Having discovered the Painted Lady in the Draa Valley we could have gone two directions - further east to delineate the eastern limit of its winter distribution in Morocco or back to the Souss Valley and then Marrakech and its surrounds to collect more caterpillars and start winding down. We vote for winding down. A trip east would have been exciting but we have already criss-crossed over most of southern Morocco and it has been exhilarating but exhausting. So we head west. We want to return to Taroudant and the Souss Valley to check again for Painted Lady butterflies and caterpillars. We found much less than we had expected when we were there but maybe it was because it was the start of the trip and we were beginners? Constanti has also asked us to check out the area between Essaouira and Marrakech so we'll go there after Taroudant. Back in Taroudant we stay with Said in his lovely little B&B and it feels like coming home. We find caterpillars and pupae but not many and it took some searching. So the scarcity of caterpillars on the first visit to this area was not just due our lack of experience. We are disappointed and relieved. It would have been great to have collected more caterpillars but at least it shows that we hadn't missed them on our first visit. And so after two nights in Taroudant, we set off for Essaouira. All of our journeys in Morocco have been punctuated with stops at the side of the road looking for Painted Lady caterpillars but we have had enough! We decide to take the new motorway towards Marrakech and then turn off for Essaouira. The motorway cuts out most of Moroccan traffic (e.g. donkeys, mules, scooters, pedestrians, and cyclists) and is a dream to drive. We leave the motorway for the road to Essaouira and keep an eye out for thistles and butterflies. The landscape is surprisingly barren. We had expected a greener landscape. Essaouira is a beautiful Moroccan town by the sea. And we fall in love with it. It is relaxed, more European than the Morocco we've just encountered, and has cafes with ice-cream! We make friends with Ruslan, and his two boys, Boris and Andrea. We thoroughly enjoy having the company of people other than ourselves. We take a break from searching for Painted Lady butterflies and caterpillars for a day and take in the sights, food, and atmosphere of this lovely town. The next day we search for Painted Ladies in the countryside outside of Essaouira. Rubbish litters the landscape in Morocco but around Essaouira it is particularly bad and makes fieldwork difficult. We do our best to look for caterpillars and butterflies but find nothing. We return to Essaouira for a long-deserved night out and go to a lovely restaurant for a very non-Moroccan meal. Bliss! Tagine every night for weeks is just too much! We leave Essaouira very reluctantly - we'll be back! We say goodbye to our new friends, eat one last scoop of ice-cream, buy some momentos, and head to the car. And then something catches our eye. Hmmm... a bird? A shadow? No, a Painted Lady! Only a stone's throw from our favourite ice-cream cafe is a small public garden. Moroccan public gardens are not for the faint-hearted. They look nice from a distance but are worth keeping well away from. But in this tiny public garden are three Painted Lady butterflies flying around and laying eggs on some mallow plants. The last thing we had expected to see! Just shows that sometimes what you are looking for is right under your nose... or in this case right beside the ice-cream cafe!!!