Essaouira: Day 3

We came to Morocco on a mission: our one souvenir was going to be a carpet. We (meaning mostly Nate) had done hours of research before our trip about the different styles, where the best city to buy each was, and how to distinguish good quality from knock offs. We didn't plan to actually buy one this early in our trip--just window shop and get an idea of the kind of designs we liked best. The best place to get a carpet is the village where that particular design is originally from. Once they have made it into a big city center, the price gets knocked up and the profit doesn't go to the artisan. Knowing this, we planned to drive through the Atlas Mountains near the end of our trip and try to buy an awesome kilim rug straight from the source. 

However, the carpet our hearts really yearned for wasn't a woven kilim, although we love those too. We secretly dreamed we might be able to find a Beni Ourain carpet, a shaggy white wool hand hooked rug decorated with black geometric Berber designs. We weren't able to get to the particular region this type of rug comes from (it's an Anti-Atlas design and we would only be in the High Atlas), although we knew we find a lot in Fes, the capital city of carpets--but the question was whether we could afford it. Hand hooked wool carpets are much more expensive than simple woven ones. In the US, *real Beni carpets sell for at least $1,200 and the lovely vintage ones can easily go for as high as $6,000 so we expected that even with the discount we'd get importing it ourselves our dream carpet would definitely be out of our price range. 

*NOTE: What does "real" really mean? Unless you get it straight from a village, there is no way to tell a rug's pedigree--and even then it might still be dubious. For us, "real" meant real materials (natural wool dyed) and well-made. We knew there was no way we would be able to afford a vintage collectible, and we wanted something actually intended for walking on, not a piece of art to hang. As long as we got a high quality item that we liked significantly cheaper than we could get it in the US, we would be happy. Maybe someday when we're millionaires we'll start collecting vintage carpets and then we'll have more qualifications to worry about. 

But lo and behold, near the end of our second day in Essaouira, we saw it: the dream carpet! Sure, we'd passed a lot of Beni carpets but none that we really liked. You know how when you're shopping and you leaf through a bunch of interchangeable items, and they're all nice but nothing particularly stands out? This had been our shopping experience so far, both online before we got to Morocco and browsing the souks. We liked the general design, but we hadn't seen one that felt like it belonged with us. For some reason, this particular carpet did and we both realized it at the same time.  

But we couldn't show the shopkeeper! Once you let the other person know how badly you want something, you're guaranteed to get a worse deal. So we kept looking at other rugs, and he was nice enough to quote us a few prices for various rugs of different weaves and sizes (INCLUDING THE DREAM RUG!) without pressuring us to buy right then. With his starting prices in mind, we left his shop to plot. 

Generally speaking, the prices for pretty much everything in Morocco's souks are up for negotiation. Because everyone expects to barter, the starting price on is always higher than what a shopkeeper expects to actually get. The question is, by how much?   The challenge of a barter system is that it can be tough as an outsider to know what a reasonable price range for a particular product should be. In all our research about carpets online, we never once ran into a travel blogger who revealed what they actually   paid in the end for their carpet...perhaps because they were afraid of looking silly if someone pointed out that their awesome "bargain" was actually a rip off. But this obscurity, from both Moroccans themselves--who are very hesitant to name a price unless you commit to eventually buying from them--and from fellow travelers leaves you pretty much flying blind when it comes to making a big purchase. 

We are totally cool with paying the "foreigner price" for things when we travel. While we certainly aren't rich by American standards (quite the opposite!), our buying power is so much higher in Morocco that we functionally are rich here. Neither of us feel like it's just to quibble with a cab driver too much over whether it's a $2 or a $4 fare, or to haggle with a shopkeeper for the absolute lowest, locals-only price. That said, we don't want to be idiots and pay 10 times what something is worth because we don't know any better or are afraid of appearing impolite. Our task then was to figure out whether or not the prices the shopkeeper quoted us were fair, at least for us. 

Luckily, our AirB&B host came to the rescue once more! (Have we mentioned how much we love AirB&B? Because we love it.) Krassy, the owner of our apartment in Essaouira, was a fabulous host; despite no longer living in Morocco himself, which is why Mohammad and Saida managed the property for him, was so incredibly responsive to our emails and texts, often replying in just a few minutes. After a long text conversation, he gave us some refreshingly direct answers which we plan to share for posterity...INCLUDING NUMBERS! Even if posterity reveals we were silly and were totally swindled...because unless people start talking about it, how is anyone to know?!! Who knows; maybe you'll want to buy a carpet in Morocco someday and you can learn from us (or our mistakes).

-Where should we buy a carpet in Morocco? The best place to buy a carpet or rug is the town or region in which it's produced. If that's not possible, Marrakech will have the largest selection but the highest price--also the highest chance of getting a fake. Fes will have almost an equally large selection and is known for the high quality of its carpets; the price will still be fairly high, but almost always a better deal than in Marrakech. As the smallest town, Essaouira has the smallest selection, but it's reputation as an artisanal town and the fact that it's a popular stop for the Berber nomads who actually make the carpets means that the merchants are generally reliable and the products are high quality. It's also the cheapest place to buy most things, including carpets and rugs.

-Do you have suggestion for a shop? Generally, the smaller shops will give you a better price. (This is likely because any sale is better than no sale! When they have to compete with larger carpet emporiums, or the street lined with what appear to be many small shops but are all run by the same "big boss," they're more likely to cut their price to keep your business.)

-How much should we pay for a carpet? The shop owner quoted us 4,500 dirhams (approximately $450 USD) for a Beni Ourain carpet that was 1.5 meters by 2 meters. Does that seem fair? 

I [Krassy] would not pay more than 3,000 dirhams (approximately $300 USD) for a wool carpet like that. Maybe 3,500 if it was very good quality. A kilim rug of the same size should cost much less. 

This last detail was especially encouraging! We had arrived in Morocco expecting the Beni Ourain rugs to cost at least $500, so the shopkeeper's original price actually seemed quite reasonable to us. Krassy made us hope we might actually be able to get our Beni carpet and a kilim in the Atlas Mountains. 

Armed with the facts, we went back to the carpet souk at the end of our third and final day in Essaouira. We loved that carpet, but we were committed to paying no more than $300. If we weren't able to barter it down that low, we would walk away and find an equally nice carpet somewhere else, probably Fes. But the lure of getting a better deal in Essaouira was too good not to at least try! We looked through the other shops in the carpet souk once more, but still didn't find a pattern we liked better. Plus, we began to notice the relative size of the shops. Some were clearly too small: little stalls that sold one or two of everything, and clearly much lower quality than the larger shops that specialized in one product. But some shops were so enormous, you felt trapped simply walking in. We noticed that the shop with "our" carpet was somewhere in the middle: big enough to show you a wide range of carpets in different styles and sizes, but small enough that they would want our business. 

We lucked out and the salesperson who helped us yesterday was nowhere to be seen...we were helped by a fresh new face who didn't know we had been there before and that we already knew what we wanted. After making a bit of a show about looking at different kilims rugs made in cotton or cactus silk, we casually made our way to the Beni Ourain rugs and asked our new friend (also named Yassine!) to show us a few different carpets. One at a time he lay them out on the floor, getting an idea of what patterns we liked from our reaction to the previous carpet. Gradually the designs began to look more similar to "our" carpet. Getting warmer! When he finally pulled out the one, we did our best impression of calm disinterest and looked at a few more before pulling out two or three favorites (INCLUDING THE DREAM CARPET) for further consideration. 

At this point, Yassine disappeared to fetch some whiskey berbere, the aggressively sweet (and therefore extra delicious!) mint tea for which Morocco is famous. This is how you know things are getting serious: tea means we're going to discuss the price. If we ended up not agreeing on a price and buying the carpet, he would try to use the hospitable gesture of tea to guilt us into staying, so we had to be prepared with a few extra dirham to pay him for it if we walked out. Yassine poured our tea, pulled out a piece of paper and wrote down his first number: 4,500. Nate took the paper, laughed, and wrote down another number: 2,200. Yassine shook his head and mumbled to himself (but surprisingly didn't make too big of a fuss, so perhaps we could have gone even lower? The world will never know.) and wrote down 4,000. Then Nate with 2,500. Yassine with 3,800. Nate 2,700. Yassine 3,500. Nate 3,000--our final price. Yassine hemmed and hawed a bit, before coming down to 3,200--his very last price. 

We looked at each other, trying to communicate silently. We had said beforehand no more than 3,000, but for a different of $20 maybe it was worth it? Luckily, Yassine couldn't tell we were about to cave and instead interpreted this glance as business he was about to lose, so he quickly came down to 3,000. We shook hands, glad that the transaction ended with no hard feelings. Yassine seemed pretty happy, and we were feeling pretty victorious! (We're choosing not to think about all the work it will be to haul around the carpet for the next month.)

We were riding on a carpet-high the rest of the day! We played on the beach, taking advantage of Essaouira's famous winds with a kite we found at our apartment, visited our favorite cafe one last time, got another takeaway dinner from our friendly shawarma friend, grabbed some lovely little Ramadan tea cookies from a pastry shop, and made our way to the craggy rocks just north of the city walls to watch the sunset and the enormous crashing waves. All in all, it was a pretty perfect last day. 

Next stop, Marrakech!