La Maison Du Vent Essaouira

A visit to the coastal city of Essouquira was a very nice change for all of us after having experienced countless medina's for the previous weeks. A quiet town which catered to tourists on their holidays was relaxing and beautiful. The mixture of old with modern was clear on the beaches when you sat and watched tourist ride camels down the ...

... man after his bath with the locals. Apparently you go into a big room and they put local soap all over him and scub he said that a layer of skin came off and then they put big buckets of hot water all over him to make him clean. As I could not go Mohammad brought me back some local clay that you mix with water and put on your hair to make it really clean and nice so will have a girly night when we get home and we can try it out.

Marrakech, Marrakech-Tensift-Al Haouz, Morocco traceybelle

... chow down on a dizzying array of "fruits de la mer" - grilled fresh from the sea, and snap photo upon colorful photo of the brilliant blue boats, seagulls, market treats, etc.

Oh yes, and also... time for a little geocaching of course! Not 1 but 2 geocaches here in Essaouira (of a total of 34 in all of Morocco). The first of the two caches required a timely scamper across a river (at low tide) along with... as it ...

... into the small kitchen seating area to wait for it to be cooked. Yassir orders me some chips and a Moroccan salad. The atmosphere in there is superb – and I love every second.

Their selection arrives cooked and ready to eat. They all get tucked in and I really, really wanted to join them, I just can’t find it in me. Then Yassir breaks off a small bit of sole and hands it to me “come on” he says “eat it, it can’t kill you” ...

... covered with goats eating it. So strange show=) Look it;)

We had a lot of day free ahead of us so after a little dinner at the hotel I decided to go to our former hotel, Agadir Beach Club with newly found friends=) We sat here listening by beautiful singer, she was performing great, known by everyone, oldies songs, I talked with some french pair sitting next to us=) And when she was ...

... the middle ages and no cars or motorcycles are allowed in the medina. Even if you have a shop or move into a house, there is no exception, so everything gets transported by wheelcarts. It is a friendly city where you can peacefully stroll through the streets without constantly being hassled by vendors. I checked into Riad Baladin, a wonderfully restored old house with a central courtyard and ...

... The weather and Atlantic coastline are beautiful, I need Alicia here to translate - it is all French (and Arabic), very little english. Soooooo interesting though. Today is the Aid el Kabir (Great feast) which is the largest Islamic holiday - like our Christmas. After prayers every family slaughters a ram and shares the meat with the poor and ...

... prayer call to break the daily Ramadan feast. After about three minutes of chaotic scramble in the streets, they suddenly became deserted save for a few tourists and stray cats. As far as I'm aware, though, the rush if only one to be able to eat and drink again after the day's fast during Ramadan, not a religious requirement to be home by dusk as observant Jews must do for their Sabbath. A few hours later I had my dinner at Bab Laachour, a rare alcohol ...

... the earth "like mushrooms" and a gathering will form from nothing. Sure enough, fixing a tyre 30 km from the nearest town, no one in sight... in 2 minutes time a guy comes up to have a look! No one saw which direction he came in from, it really was as if his spore in the ground had suddenly popped up and hey presto, there he was. Unbelievable! 60 kilometres in and large swathes of sand come onto the track. Anything deeper than 3 inches is problematic and Pierpaolo, energy levels ...

... which I discovered later to have soaked my bag´s straps with pee! Gross! This made me cranky, so I let Michael take control and find a hotel. He found something that was more like one floor of a house, but this was actually above a restaurant. He and the lady in charge had some miscommunication and he ended up getting the rooms for 1/3rd of the price, which was about $4! It was nice, because we each got our own huge rooms,access to the kitchen, and very ...