The Road to Essaouira

Kids in Aroumd on the morning walk.

Street scenes.

The town and their walnut trees.

Hiking back out.

Rachid, Tara and another guide, Hassan.

Women working the targan nuts.

Unloading our van for the last time...

 to enter the medina of Essaouira.

Saturday, September, 23^rd.

Today we had two options for hiking. One was a four hour trek up the mountain and back to visit a pilgrimage shrine, and the other was a two hour hike across the dry river bed to visit the town of Aroumd. I chose the shorter one because of my energy level and quite frankly it sounded more interesting.

Rachid led the six of us across the river and up the road that circles up and around the town to the top of the hill. The views of the valley were spectacular. Then we walked back down through the narrow winding streets of the town and watched as the people got started with their day. On the way back to our gite, Rachid took a different route and we got lost following the irrigation canals through apple and walnut orchids and then some berry brambles that caught on our clothing. We had to retrace our steps and change route.

When we got back we met up with the rest of the group and had a provided Berber lunch. Then we packed up, thanked our host family and hiked back down to the town at the bottom.

We loaded our stuff back in the van and drove back down out of the mountains to the plains of Marrakech. As we drove we saw a number of shepherds with their flocks of sheep and goats. We stopped at another women's co-op where they make oil, makeup and edible products argan nuts. The argan trees grow exclusively in this area of Morocco.

We arrived in Essaouira by about 6:30. The temperature here is much cooler than it was on the outskirts of Marrakech, which was in the high 30's. Here it is windy, cool and humid. According to Rachid Essaouira means windy city. Tonight we are staying at a riad, a small local guesthouse with several floors and a terrace overlooking the city. A riad is a home with an interior garden or courtyard. After we moved in we met up again and went out to a nice seafood restaurant in the medina. Rachid picked a seafood place as he knew that most of us were getting tired of tajine or couscous. We had a good dinner and then headed back where I worked on catching up on the blog because the internet connection was stronger and I could finally upload some photos.