It is my second day in Essouria. It is so lovely by the sea. And even though it is crowded it is a small manageable town. I am taking lunch in the fish market. I just chose a few mixed fishes, squid and some shrimps fresh from the boats and they have disappeared upstairs to be grilled.
The trip to Essouria was uneventful. About three hours on a comfortable tourist bus. I was glad to have a ticket as Mary and Sean could not get on for Monday and would need to take a grand taxi. I was met at the station by a young man with a cart to haul my luggage and direct me to my new riad. It was cool and you could see the blue Atlantic. It is often very windy here but today is calm. The touts are less annoying than Marrakech but I am offered opium right off on the Main Street.
The riad is very nice and I receive a warm welcome with my obligatory tea. This place has a more rustic feel and the smaller interior courtyard is more colonial with wooden columns and ballistrauds. Above my door is a tricolored glass transom and the old exposed wood beams.
I decide to head right to the ramparts overlooking the sea for a lunch of tomato salad with argane oil (kind of like an almond and the tree mostly grows on this region. Women seem to form cooperatives to produce the oil for cooking and cosmetics) and swordfish carpaccio. The view is nice, the food ok and expensive and the wine not good.
After lunch I wandered down to the commerical fish market and port. It was surprisingly busy for late afternoon. There is everything you can imagine of the smaller variety - sardines, squid, John Dory, sea bream, sea bass, shrimp, spiny lobster and large spiny crab, small sharks and something called scampi that looks like a medium shrimpster. But they are also headed out in fairly small wooden boats. All painted blue.
I made my way back to the riad as I had agreed to meet Mary and Sean for dinner. They were waiting in the square at 8 and after a quick catchup we headed to a waterfront restaurant for a fish dinner and some white wine - sardine starters, bream, John Dory and calamari - all fresh and delicious. They are a really nice couple, well travelled sweet and funny. Sean did a bit of tour guiding after retiring and has already volunteered to show Mom and Dad around. The lights went out quickly and our waiter suddenly had his coat on - it was almost midnight so we decided it was time to end our visit.
I actually went and had some tea in the riad and typed for a while. It's so strange how quickly I gain a level of comfort now. In Lisboa I would have been walking on eggshells not to make any noise. Last night Abdul locked me in as he had to leave for a bit so after my tea I took my dishes into the kitchen and then headed for bed.
Breakfast is actually served until 5pm - don't tempt me! But I made it down by 930. I had a few items of laundry done - just enough to get back at this point.
I organized my transport for tomorrow - a grand taxi and was off to explore the food souk. I had a really interesting time at a combo market of ceramics and spices. Abdul recommended it and I spent a few dollars for tangine spices. He also shared a really nice tea recipe of cardamom, ginger, anise, rose petals and lemon verbena.
And that brings us full circle to the grilled fish lunch! Afternoon plan to head to the beach and dinner at the riad of conger eel tangine.
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