Castles Made Of Sand

Today we had a very simple breakfast on the rooftop terrace of our hotel. It was a beautiful and sunny respite with the honey and apricot jam made even sweeter by the smell of the easternmost coast of the Atlantic ocean on the breeze. After breakfast we decided to do a little laundry and wash away some of the filth from Marrakech - and I must say that after 4 hand washings, our jeans still weren't entirely clean - but good enough for world travellers still in month one of their trip.

A light rain started to fall, so we cinched up our rain jackets and took a slow walk to the docs and ancient port in the rampart walls of Essaouira. It is one of those places that somehow seems like Disney put his hand on it from the far reaches of Orlando Fl - it looks and smells like your childhood expectations of what fishermen, shrimp boats, and sailors in general should be - from the salt crust on their weathered faces to the briny smell of freshly cleaned fish and cawing of the gulls.

We stopped at a local shop and bought some fresh goat cheese, crackers, and my all time favorite cookies Hit, and along with a cold bottle of water we made our way back to the hotel terrace to eat cheese and crackers and read about Pirates and the quest for Spices.

Now we were off to the beach, to the Castle made of sand. Back in the day, Jimmy Hendrix spent a lot of time in Moracco, apparently falling in love with the area around Essaouira, and it is rumored that THE castle of which he sings, is the ruins of the Easternmost rampart fortification of the wall that once surrounded the entire port of Essaouira. As Ulises and I walked down the stretch of beach, past kids and adults playing soccer in the sand, and tourists being harassed to ride a camel or race an Arabian horse down the beach, to the dunes that suddenly spring out of no where, and finally to this solitary monument that is slowly melting into the sea - it's pretty easy to believe that this is the castle for sure.

After a long beach walk, we were hungry - and for something other than a tajine - so we found this cute little French expat restaurant called La Decouvert, and had a great meal of pesto pasta and seafood pastille, with strawberry mousse and schweppes citron....YUMMY!

It was a wonderful day - probably the best we've had so far. Essaouira is gorgeous!