Uh oh…my wallet definitely got lighter

We’ve arrived at the Atlantic Ocean and to some cooler weather. Across the murky expanse is the eastern seaboard of America. It’s crazy realizing that I’m so close, yet so far from home; both culturally and geographically. We’re in the seaside city of Essaouira; an important port city and tourist destination for both foreigners and Moroccans alike.

Intrepid booked us all into a nice hotel inside the Scala (what a medina is called when it’s a seaside city instead of a land based city) for two nights. Being in the Scala affords us the opportunity to explore at will and wander the wider streets of this ancient city and its souk…it also means we’re surrounded by the shops and resisting the temptation to buy lovely things turned out to be much harder. The Scala is designed a little differently than many of the others we’ve been to. Instead of cramped alleyways and labyrinthine twists, there is a grid pattern and wider main thoroughfares. This gives the Scala a more open and modern feel than say Fez. The change in structure and layout are due to the Portuguese influence during their tenure as the cities conquering force.

Another advantage to being in a seaside port city is that seafood is fresh and caught daily. While tangines are delicious and I love bread (despite it not loving me back), having an alternative to chicken, vegetables, and couscous is a nice change of pace. Em, Mary, Khalid, and I (the boys wandered on their own) decided to celebrate our first night in this city by eating on the roof top terrace of an old Riad that was transformed into a beautiful restaurant. We enjoyed some ok seafood (Em and I didn’t particularly love ours, but we enjoyed the absolute adoration on Mary’s face as she consumed a dozen raw oysters) while listening to live Berber music and peering over the crenellated outer wall of the Scala at the red hues of sunset.

In the morning we got a short tour of the Scala and learned a bit about its history. Essaouira is an artists’ town and once housed a sizable Jewish population. It’s also the only major city we visited that still has a practicing Jewish community within it walls (or maybe just within the Medina proper). They have four intact synagogues, two of which are still in use. The town is also known for its art and has a growing number of little galleries within the white walls of the Scala. 

Part of the tour lead us through the old Mellah (Jewish quarter) and the guide showed us where there was a small Jewish Museum, Yeshiva, and one of the last two practicing synagogues. All three of the aforementioned were in one building that was open to the public. The first two floors housed a mix of photographs and accompanying stories related to the people that were depicted, as well as relics, exhibits, and a cool little video of the Mellah from the 1920s. The first floor also housed the small synagogue (it appeared to hold a congregation of maybe 10-20) and the third floor was a small Yeshiva. 

Our guide also took us down to the docks and talked about how the fisherman go out into the Atlantic and catch a large variety of sea creatures to sell. We ended up coming back to the docks around lunchtime to haggle with the fishermen for some of their catch for lunch. Khalid helped us and Mary to procure some calamari, shrimp, prawns, eel like fish, and mini octopi. The fishermen that sold it to us, also cleaned seafood so it’d be ready to cook. Then we raced back (we didn’t want the ice to melt and the heat to ruin the food) through the Scala to the older section where there was a communal grill. 

This grill was like the grill in Fez where you bring everything and the chef’s job is to cook it. We handed off our bounty and then wandered the local vegetables market just down the alleyway for some fun things to add to the main dish. The boys also got a nice slice of beef off of a partial hanging carcass. Twenty minutes later, we were served some expertly spiced grilled fish and the boys had some perfectly done steaks. All this goodness ended up costing about $8 a person and was a fun and delicious experience.

After lunch we were all free to do what we pleased and Em, Mary, and I set off to wander the streets of the Scala and see what treasures lay within the shops. The shopkeepers were more than happy to oblige and this did our wallets no favors. Em was on a mission to find a cape or something similar for her roommate. We wandered in to one shop with a few poncho like capes and the proprietor was super helpful and friendly. After pulling out twenty or so items within his shop and Em rejecting all of them, the shopkeeper dragged her away to what we later learned was a tailor that could make whatever you wanted in a very short amount of time. 

Mary and I thought someone should look after the local’s shop since he just disappeared (they’re either super trusting here or maybe he thought another shop keeper would look after the place), so we stayed behind until he returned (sans Em) 15 minutes later. Since we didn’t know at the time where Em had gone, we (meaning me) accepted tea while we waited for Em to wander back. Em arrived just about the time the tea was finished brewing. Tea of course lead to chatting, chatting led to commenting on the beautiful rugs hanging on the walls, commenting led to the owner laying rugs out, which in turn led to loving one each. Em and I each now own a Berber rug.

Concluding our sale for the rugs, we wandered back to Em’s tailor to see what creation he’d come up with. I give this guy major props because when he showed the project to Em, she was “can we change this” about four times and he did it within minutes. Most of the changes were simple enough because they were making things smaller, but it was still amazing watching how fast he could shrink and re-sew something. 

My downfall in this store of course came when I spotted a very interesting coat hanging on the wall and commented on it. Em said I should try it on for fun and of course when I did, it fit and looked great. The item in question is a very unique long coat meant for colder weather. It was created with various strips of different colored cloth that each have paisley designs in velvet. The colors all kind of clash with each other, which in a way makes it all work. The end result is what I’m calling my “couch coat”, because to me it looks like someone cut out pieces from all of grandma’s couches from the forties and sewed them together.

The tailor let me pick out the buttons and how many I wanted (I chose four) and we also added one of those little strips in the back with buttons that you can use to pull the waist in if I ever lose weight and need a smaller coat. The coat overall is a statement piece for sure and got some funny looks from all The Boys when I showed them, but I really like it. I wore the coat to dinner and ended up being the only one nice and cozy when we wandered the fortress walls at sunset.

The next morning, I dragged Em to a hamman, a Moroccan bathhouse. Hammans are a traditional experience that most locals do at least once a week and involves sitting in a steam room to help leech toxins from the body, application of purifying black soap and/or body masks, rinsing in a series of hot and cool tubs, and scrubbing with a special mitt that scraps off the layers of dead skin. There are traditional hammans and tourist hammans. The traditional ones are like big open rooms where everyone gathers together and friends and family scrub each other down. Tourists hammans are more like spas and afford some privacy, but you still get bathed and scrubbed by an attendant. After weeks of sweat and dirt accumulation and still finding sand from our desert adventure; having someone scrub off all the dead skin sounded great.

While the more touristic hamman we visited gave us a private room for just Em and me (plus our attendants), it still cracks me up how they try to respect Western modesty and fail, spectacularly. In this hamman they allow you to keep your underwear on, but then they just constantly pull it down or bunch it up depending on whether they wanna scrub your butt cheeks raw or dump a bucketful of water down your pants. It’s like: “why bother.”…might as well have been like the woman in India that gave me small paper undies and then proceeded to rip them off five minutes later when I went for an Ayurvedic massage.

After our slippery slathering and rinse off, we migrated to a dry room for a massage to work out all the soreness in our muscles from the series of hikes we completed during the last few days. While she definitely got some of the muscles to loosen up in my calves, I think my back and shoulders were a little too tight to get much release. I have to say, I didn’t mind the whole experience, and my skin feels very smooth and silky. I would definitely do it again, but I’m not so sure Em would. She had the “whelp tried that. Don’t need to do it again” response when we left.

Despite my wallet being on the lighter side as a result of our two days in this seaside town, I really enjoyed the low key feel of the city and my time here.