Day 73, 15 September 2012, Essaouira. All packed up and ready to go, we were picked up and loaded into a mini-van along with 8 or 9 day-trippers. Very much the easy way - could have made the trip on a coach but that would have involved copious amounts of effort in getting to the train station, buying tickets the day before and then getting selves and luggage to the train station the following day via taxi to catch the coach. Sometimes it's worth throwing money for a little bit of comfort. It was quite possibly the longest 2 and a half hour drive to Essaouira ever. Our driver managed it in a little over 3 hours including a shop-stop at an Argan oil factory. Now given that Moroccans decrease their population by over 4000 each year in automobile accidents you'd think slow would be good. However we think he may have nodded off at one point he was being so "careful". In any event, one of the highlights along the way was the stop for the Goats in the Trees. Now we thought this had been posed for the tourists, but it turns out the goats in Morocco are very partial to the fruits of the Argan Tree and quite happily climb up and pick their way through the branches to munch on the fruit. Too. Cool. The entrepreneurial goat herds obviously make sure they do this near the main road whenever possible in hopes of tips from passing wallets. Fascinating. Could have sworn one of the goats was having a laugh at us gawking at him (honestly - haven't you lot seen goats before!) We made it to Essaouira around lunchtime and were immediately transported to a place of calm and tranquillity. Definitely calm by Moroccan standards but still had to sit and have a little snack in order to examine our map in peace. By many miracles and a fortuitous inquiry at a roast chicken shop, we found in the Riad Sidi-Magdoul in about 5 minutes flat. (http://www.riad-sidimagdoul.com/) Parfait. Now room-wise, we weren't expecting much for €24 per night. But this was not too bad at all. That is until we spent the first night when it went very, very still. Fortunately a nice English couple had vacated the room next door which was twice the size - and the door was open.... and the nice staff were happy for us to shift for the forthcoming two nights - Yay! Just saved €10 over the next two nights! We had a superb afternoon exploring the medina on foot. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essaouira
So glad we have 3 nights here instead of the 4 hours most day trippers have. We returned to the Poulet Roti snack and bought a half chook & chips as reward for pointing us to the sign for our hotel and then walked the length of the central path through the medina. It is our day one rule to browse only and not spend until we have the lay of the land - so we happily explored the jewellery souks, the local Thuya wood carpenters wares, the shoe shops (James's hiking thongs have almost worn through) and took a turn around the port area with the fish grills and masses of boats, seagulls and cats. The gulls here are absolutely massive - Lucky there is a lot of fish for them - otherwise they'd be snatching babies from strollers. It's been a while, so for dinner we tracked down a pasta joint and had a ham and cream pasta between us - we did ask how they'd snuck the ham past the mosque .... turns out there's an Italian shop in town - note to selves.... must find that tomorrow. Home, Movie, Sleepy bye byes.... Let the spending begin on the morrow.