Words & pics: Will Jobbins


After a few days spent exploring the bustling labyrinthine souks of Marrakech, a trip to Essaouira - a port town on the Atlantic coast of Morocco - is, in comparison, a real breath of fresh air.

While Marrakech is deeply traditional and feels rather like nothing's changed in five hundred years, Essaouira is funky, laid-back and rather modern. Art galleries, surf shops and vegetarian restaurants line the narrrow, cobbled streets. Rooftop bar terraces offer cocktails and live bands, and in the medina there's an intoxicating soundtrack of Buddha Bar CDs, djembe drums and the hard sales patter of the silversmiths. But in case you're in danger of forgetting where you are, five times a day the muezzin calls the faithful to prayer from the top of the mosque's minaret, resulting in either a mesmerising, haunting call that makes the hair on your neck stand up on end, or a tuneless din, depending on the muezzin on duty and the state of his throat. The muezzin outside our hostel window regularly woke us up at 5am with a salat that sounded like a cow hawking up furballs the size of space hoppers, but then it was the cheapest room in the place...

The medina is entirely contained within the city walls, built in the 18^th century by Mohammed III. In fact, the only part of the town that pre-dates this is the Portuguese fort on the Isle of Mogador, just off the coast, which was built and lost by King Manuel I another 200 years previously. The result is a very European feel, with whitewashed continental-looking buildings and fortified, gun-encrusted outer walls facing West across the vast open ocean - and vast it is. Stick your armbands on and paddle West, and if you miss the Canary Islands your next landfall will most likely be somewhere in the Caribbean. Semi-subterranean passages and alleys are common short cuts through the old town and, while not the confusing maze Marrakech can be, one can still get hopelessly lost, especially after dark.





Essaouira is also a working port and, helped in part by a favourable position with regards to trade winds and the Canaries Current, fishermen land enormous catches daily. If the fishermen are able to run the fish through a formidable gauntlet of hovering black-backed gulls, who swoop on any fish left unattended and can even bully an unwary boatman into dropping his catch, they are taken straight to the local restaurants and so, as you can imagine, the seafood is fresh and excellent.

Despite the tourist tilt, however, Essaouira - and Morocco in general - is still very much Muslim-African. Polite female tourists 'dress down' - ie showing no cleavage, wearing knee-length skirts, showing no midriff and possibly even wearing a headscarf too, and public displays of affection are frowned upon. Having said that, Moroccans are certainly far more tolerant of European bad manners than people in some other Islamic countries - a legacy of the Spanish, French and Italian tourists who have visited for years - and you would be very unlucky to get any real hassle, other than the odd disapproving glare or muffled hiss. And if you are acting with respect for the religion and the culture, then you can expect an extremely warm and friendly welcome - a warm welcome that is typical of most Muslims the world over, despite what George Dubya Bush or Tony Blair would have you believe. Mint tea, sweetened with honey, is the beverage of choice, and you will be invited to sit and share a pot - it's polite to accept. Alcohol is available in a few selected tourist bars, but be very careful about how much you drink - pissed-up travellers staggering through the streets in the middle of the night will be perceived as extremely rude, and may even attract very negative attention. Remember, Muslims don't drink. At least, not in public.

There are some unsavoury types in Morocco - the hawkers and scammers of Tangier and Marrakech are well documented - so do exercise caution when making new friends. As tempting as it is, be very careful about buying Moroccan kif (hash) or opium. You will certainly be offered some if you look 'the type', but many dealers will sell you the gear and then shop you to the police, in return for a cut of the bribe you'll have to grease the cop's palm with to stay out of jail. Moroccan jails really, really aren't very nice places at all, and make Brixton nick look like The Hilton. Other dealers will sell you dried lawnmower clippings in clingfilm, not unlike the dealers in Camden Town, then. Avoid tour guides unless you can be absolutely sure of their credentials - one wearing a government ID card, or one arranged by your hotel or riadh will be alright - but many are fake, and after a bit of spiel about a very plain, uninteresting mud wall, you'll find yourself at the guide's cousin's tannery where you'll be vigorously encouraged to buy all kinds of leather products.

Also, solo female travellers can get a bit of negative attention late at night, but Essaouira feels much safer and more friendly than other, more popular tourist destinations in Morocco. Of course the shopkeepers and marketers are a hard sell, and you will have to (and indeed are expected to) haggle like mad, but this is usually performed with a sense of humour and, often, amateur dramatics on the shopkeeper's part that would get him a job on any West End stage - "Aaah for my children! For my wife! She beat me with dead chicken if I come home with no money!" When paying for a service - whether a taxi journey, a henna tattoo or a meal from a roadside vendor - always agree the price first and stick to it.

In Essaouira, the day can be spent browsing the shops and stalls in the town. Pop in to one of the rooftop cafes for a lunchtime beer - a bottle of Casablanca maybe, Morocco's only beer which is a fresh, strong lager ideal for cooling off in the sun - and a bowl of fresh olives. In the afternoon hit the beach for some watersports; Essaouira has a well-established watersports industry offering brilliant surfing, windsurfing and kitesurfing, and equipment for all can be hired at one of the beachfront shops. Or walk to Diabat a few miles away, where Jimi Hendrix allegedly got stoned off his nut during a visit in the '60s. Or walk inland and explore the forests inland, and visit a Berber village - these communities have changed little in centuries, and contrast dramatically with modern Morocco.

Getting in and out is pretty easy - buses go regularly to Marrakech and also to Rabat (which isn't very interesting, but is useful as a stop-off to Tangier, where William Burroughs, Paul Bowles and other notable intellectual exiles used to live). The tourist bus is expensive but features air con and hassle-free, quick transport, but the local buses are far more immersive - they take twice as long (seven hours to Marrakech as opposed to three and a half for the tourist bus) and stop all the time to pick up Moroccans and their luggage, which ranges from suitcases and baskets of fruit to live chickens, goats and broken-down mopeds. At small town stops en route you can expect to be the only non-Moroccans there, so prepare for a bit of hassle from beggars and lepers asking for a few dirhams - stock up on small denomination coins - and keep one eye on your luggage. It's far more interesting than the tourist bus though, highly recommended and cheap. Most of the people on the bus will be extremely friendly, with the exception of the bus touts themselves who, it appears, seem to take particular delight in beating the living shit out of each other when in competition for customers. Check out of the bus windows in rural areas to see the famous tree-climbing goats of Morocco and if the skies are clear, you can plainly see the rolling, snow-capped Atlas mountains on the approach into Marrakech.

Flights to Marrakech are widely available and cost no more than a flight to, say, Greece or elsewhere in the Mediterranean. Morocco is a brilliant destination for budget-minded travellers and, for the carbon footprint-minded among you, it is perfectly possible to get there via train from London, through France and Spain and then by ferry into Tangier via the Spanish ports of Algeciras or Tarifa.

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