Morocco – Essaouira 26/10/16 – 28/10/16

Day 11 and 12
Today we headed off for Essaouira, a coastal fishing villages on the western coast of Morocco. The Medina here is right next to the Atlantic Ocean and our Riad, (noble homestead) is right in the middle of it. Its a true traditional mansion with stained glass everywhere, fantastic artwork on every wall, and loads of magical brass lanterns hanging from every ceiling. In the medina, everywhere you look there’s plenty of whitewashed houses, blue skies and sand. It’s an artist town with many locals making and selling their wares from cotton to silver, from leather to brass. It’s a brilliant and vibrant place, well worth seeing.
After settling in the group was taken to a flash restaurant in the Medina. It’s rooftop terrace overlooking the high walled city edge, which in itself looked over the Atlantic Sea. What we were looking at was the film setting for the “Blackwater Bay battle scene” from Game of Thrones. And yes no need to super impose this sight, it was just as it was in the series.
The following day we joined a local guide who showed us around the impressive Madina, Jewish sector, the port and the city walls. This was an amazing adventure, everything you could imagine from anything you’ve heard of before was here. The sights, the smells, and the locals shouting it was all here in abundance. With it being a port town, the smells of rotting fish was pungent, however don’t let this put you off visiting. All your other senses will over power the smell, also there’s a magnificent spice sector in the Medina, so your nasal cavity gets over loaded. At the end of this tour our guide showed us around a corporation that made the finest silver wear. I even got to sign to a deaf gentleman who was working on a ring. His job was to polish the final product before it entered the shop for sale. He appeared shocked as I stood there conversing with him in sign language, he just sat there answered my questions and had a huge grin on his face when I said his job was the most important as no one would buy anything that was dull. The rest of the day was “free time”, so we meandered around the town taking a more in-depth look around the town. That night after the group had evening meal, a few of us decided to go for a drink. Our tour guide “Samir” came with us. We ended up at a rooftop bar overlooking the main square in Essaouira. This place was great, we firstly had to climb up several flights of stairs, then once at the top the bar exposed itself. It was a sprawling metropolis, there was a restaurant with a huge stage on stilts about 4 meters high right in the middle of the dining area. At each of its 4 corners was another flight of stairs which led to a connecting terrace all the way around, looking down on the diners. It had a band playing 80’s songs from Europe and USA as well as a few high beat Moroccan tunes. What a great place, and the cocktails were awesome. T – unfortunately I missed out of today as holed up in the room with a cold and sinus infection, deaf and miserable as.