Oh Essaouira!

We've been in Essaouira for the past five days, and it's been fantastic.  Not only is the weather milder than it was in Marrakesh - between 20 - 25C with strong sun and cool breeze - but the entire vibe is different.  People seem friendlier and more relaxed.  Even the medina is less aggressive when it comes to the sales pitches although once you're in a shop, good luck extracting yourself without making a purchase.  We've been pretty lucky with our shopping experiences (yes, multiple ones) although the guy who wanted us to buy the camel leather bag thought we were cheap.  Needless to say, we don't own a camel leather bag.

On our first day, we walked along this beach.

I ran along it today.  I'm talking heaven.

A demonstration of the strong wind.

Our first two nights were spent in the Ryad Lyon-Mogador, in the centre of the medina.  We had a great room (the Saffron Room), which was really nice - a little sitting area with a loft bed above it.  They also served a great breakfast every morning on the terrace.  We would definitely stay there again.

You'll notice a lot of scarves - both of us are suffering from a need for a haircut.

Some patternwork for Karen

 Mostly we've spent our days wandering about a bit, sitting and watching the waves, or touring the fishing pier.  The ladyfriend has a lot of good photos on the DSLR, which I'll post as soon as we get them sorted.  In fact, we're probably going to end up making an iPhoto book of our images from Morocco since there are so many great pictures.

Check out the drawing in the bottom right hand room.

We wandered into the food market the other day and bought some olives, peanuts, and bread.  They're contraband at the hotel we're now staying in.  In the guest book, it pretty much says that outside food is not allowed for "sanitary" reasons.  I'm sure they'd be happy to procure us some olives at ten times the cost, and they'd probably come from the same market.  We stash them in the in-room safe when we leave so housekeeping doesn't narc us out.

We would happily return to Essaouira, and now understand why the couple from Montreal we'd met at our riad in Marrakesh said it was good to go from Marrakesh to Essaouira and not the other way around.