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Essaouira Medina (Walled Old Town)

We arrived in Essaouira a bit by accident. It's not that we didn't really intend to come here, but we certainly didn't intend to when we did. We had wanted to go east from Marrakesh into the mountains around Ouarzazate (War-za-ZAT). Unfortunately, we hadn't made allowances for the annual holiday of the sacrifice: Eid-al-adha. A bit like Now Ruz for the Iranians, and Chinese New Year for the Chinese, this celebration of the sacrifice of Isaac sends Moroccans back to their home regions to sacrifice a ram and share a feast with family and friends. Getting tickets to anywhere was difficult, and to Ouarzazate was impossible, especially only two days before the holiday! We fell victim to this problem and had to quickly re-evaluate and go where there were tickets available. In our case that was Essaouira, the windy city.

Essaouira main market

Appartment Building

At short notice via the web we found what turned out to be a lovely little riad (home or hotel built around a courtyard) called Dar El Paco run by Natty and Paco, an extremely warm and friendly franco-moroccan couple. Not only did they take us in at short notice, but they also cooked a wonderful Moroccan meal for us on the day of the holiday when so many of the restaurants in town were closed. Thank you Natty and Paco! We originally scheduled two nights here, but had to extend to three when we learned that virtually no buses ran on Eid Al Adha tself.

With three nights in town it was easy to see what little Essaouira has to offer and still have plenty of time left over to read, update our web, and allow cob webs to attack the brain. There is not much to see in the town, but there is a lovely small and friendly Medina with tons of shops and cafes. There is also the fishing port, which was crammed full of fishing boats when we were there, another reflection of the holidays. Perhaps that's why we were a bit disappointed with the fish we ate at the nearby grilled fish market: a series of stalls selling fresh fish to be grilled on the spot. When the fisherman don't go, the fish aren't so fresh.

Eid-Al-Adha Ram's Head

Eid-Al-Adha Headless Ram

We considered making a big effort to leave Essaouira and travel on the holiday but decided to be lazy and also to hope that by not being stuck in a bus we'd see some of it. On the day itself we had a slow breakfast and then set out to see what, if anything, was going on. Unfortunately for us hardly had we left than a neighbor of Dar El Paco called over and said that we were invited to see the ritual slaughter of their ram. Gerry would have liked that. What we did get to see was the cleaning of the ram's head by burning off the hair and a bit of flesh.