Riad Inna Essaouira

... beaches with flocks of kite surfers decorating the skies and seas. A truly enchanting site.

Pete, Sarah, Phil, Craig and I ventured into town together but we soon segregated leaving Sarah and me to drink our Moroccan tea and do a little shopping in peace. The boys weren’t particularly keen on watching us venture into ...

Got up to another really tasty breakfast had a terrible nights sleep as some spanish girls that were staying in our Riad got up with the call to prayer at 5am and they were going off on a trip to the desert! You can go on a camel to the desert and stay overnight sleeping in a traditional tent and eating traditional food something that we would have done had we had more time.

We decided to go for a little walk around and try and buy ...

... to mention food and lodging) donations from Twitter followers!

3. And most interesting of all - the lad from northern England turned out to be a professional engineer-turned-artist knee-deep in designing elaborate and intricate "crop circles" (apparently a multitude of UFO origin yearnings to the contrary, all such crop circles are a hoax.)

Ah traveling - ever reliably chock full of serendipity!

... horse and canter wild and free along the beach like that – awesome!!

We get dropped off back in town and go to meet Yassir – he’s coming for lunch with us. The fishermen get back in around this time with their daily catch – some of which is sold in a handful of fish restaurants down by the harbour. We have other plans, we go to the local fish market which is in the centre of the Medina where locals purchase their fish and then take it to a small ...

... 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 ...

... 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 ...

... which seem to be very popular here. We started walking through the souks (marketplace) but I started to feel sick so I ended up going back to the hotel for a mid afternoon siesta. That evening we headed back to the main square and went to a restaurant with a 3rd story balcony, where we had a beautiful view over the craziness which was happening below us. I shared a couple of pizzas with Jess and Caroline, and watched the sun go down over the city and ...

Well, I think I love Essaouira, and that's not just because it was actually cool enough to warrant doning a sweater - although that certainly helps. Essaouira is a chilled, relaxing city on the ocean, retaining many of the Portuguese influences - at least in architecture - from is days long ago as a Portuguese fishing port. The shopping is at its best because no one is calling out to you, asking you to write a letter to their long lost brother in Canada (a ploy to get you to ...

8 November This morning a rooster kept on crowing, from about 5:30 am on. I didn't hear the call to prayer, though. After sleeping on, in spite of the rooster, I got up and took a shower, which was actually nicer than the one at the Hotel Afriquia. Which was nice, because this would be my last shower in Morocco-- I certainly wouldn't be taking one the next morning, when I'd be heading to the airport. Andrew and I tried to strategize about what to do with ...

... has been with us since last Thursday, when we just missed the post office closing for its standard 3-day weekend.  Yest**day we went to the Post Office in town, and they directed us to the branch 4 kms out in the 'burbs.  So off we walked.  Only to find that Customs are only open between 8.30am and 10.30am.  So we trudged back into town.   We got up especially early this morning to avoid missing this customs 'window'.  Just so happened that France vs Denmark was ...