In and around Essouira

Breakfast was heavenly on the terrace as it was a crystal clear day and the sky was a powder blue. It was quite lovely! I was the only person up there enjoying the sunshine as all the others in the place were still asleep … including the lady with the complexes!

I had a fight with the seagulls again who came and tried (and largely succeeded) in stealing the baguette off the tray that breakfast came perched on but got enough down me to enjoy, together with some good strong coffee and a chat with a couple of rather monosyllabic Italians on the next roof!

I spent about an hour trying to find the carpark where I had left the car and then headed off with the intention of finding a cheese making factory I had heard about, run by a ladies co-operative (I should have asked my young friend to come …. She would have been delighted!) but which unfortunately is literally located in the middle of nowhere!

I followed the instructions to the letter, but as not only couldn’t find the place, but could actually even identify the road on the map with a road in real life drove down various side streets most of which led nowhere ….. apart from one!

At the end of this particular street was a small village set on a hillside. The first thing I noticed were innumerable donkeys parked, munching contentedly on their nosebag of whatever donkeys eat. Hay or something probably!

Up on the hill was an Berber market which, whilst unfortunately coming to an end was still interesting to walk around for a while. Everything seemsed to be on offer, from fruit and vegetables scattered on plastic sheets on the ground, to buckets, mops and brooms in vast profusion. One of the most striking things was a throng of men who were all huddled together in a small tent. On asking what they were doing a man gave me a knowing looked and said “Casino” … no more questions asked!

I only discovered once I got back that this is infact a very famous market where lots of tourists come in the high season as it is so picturesque. I have to say I agree though whether I would be tempted to buy anything there I doubt!

I had though had enough of the relative dirt of the place and so once again set off to search of the elusive cheese factory. I bumped off down a dirt track which led out of the town into the countryside along which most of the local Berbers were travelling on their donkeys … the seemed amused by a European driving a car along such a rough track but waved cheerily as I motored past.  But after a while I gave up completely on this fruitless search and decided to head off elsewere, trying to find the coast road which I had been told was rather picturesque.

The countryside around Essouira is lovely. Green and very pastoral. Lots of agriculture seems to happen, with lots of olive frives and Argon oil trees (I still haven’t discovered what argon oil actually is!)  here and on the whole it is all very well kept.

Whilst cars abound, I was however surprised by the number of donkeys being used as a main means of transport with father or mother riding up and the rest of the family walking quite happily beside, chatting away. Seems all very sociable and it was a lovely sight and made me realise, as I do every time I come to a place like this that what we have in Europe is wonderful but, at least to my increasingly isolationist point of view, rather too much. I wish, and the wish is genuine the older I get, I could get out of where I am now in England and move somewhere just a little more gentle. Italy always seems a happy medium. Maybe it is the acceptance that I can no longer keep up with the demands, both passive and active made on your time and energy living in such close proximity with the over achieveing and aspirational society England has become.

In the end I found the coast  road but given the recent floods here it was almost impassible with, adding to the utter desolation of the road, roadworks for miles on end. It became something of a chore concentrating so hard trying to coax my little car through all the mud and holes caused by the works!

My poor Renault Clio coped admirably with the thing which I think even a 4 x 4 would have trouble getting through! I have owned a number of Clio’s over the year and think they are wonderful cars, with particularly throw-aboutable chassis. The poor thing bucked and weaved its way along through the mud and dust for mile after mile, stopping here and there as dumper trucks, diggers and tractors crawled all over the road. The poor car disappeared under a total covering of mud and dust!

I had hit the coast road in not in quite the place I had intended (rather closer to Essouira than I thought) and whilst it wasn’t California’s Highway 1,  It was pretty nice and so I headed back to town after a long day for a Iced Lemon tea on the balcony.

Dinner this evening was at another restaurant in the same general area of last nights, and whilst it was another tagine (this time lamb) it was excellent. Tender lamb and well spiced. I asked for a simple tomato salad to go with it.

Over the alley from the restaurant was a stall selling a wild array of wooly hats, each one, unbelievably, priced at the princely sum of 90p!

As the restaurant was equipped with wifi (lots are here, to their credit) I posted a photo of said hats on my beloved Facebook and invited various people to chose one as a Christmas present. I gave a 40 minute deadline and in that time got ‘orders’ for 8!  The seller thought all his Christmases had come at once! I am sure they will last all of 5 minutes!