We were glad to shake the dust of busy Casablanca off our sandals in favor of a few days in the laid-back beach town of Esssouira. Once a hidden haven for hippies, artists, and musicians, in recent years Essaouira has become Morocco's most popular resort: cool winds provide a haven for city-dwelling Moroccans in the hot summer months and an even cooler art scene attracts tourists from all over the world.
Our journey began with a morning bus ride from the Casablanca CTM station. However, this posed two challenges...
The first was our bags. This trip marks a departure from our earlier travels--rather than the single pack of the backpacker, we brought LUGGAGE. As in, two humongous checked bags and a sizable carry-on. Before you judge us too harshly, you should know all three are at least half empty. We could have easily squeezed what we brought into one suitcase, but we're playing the long game: at least one, maybe two, carpets are coming home with us and we knew we would need something to put them in! But that leaves us with a lot of bulky (if rather light) luggage to shuttle around for the next month. Luckily, our kind Casablanca host, Mohammad, had reserved our seats in advance--but we still needed to arrive early enough to ensure there would be room for both us and our accoutrement. So while our bus wasn't scheduled to leave until about 10:30am, we arrived at the station at 8am so we could be first in line when they began checking bags.
The second was eating. Our trip overlaps with the Muslim high holiday of Ramadan, which takes place in the ninth lunar month of the Muslim calendar and celebrates the revelation of the Qur'an. During Ramadan, Muslims fast during daylight hours: families get up before sunrise for a large breakfast that must tide them over until they break the fast with another large meal at dinner. In 2017, Ramadan begins on May 27th and ends on June 24th with Eid-al-Fitr, a three-day long festival of feasting (finally!), presents and almsgiving, and special prayers.
What does that mean for us? For starters, while we, as non-Muslims and Westerners, are not expected to fast, Ramadan does make it a little trickier to find food. Many shops and restaurants are closed (which is understandable--how horrible would it be to serve food when you can't eat any?!), and those that choose to stay open to serve tourists often keep special hours, opening later and closing early. In general, Moroccans don't go out to eat very much, so the entire city goes almost completely silent from about 7 to 9 as people withdraw into their homes to break the fast.
Also, while it's fine to eat or drink (yes, fasting includes abstaining from water) whenever we like in the privacy of our apartment or inside a restaurant that chooses to stay open, it's very rude to eat in public outside of the designated times. Fasting is seriously business: Morocco is hot, dry, and dusty and a day without water (let alone food) is no fun. People may be a little crankier, fatigue can make it harder for folks to work, and accidents tend to rise as drivers fall asleep at the wheel. And yet, reasons for fasting go beyond religious devotion. As Islam is the state religion of Morocco, Muslims who publicly violates the fast during Ramadan can technically face jail time (if this sounds harsh, it's worth noting many populations can get an exemption from fasting, such as children, the elderly, the mentally ill, travelers, etc.). Given the importance of Ramadan fasting within Islam and the impact it has on locals' lives, it's beyond rude for foreigners to disrespect both the fast and the fasters by having a snack right in front of their noses.
Most of the time, these restrictions won't be a problem for us. Breakfast is typically the hardest meal to find, and it's easy to plan ahead and have yogurt or granola on hand to eat at home. Water can be guzzled by the liter before we go out or when we get home. Lunch and dinner options may be more limited and more geared towards tourists, but there is always something available. However, since today was a travel day, things were a little more complicated. 8am is early during Ramadan and nothing we passed on the way to the Casablanca CTM station was open. During the two hours we waited for our bus, Nate made multiple scouting trips to promising looking spots on Google maps, to no avail. Finally, he caught a grocery store just as it was opening at 10am and made it back with a few granola bars, a banana, and some bottled water, just before our bus was about to load. We boarded our bus, spirits a little low because, even though we now had food, we had no idea how we were to eat it on the bus without being inconsiderate jerks! Luckily, our seats ended up being behind and across from some French college students and in front of an Austrian couple--basically the only other tourists on the bus! We were able to hunker down low and eat discretely, protected by our neighbors from the sight of anyone who might be offended.
And boy, did we need that food. The bus ride from Casablanca to Essaouira was pretty long: seven hours, including several short stops to pick up and drop off other passengers. We were still feeling pretty backwards and sleepy from our flight, so we both napped for much of the ride, but by the time we arrived in Essaouira, we were both starving. Our first dinner in Essaouira was at sunset, a delicious lamb tagine made by Saida, the wife of our AirB&B manager, also named Mohammad (we expect to meet many friends by that name!). So while we didn't quite start at sunrise, we did inadvertently end up fasting most of the day--and as a result are totally in awe of the willpower of Muslim Moroccans!
Our Air B&B in Essaouira is fantastic. Pictures can't capture how cute and perfect everything is--mostly because it's so narrow you can't get far enough away from anything to take a decent picture! It's a super quaint little blue and while plaster house in the old medina. Five floors of winding stairs, tiny nooks and crannies, more more beds than we can sleep in, a full kitchen, cozy living room, and a rooftop patio!
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