A wonderful day in Essaouira, Part 1
Oh, where to begin? I guess I should start with yesterday, as we left the stationary cruise ship of a hotel. I got up early and the rain had stopped, so I went birding. Remember my grail bird? I saw it! I even got a picture, but nothing like the picture I put in my last post.
Google image on the left and mine on the right. But I saw it!
We had a late start and didn't have to be on the bus until 10 AM. Our destination was Essaouira, but we took the long route. The beginning of the drive was along the coast. There were big breakers and a lot of surfers down near Agadir. (I mean like several hundred surfers.) We went through a village named Tamri that is known for bananas. The bus pulled over and our assistant Sayid jumped off and bought us bananas to try. They were small and sweet—nothing like the Cavendish bananas we are used to in the US. (The picture is from the bus, so not very good.)
Just north of Tamri, I had bit of birding excitement. (I know, most people don't get excited about birds, but indulge me on this one.) I looked off the side of the road and saw some large dark birds on the ground. I saw a long down-curved bill, and casually told myself, "Oh, look, some ibis." After a sec, I started googling "Ibis Morocco" which took me to a Moroccan hotel chain. I modified my search by adding bird and found that there is only one ibis found here. And, here's the birding thrill: it's a endangered species found in only two small areas of coastal Morocco, one of which I was driving through! I did not have northern bald ibis on my birding Bingo card! I didn't know it existed. It's a particularly ugly bird, and I only got a quick look at a small group of about 7 birds, but it made my day! (After all, I'm having such a terrible February traveling around Morocco...)
We turned inland after that, stopping for photographs of goats climbing trees to eat the argan fruit. (More about argan below.) It was a tourist racket and the women with the goats make out like bandits.
We stopped for lunch and I had another tagine. Some in our group had goat, but I decided I was happy to stay with chicken. As we hit the road, it started to rain again and the wind came up. Our next stop was an women's cooperative that produces argan products. This is where I have to explain about argan. I had been hearing about argan and its products for just about the whole trip. It's an exclusively Moroccan product and is apparently very in, both for health and beauty applications. Argan is a tree that produces a fruit that, in addition to feeding goats, can be used to produce argan oil and a wide array of argan products.
It's actually not a bad thing going on. The trees prevent desertification of the region and the co-ops provide support for women in the area. Read the Wikipedia entry linked above, if you are interested. Anyway, we stopped at one of the cooperatives. This is the type of tour activities that I really don't care for, though others really liked it. The women are on show while we are there. I mean, they are demonstrating how the products are prepared, but I just feel uncomfortable with it. (I felt the same way 40 years ago visiting Peru, when they took us to an indigenous village.) I did take a few pictures of the process, mostly because several other people on the tour are using my photos to document the trip and I knew they'd want some.
Then it was on to Essaouira, a lovely coastal town. Essaouira is known as a windy place, and there are wind and kite surfers at the beach, even in the marginal weather. I had gotten chilled during the drive and stops, so I was glad to spend some time in the hotel room warming up. The hotel is quite nice. I'm constantly surprised at the quality of the hotels on this trip. The stationary cruise ship hotel was the exception, but even it was well done, if you like that kind of place. Anyway, the hotel in Essaouira is part of the Accor chain. As I said, the hotel is nice and the room is large with a small balcony. I can even see the sea from the balcony.
We crossed the street to eat at a beachside restaurant. It was a fun meal (because of the people), but not my favorite foodwise. (Can I really be getting tired of fresh fish?) Then back to the hotel to relax. The weather forecast was not good, with rain predicted for much of the day, but we tour no matter what.
And now, I've written so much that I'm going to stop here and start a new post to actually describe my day in Essaouira.
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