AfricaMorocco

Going to the beach in Morocco at Essaouira

By September 12, 2017 No Comments
Too cold to swim at Essaouira

After spending a day and a half in Marrakech, we chose to make this our base as we ventured out to see other parts of this area of Morocco. After talking to a couple of the tour operators, we picked Great Adventure. A word about the tour operators, they all go to the exact same places and have the same itineraries. I must admit the prices are fairly cheap ($22-$55 per person for a day) and was close to the cost of the bus. With all of that said I cannot recommend Great Adventure to you, because they were late getting going, the vans had some A/C issues, and they did not fully disclose the details. Just FYI for my readers.

Goats in a tree at EssaouiraSo, back to the day’s adventure. As we drove east two and a half hours, sweating in the non A/C van, we stopped halfway there to see something you would never imagine in this world………goats in a tree. I repeat GOATS IN A TREE! I am not lying. There were eight or so in an argan tree. Apparently, they really love the argon leaves and fruit, and climb the trees to get it. I have to admit it was the highlight of the day for me……except of the locals asking for money to take pictures of goats in a tree. I tell you these people will ask for money for anything.

We continued, in our sweat box on wheels, with a stop at an argon factory. It was interesting to see how they extract the oil from the fruit by hand and use it in cosmetics, hair products, and food, I didn’t know that an oil for hair would be such a good product, I also heard that there are special face scrubs made out of this which can be use with the derma roller. A word of advice to you though, if you go to a factory during a tour expect the prices to be higher and the tour operator will be getting a kick back.

Lady working at the argan factory

Lady working at the argan factory

As we were with 10 km of Essaouira, with sweat dripping down our bodies, the outside temperature was 100 degrees and we were SO looking forward to the water and playing on the beach. Now comes Morocco’s trick on you, once you get to this seaside town the temperature plummets to just under 70 and the wind is blowing 20-25 knots. IT WAS TOO COLD TO SWIM. Haha, how do you like that? In fact we had to buy a shawl for Melek to stay warm.

Oh well, we did still get to walk among the medina (old walled city that is a World Heritage Site) and had a wonderful lunch while local street performers worked in front of us. Lots of Europeans come to this town for a beach holiday (joke is on them haha), so there were lots of crepe vendors and I made sure we took advantage of this!!!!!

Street performer in Essaouira

Check out this street performer in Essaouira. Amazing!!!

Within the city itself, my favorite thing to see was the old tower helping guard the harbor. It is called Scala and is well worth the 15-20 minutes to check it out. All and all, I am glad we spend the day to come here…..I just wish we had A/C and did not sweat 5 pounds off ourselves getting there and back. ????

Leave a Reply

%d bloggers like this: