From Moulay to Essaouira

Yesterday was a peaceful one. Long walks along deserted beaches with the occasional fisherman in amongst the rocks. One chap worth mentioning used a large rubber inner tube and flippers to aid in his quest for a catch. He looked so cute sitting in the tube , paddling across the bay, seemingly without a care in the world. What a way to fish! No picture of him, just the memory.

With the van perched on the edge of dunes, it's a delight to watch the passing action! A wave breaks, then another one. a chap passes by on a rubber tube with flippers. It's all happening here. Not a dull moment. The hoard of kids descend on every new tourist that arrives and pesters them into submission. Buy a hat, bring you bread, give me a dirham. You want change? We all fall for it. Give them something to share or only give one a purchase and they fall upon each other like cats and dogs.

The oldest, Kabir, is 14 years old and can happily hassle you in English, French, German, Italian, Swiss, Dutch and anything else you can throw at him. he's a star and hopefully he'll go far!

 Being in such a calm environment is a bit of a shock, so we have to take another walk. It takes time to get used to such a slow pace. Can we really just be here? and do............ well anything really.

Well as the Moroccan in the photo below shows...........Yes
So we'll work on it as we go along!

On to today and as we are running low on fresh food we decide to pay Essaouira a visit, which is only 25kms away. After parking at the port we immediately have lunch in the small café's that line the entrance to town. They are so quick to get you into their stall over next doors, they take no notice of each other and call out at you with offers of cheap fish and better than next door. It's a wonderful ploy and we hold back until we find the right stall at the right price. 30 dirhams ( £2. 50 ) gets us 5 large sardines each a salad and bread. Absolutely gorgeous. Fresh sardines from the sardine capital of the world!

We wander the old town, past the very touristy shops and find our thing in the back alleys. Super friendly locals, willing to chat and sell us food at the right price. Our smattering of Arabic gets us into all sorts of wonderfulness. One chap had me counting down from 10 in Arabic and I managed to get it right! He was well chuffed as I was too.

Krysia's diet can here be seen to be going well as she dive's into a half kilo bag of fresh home made biscuits! They are yummy and count as many sins!
Sin away Krysia. ( Slimmers world talk here ! )

We stock up on dates, figs, linseed, prunes, raisins, bread, spices, vegetables and for good luck a new hand of Fatima which Krysia didn't even have to barter for. Any item for 10 dirham!





Its been a lovely day and we hope you had one too
lots of love from Essaouira
Ted and Krysia