...sssooiira
The Berber woman purses her lips, she breathes it like a sigh, like cool air that comes from the north to tame the heat that bears down from the Sahara.
It sounds like an ancient lost breeze that comes with the sea mist that blankets the town and blurs the shapes of the white walled Kasbah and the blue of the window shutters that frame women leaning out to hang their washing, or men propped on their elbows smoking thoughtfully and watching the maelstrom of the markets below.
In 1506, the King of Portugal ordered the building of a fortress here. It lasted only 4 years before local Berbers overran the garrison and took control of what was then called Mogador. It was important for the exporting of sugar and molasses and also was a safe haven for pirates. Essaouira was a strategic port, the closest to Marrakech, and control of it was much desired by Spain, England, The Netherlands and France. All were unsuccessful in gaining territory, or favourable trade terms until the French signed a treaty with the Sultan of Marrakech in 1631. It was during this time that Christian slaves were used to build more fortifications around the bay.
The present city was built during the 18th century by Mohammed 111, and became the principal port of Morocco. The caravan trade offered their goods to the world through this harbour. From Sub-Saharan Africa to Timbuktu, through the desert and over the Atlas Mountains to Marrakech, and then down to Essaouira on the Atlantic coast, caravans of Tuaregs and Berbers and Arabs on camels and donkeys brought cloth and spices, rock salt , dried fruits, and slaves to be traded with the world.
Initially it was called “Souira” or small fortress, but it was changed after the rebuilding to “Essaouira” or “the beautifully designed”. 18th century Dutch cannon still line the walls and battlements as if time has stood still and a wooden Portuguese warship is lying off the coast in the mist.
I had booked a week at “Les Coins Des Artistes”, a small 8 roomed hotel or Riyadh in the centre of the Kasbah. Air-conditioners aren’t needed here and windows are opened to greet the breeze. There is a central courtyard that all rooms face into, and breakfast is taken here in the mornings.
A Dutch woman came in with a Morrocan man, who went straight into the kitchen. She sat down at the table next to mine and smiled at me with her eyes. She started a conversation and asked if I wanted to go down the coast to a beach called Cidi Kagi. My appointment book wasn’t full at that stage, so we ran in the dust for the local bus, and an hour later we walked off into a hot dry easterly wind, and a long beach, with beginners trying to surf waves which held up in the off-shore wind, but were never going to be powerful enough to propel a board to the shore.
Getting a drink from a local store a fight erupted between the owner and 2 Moroccan customers. The owner was going off his nut and pushing and threatening the 2 guys who seemed to have no idea what was going on. As usual, the faithful rushed in and calmed him, kissed him, tried to lead him back into the shop, but it was a full 20 minutes before he calmed down again. I was getting used to this volatile over-emotional behaviour.
There wasn’t much to do so we decided to get a grande taxi back to Essaouira, as the next bus wasn’t for hours. We shared it with Aziza, who was in Cidi Kagi checking on her Belguim bosses house. We had a great chat about life for women in Morocco, and the fact that there is no separation of church and state, and she kindly invited us back to her house to meet her family. Life is tough economically for most people here; wages are low and expenses high and good jobs difficult to get. We agreed to catch up again, said our goodbyes and returned to the Kasbah.
In Marrakech, I found it difficult to do any running; it was really hot with diesel fumes that burned your lungs as the concrete burned your feet, and this was at 9pm in the evening. So, it was great to be able to get out every afternoon and run down the beach, with the wind in my back past the camels and the furtive lovers holding hands and each other, several kilometres down the beach where no-one could see them.
The countryside is not fertile, but the sea is. A sea current that runs past the Canary Islands dredges up nutrients and makes the sea here brim full of conga-eels, small sharks and massive schools of sardines. The fish market could be a major tourist attraction, with the music festival over most of the tourists had left, but the fishermen were in the habit of cleaning their catch on the wharf, and throwing the guts and blood on the rocks and on the road that led through the fish market. It stunk, it was disgusting to walk through, and it attracted thousands of albatross who dive bombed any onlookers with shit as local boys dived off pontoons into putrid brown water and fisherman greedily tried to overcharge any non-Morrocan fish-buyer. The fish are expensive, there is no refrigeration, and I found the whole situation puzzling, whilst being on guard for any “new friend” who would offer to take a photo of me with my camera, and then obstinately demand money for doing it.
So the week rolled on. I met Younnis, a local musician and surfer. He brought a couple of guitars into the hotel, and we played for an audience of 4 people. I found his style hard to follow, as he is left-handed and learnt to play a right-handed guitar upside down! Only the third person I have ever seen do this. Younnis met a French girl on holiday here a couple of years ago. They fell in love, and when it was time for her to leave, they went to the airport together. She never got out of that taxi, and they returned to Essaouira, got married in a Muslim ceremony, and she fell pregnant. 3 months later she had to leave to go back home and continue her university studies in medicine. He sees them occasionally on a Skype call. He says “Inshallah” one day they will be re-united. So in the meantime, Younnis surfs when there is surf, plays guitar in a restaurant when there is work, and unceasingly smokes hashish, going through the ritual of rolling the joints and burning the hash block to make it dryer and easily crumbled.
The Dutch lady wanted me to come along to a dinner she had been invited to by her Moroccan friend, at the family house of one of his friends. I thought that finally, I would get to experience some real home cooked Moroccan food, however, when we got to the 3rd floor dingy room, we found 6 Moroccan men, no family, and the money I had, with reservations, contributed to purchasing the food, had actually bought all the food. The Dutch girl’s money had gone missing again. Every time something had to be paid for it seemed she didn’t have enough, or she just forgot to contribute. It wasn’t a lot of money, but it was just getting too routine, for me anyway. The kitchen was dirty and dingy and the food was just put out on a large platter from which everyone ate with their hands. I felt a little uneasy, and scoped out an escape route out of the window if we needed it, but there was nothing to be concerned about. Out came our host with the biggest lump of hashish this side of Afghanistan, and he placed it on top of a large, glowing coal and into a shisha apparatus. The guys then all grabbed a hose and started happily puffing away, and we left.
Now I knew why Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley were here. It wasn’t to take in the sea air. It was just to get wasted. There were some sad people around the Kasbah alleyways, begging, and talking to imaginary friends. Some were ex-pats who had stayed too long and perhaps couldn’t go home, like a modern Brideshead Revisited, where Charles goes to Morocco and finds Sebastian in an appalling state.
The woman I had walked away from in the square the day I first travelled here had become a nuisance. Every day, it seemed she would find me somewhere in the souk, the square, or even at the beach. I was in the habit of saying “oh, it’s you again” or “oh, c’est encore vous”. She was persistent, if nothing else.
Essaouira was beautiful but flawed. After 5 days I ran out of things to do as the waves never got big enough to surf, and the days I wanted to kite surf the wind didn’t co-operate. I would like to be here in the winter and experience some of the epic surf swells that roll in from the Atlantic. But, unfortunately, a week was too long and it was time to return to Marrakech and the heat.
My last night in Essaouria, I went out to dinner with Aziza and her boyfriend Abdul. We ate some fish and I drank my first Moroccan beer. They left to go home and I walked across the square to where the cannon still pointed out to sea. It was cold, the wind was strong and cold and the mist was rolling in to once again blur and blanket the Kasbah. The families that had promenaded through the square and up and down the beachside road had all gone home too, and I could just hear the hint of a guitar playing through the sound of the crashing waves, and I wondered what would have happened if Bob and Jimi had met here, in Essaouira?
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