aluminum, and iridescent mother of pearl. Not only are we convinced Yassine's work is the best (and we checked every single shop we could find over our three days in Essaouira!), he is also incredibly friendly, warm, and willing to spend time teaching you about his craft whether you buy something from him or not! This is rare from a Moroccan shop owner, even in a sleepy town like Essaouira: the more time you spend in a shop or the more conversation you have with a merchant, the more pressure there is from them to purchase something. This can make getting an education about their products--how they are made, how to tell good quality, the price range you can expect to pay--extremely difficult. Not only did Yassine spend almost an hour with us explaining how he makes his pieces, he gave us a demonstration of the hand crank he uses to shave jagged pieces of mother of pearl into perfect rounds (and he even let Nate try it out!), showed us pictures of his family, and gave us some insider tips about his native Essaouira. We came back and visited him every day. While we couldn't afford to buy anything from him (and again, he wasn't even grumpy about it!), we got his email in hopes that we can order something awesome from our friend Yassine when we're older and richer. 

For dinner, we grabbed a cheap bite of couscous de poulet aux raisins and omelette aux champignons from Cafe Marrakech, a touristy place that stayed open even after the locals went home to break the fast. Afterwards, we went to a local bar called Taros for a beer. The rules about alcohol in Morocco are both specific and oddly vague: it's banned by Islam so technically it's not allowed in Islamic Morocco. However, certain business have a government license to sell it, as long as it's out of sight, both from any nearby mosques and passersby on the street. Taros solves this problem with a rooftop patio, invisible from the street--which also makes it prime location for sunset spotting.