Auberge de la Plage Essaouira

... about, I stumbled upon a very tres, tres chic hotel with wifi in the lobby! Thus, with my trusty little iPod I was able to swiftly log in here and post an entry. Easily entered the date 'n place, but... when I got to the interface for pecking the "Story" - alas for some strange reason my iPod (actually I believe it was a travelpod glitch) wouldn't bring up the keyboard so I couldn't type anywhere ...

... us horse riding – that’s good enough for us, so we ask him to ring his friend who offers to pick us up from the riad at 10:30. He’s bang on time and we follow him through town to where he has parked his van and he drives us out to his ranch. The horses are in good condition and obviously looked after really well, so I’m happy with the situation. The horses get saddled up, we’re given hard hats (just in case) and then we get up on horseback! My ...

... friend, which we all have a good laugh about.

It’s actually a lot cooler by the coast – it’s quite windy here, so we go shopping to get something a bit warmer to wear tonight. By the time we’ve done that, we go back to the riad, get changed and go out again.

We go to the restaurant where we are greeted by the head of the family and are told "please come in and sit down, you are very, very welcome". The whole family is in ...

... two hours. When we arrived, it was such beautiful! We walked to the defensive fortress built right on the cliffs, there are many cannons which looks ahead on the ocean. The waves are crushing on the cliffs under the fortress... And the wind of course! It knocks you down as if you were a puppet... Incredible feelings... Then we went to the deep part of the fortress, to the town itself. We visited ...

... need assistance planning your day (perhaps a hike to explore the lovely


Atlas Mountains?) or a babysitter for the kids so you can have a night out alone on the town.


The list of entertainment possibilities is endless.
Both within and outside the hotel's walls. Pace through the courtyard of Heure Bleue Palais
and let the gorgeous palm trees and breath taking fountain put you ...

... wrap up warm (it got quite chilly at night), walk into town, and order beaucoup de plats at the open air eateries, followed by a sophisticated glass of mint tea. Maybe tonight we sat at a particularly foolish location, as we were constantly pestered by girls wanting to dig an unsanitary needles into our hands to draw a henna tattoo on us ...

... of Arabia, and lots of people would travel back home to their families, so they put an old rattling bus back on the road and it came just at the right time. There was one seat left and it was next to a middle aged woman in a long dress so I wasn't too sure if it would be ok for me to sit there or would I get thrown out of the bus after only 50 meters, but I guess I was tolerable to the community ...

... be speaking in a high voice. I waded through yet another tagine whilst enjoying a heated discussion with Kim and the Aussie Cliff Richard as to whether women should or should not wax their intimate areas. Perfect dinner table conversation! Ran back to the hotel in the pouring rain, back to my cold room with cold water and no heating but had a smile on my face as I pulled the covers around me, knowing that I would be out of here tomorrow and on the road to Marrakech. Fantastic!

... essentially due to a territorial dispute between the two nations. Looking over this, the question that begs to be asked is "Why all the fuss - its only sand!". But as is with all quarrels on an international scale, there is always a resource motivation, and the resource here is phosphorus. The Western Sahara is choc full of the stuff, and these 2 countries that straddle it are having a tug of war over who gets what. Come back down and the price has magically been lowered to 4000 ...

... which turned a little sour. We went walking down the rocky beach which was pretty despite the heaps of garbage everywhere and the awful smell of excrement (not sure if it was human or seagull, because those seagulls stink!). On the way back, right at the end, I set my sandaled foot down on what i thought was glass, but when i went to pull it out I found a decent sized rusty nail! It went probably about 1/2 inch into my heel and came out with a dribble of blood ...