By admin When I narrowed down my Morocco itinerary from two weeks to one week, I had to cut out a lot. The Atlas Mountains, Sahara Desert, Fez, Tangier and Chefchauouen all had to go based on time constraints. Essaouira made the cut, however. It seemed like a relatively relaxed city, and it was on the beach, so the terrain would be very different from Marrakech. We decided to stay two nights in Essaouira, then drive up the coast to the city of El Jadida, where we’d stop for a brief respite from driving and some dinner. Then I’d spend one final night at a riad in El Jadida and the other girls would head to Casablanca for their early morning flight back to San Francisco (via Frankfurt).
Getting to Essaouira
I booked a private transfer to Essaouira through a highly rated company that I found on TripAdvisor. The Mercedes van was nice and spacious, with two bench seats facing each other. Everyone else decided they couldn’t sit riding backward, so I got one entire row to myself.
Heather suggested listening to a podcast and we settled on one featuring Chelsea Handler. I find Chelsea hilarious, but I cringed as I listened to her talk about sleeping around, drinking excessively and trying ayahuasca on-camera in Peru. And of course, she cursed in every sentence. We were in a conservative, Muslim country. What was our driver going to think of us heathens?
Then Tina tried to ask him how to close the back windows (so we could hear Chelsea better). He didn’t understand. “I don’t speak English,” he told us. THANK GOD. We could enjoy Chelsea’s brash humor without worry about being judged. Although he was probably already judging us after loading our remaining bottles of wine and vodka into the car. I had read somewhere that Moroccan men consider drinking alcohol as something that only prostitutes do, so that became one of the inside jokes on our trip.
Anyway, inappropriate humor aside, the trip was mostly uneventful until we saw this:
The people at the herboristerie in Marrakech told us that goats climb the argan trees to eat the argan fruit, and we hoped to see the phenomenon in real life, so we were thrilled when we spotted a tree on the route. “We will stop soon for pictures,” our driver told us in his broken English. I figured that meant we’d come across more trees and kept my eyes peeled for more trees with any goats in them.
We finally pulled up to one and all gasped. Heather in particular has an obsession with goats (she wants to own some in the near future), so she was in heaven. The man who was apparently the owner of the goats also had a baby goat in his arms that he let us all hold.
The goats perched on the branches of a tree was one of the most bizarre sights I’ve ever seen. “How do they actually get up there?” Tina asked the question that we were all wondering out loud. “They climb,” the owner told us without any additional detail. Hmm.
We needed to get on our way, so we piled back in the car, handing the goat owner a 20 dirham note. “More, more,” he responded. These guys really had no shame. Heather held her ground. “That’s enough,” she said. Then the man noticed a couple attempting to leave without tipping him anything, so he ran over to their car to start hassling them. Thank you, cheap couple.
As we drove on, I began to develop doubts about the true nature of these goats in trees. Really, how did they get up the tree and all the way to the highest branches? Why did we only see two trees piled with goats, but no other random trees with a goat or two? Why weren’t the goats moving around in the tree if they had a squirrel-like ability to climb? And maybe it was my imagination, but those goats looked awfully sad and helpless in the tree as we squealed with glee and snapped pictures below them.
Sure enough, we later read some stories that the whole experience is basically a scam for the Moroccan goat owners to squeeze more value out of their livestock by creating a tourist attraction. The goats are physically hoisted up on to the branches in the morning and tied in place. They are then stuck there all day until the owners take them down at night. Those poor goats! They really were sad and helpless. I was bummed that Heather’s dreams of (ethically) owning argan tree-climbing goats were crushed, but I felt worse for the goats. And I felt terrible for feeding into the cycle by supporting the whole thing. Please don’t make the same mistake that we did.
Arriving at Villa Gonatouki
My original plan was for us to stay at L’heure Bleue Palais in the Essaouira medina. A Relais & Chateaux property, it boasted a location close to all the action, an onsite restaurant and hammam and a rooftop pool with views of the sea. I had booked one (flexible cancellation) room early on in my travel planning efforts, but found that the hotel was oddly fully booked for our dates when I tried to book a second room. I could tell from their online calendar that the hotel had availability the entire month before and the entire month after our arrival, but the particular weekend we were visiting was completely blocked. Something was obviously happening on those dates. After a couple plea attempts, the hotel confirmed that they definitely could not allow us to book a second room. There was no way that four of us were staying in one room with a king bed, so I regretfully cancelled my original reservation.
As our backup plan, we decided to stay at Villa Gonatouki, located about fifteen minutes away (driving) from the medina. The 10-room property looked like a palatial estate perched on a hill, with two pools. The reviews were overwhelmingly positive, and multiple people mentioned how fantastic and helpful Bruno (the proprietor) was during their stay. After four days in hectic Marrakech, the idea of staying in a calmer, more isolated location appealed to all of us.
We realized how out of the way the location was when our driver pulled our spacious Mercedes van to the side of the road and informed us that we’d be transferring to a different car: another Mercedes, but a grungy, old sedan. Hmm, the transportation company had mentioned that we needed to pay an extra fee since our accommodations were outside of Essaouira proper, but he hadn’t mentioned a change in vehicles. Plus, the new van looked like it was way better equipped to handle the unpaved dirt road ahead of us than the ancient clunker. However, we were in Morocco, we were very close to our destination and it didn’t seem like we had many other options. It was time to embrace our new mode of transportation.
The ride became even more fun when we realized we were lost. Well, kind of. We could see the imposing structure of our villa on top of the hill, but we couldn’t figure out which road to take to get up there. And our driver insisted he could find the way without calling for directions. After unsuccessfully attempting all three dirt roads, we decided to try the second route again. This one had a flimsy metal gate that we could open ourselves to continue along the path… except we hadn’t tried to open it the first time. Now I decided to try to call the villa myself to confirm we were going the right way. I handed the phone to the driver, he seemed to make some positive affirmations and we finally pulled up to the property.
Bruno (the owner) came out to greet us and take our bags. He was a chatty older Frenchman who was clearly very passionate about his property and Essaouira. The first order of business: giving us a detailed tour of the villa. Bruno informed us that he had originally conceived of the building as a vacation home for his family, but then decided to turn it into a guesthouse. His family (wife, four kids, seven grandchildren with another on the way) would still privately use the home at times, but the business came first. Bruno had run a number of businesses in his past, but this was his first endeavor in the hospitality industry, and he seemed to love it.
That being said, he seemed like a very positive person in general. The electricity wasn’t working when we first arrived, which would have freaked me out, but he assured us it was only temporary. His calm demeanor was contagious and we decided to just go with the flow. Bruno showed us the kitchen, the various common areas, the pool and the spa. He introduced us to the staff, a team of local women that helped to run the whole property. He explained that his wife was back in France because she didn’t enjoy spending time at Villa Gonatouki when strangers were there (she kind of had a point, and I wondered how that arrangement was working out for them, but I didn’t pry).
Then we got to see our rooms and begin the process of room selection. One nice perk of staying at Villa Gonatouki: the prices were so affordable that we decided we could each have our own room rather than sharing. And the rooms were all very nice: spacious, with fireplaces and large terraces. Bruno had also intelligently given us the entire top floor (five rooms in total) since the villa wasn’t fully booked.
After the thirty minute tour (I’m not joking), Bruno was about to let us go when Heather decided to take him up on the offer to serve us drinks. “Do you have champagne?” She asked. Yes, but he’d have to chill it. “What about white wine?” I asked. That was chilled. Okay, put the champagne on ice and we’d start with the white wine. We had arranged to eat dinner at Villa Gonatouki on our first night since we had no intention of getting back in a vehicle to leave until tomorrow. And hallelujah, they would sell us wine.
We spent the next 90 minutes or so lounging on one of the non-windy terraces with our wine. One note about Essaouira: it gets very windy, and the beach is a popular spot for windsurfers and kitesurfers. It seemed that we had arrived just in time for a particularly windy couple of days. As such, it felt much cooler than the high 70s that the weather forecast reported, and we found ourselves seeking areas that blocked the wind when we were outside.
Dinner (inside) was a very nice affair with more wine and an interesting vegetable/egg tagine for me. Bruno regaled us with more stories of his family, his career and his experience building a property in Morocco. He told us about how he had to micro-manage people when he gave them money to complete a task (example: one man actually bought a car with the money that Bruno had given him to buy materials to start on a real estate project). He told us how people would always say “yes,” when you asked them a yes/no question (example: you ask if you need to turn right to get to your destination and the response will be “yes.” If you ask the same person an open-ended question, they may say, “go right and then ask someone else” if they don’t actually know that turning right is the correct course of action). That being said, Bruno acknowledged that labor in Morocco was cheap, and people were happy to get any kind of work, so it was simply a trade-off.
We concluded our night with mixed results on attempts to enjoy the fireplaces. I opted out from the beginning. Tina and Heather attempted to light their own fires, and Tina ended up with a smoky room that smelled like a barbecue grill. Niran outsourced the work to Bruno and got a wonderful heat-producing, non-smoky, crackling fire. We all hung out in Niran’s room.
Quad Bike Tour
Other items on our Essaouira agenda: more massages, shopping and dinner in the medina. This left us with some additional time, and Heather had the ingenious idea to book a quad tour (I can’t take credit for this one). None of us had ever ridden ATVs, but Essaouira seemed like a great place to try it out with the beach and sand dunes.
A driver picked us up and brought us to the Quad Attitude offices, where we were greeted by this sight:
Then we were introduced to our guide. He took one look at us and asked, “First time?” We all nodded enthusiastically. “Helmets,” he said unequivocally. Good idea.
He then gave us a brief lesson on how to accelerate, how to brake and how to sit on the vehicle. Essentially, don’t accelerate too quickly, don’t use the brakes for the front wheels and always sit with straight arms. Okay, got it.
Tina was quickly identified as the weak link of the group (she admitted it), and the guide mandated that she follow directly behind him. I was in the back at first and eventually worked up the nerve to start snapping some pictures while riding.
I think we did pretty well considering that it was our first time on ATVs and a very windy day. There were a couple of steep downhill inclines that felt like a 90 degree grade (I definitely did not use the front brakes). Almost everyone got stuck going uphill at some point. One highlight was when Niran became overly ambitious swerving on the hilly sides of a path, got stuck and I nearly crashed into her. Our guide was out of eyesight watching over Tina at this point, so Heather, Niran and I collaborated to get the vehicle un-stuck and we were back on track!
The one downside of the day was the windy weather. Not only was the wind whipping against us, but sand was painfully pelting our faces and other exposed body parts (hands). I had made the accidental mistake of only bringing one pair of two week contact lenses with me for a month-long trip, and I fretted about what the sand was doing to the lifetime of my lenses, even with a face shield and sunglasses.
After two hours of riding along the beach, through dunes and by camels, it was time to head back to Villa Gonatouki. We parked our cute orange ATVs back at the office and got in the car. Heather and I had more massages we needed to return for!
Essaouira Medina
For our last evening in Essaouira, we knew we needed to see the medina. I was sick of shopping by this point (shocking, I know) and it was cold by the water with all the wind, but I tried my best to be a good sport.
Tina and Heather used their well-honed bargaining skills to get good deals on some unique African sculptures. I was happy when we found a stylish boutique with a coffee shop on the top floor. The girls deemed the prices too expensive for Morocco (they were more in line with what we’d pay in the States), so we admired everything and then settled into a cozy nook for cafe au lait. One of the nice things about the Essaouira shops was that the salespeople were way less pushy. We felt comfortable going into stores to look without concerns about being bombarded with a high pressure sales pitch.
Everyone finally agreed we could be done shopping, so we headed to the restaurant where I had made dinner reservations: Le Cosy. Since we were early, we could enjoy some aperitifs at Le Cosy’s sister cocktail bar: Le Club. How cute is that? The establishment is obviously owned by a French person. In fact, I think we were the only non-French people frequenting the bar or the restaurant.
We loved the ambiance and design at Le Club. The space was bright and breezy, with a turquoise blue ceiling and blond wood walls and accents, while the bench seating and throw pillows were decorated in Moroccan prints.
The bar opened at 7pm (we definitely weren’t in the US) and we were the first guests to arrive. That turned out to be a godsend because the cocktails, while carefully concocted and garnished, each took about two minutes to make. I felt bad for the two couples that arrived after us, as they had to wait for nearly ten minutes before even placing a drink order. We admired the cute bartender while we waited and continued our newest hobby for killing time: creating stories about the strangers around us. In our minds, the bartender was a surfer who was also an aspiring actor (in fact, his father owned the bar/restaurant and the son had a passion for high-end cocktail bars and travel). We were kind of close. I could’ve sat talking with the bartender about travel and bars for a while, but we were already late for our dinner reservations.
Le Cosy did not disappoint after our lovely experience at Le Club. The restaurant was decorated with a similar aesthetic, but was darker and more formal.
Due to its location on the coast, Essaouira was known to have excellent seafood, so we made sure to take advantage, ordering prawns (Heather), salmon (me) and a seafood couscous (Tina and Niran) if I remember correctly. The food lived up to its expectations, although we struggled with drinks. Niran once again proved herself to be the high maintenance one, and we tried three different Moroccan “gray” wines before settling on one. Then I ordered a bourbon rocks nightcap and ended up with a hot verbena tea with rocks on the side. I’m baffled by how that happened, but language/cultural barriers are powerful.
After our wonderful meal we realized that the building had another business: a rooftop club. It was Saturday night, it was our last night together in Morocco and Heather was really feeling the scene after graciously accepting the accidental verbena tea on my behalf. So, upstairs we went.
Quick summary: we were immediately seated at a prime table by the dance floor and stage, the band was performing island-inspired covers of hits by Rihanna, Ed Sheeran and Maroon 5, and the crowd was grooving, but not yet popping (i.e. nobody was on the dance floor yet).
Well, Heather and Tina would fix that.
If I had been a bit younger (or if everyone else was in the mood), I easily could have been convinced to order another round of drinks and make it a legendary night on the Essaouira dance floor (and maybe we’d have a nightcap with the cute bartender at Le Club?) However, if I’ve realized one thing since I quit my job, it’s that I’ve become old. We all wanted to get a good night’s sleep, none of us wanted to be hungover the next day, and we were uncomfortable splitting up the group in an unfamiliar country. So, after a round of drinks for me and Heather, a song on the dance floor for Tina and Heather and a break for the stellar singer, we were headed back to Villa Gonatouki.
Final Hours in Morocco
A couple of taxis, a good night’s sleep, some pool time, one last set of massages (for Tina and Niran), a long farewell from Bruno and an even longer drive later, we were in El Jadida. The city is off the beaten path for American tourists, but it is a well-known summer destination for Moroccan locals.
I would be spending the night at a riad in the oceanside city, and the rest of the girls would be hanging out with me for a final self-guided walking tour, dinner and a 1.5 hour drive to Casablanca to catch a 1:40am flight. El Jadida was not a bad stop for us since we all needed to make it to Casablanca for flights (and Casablanca has been coined as “one of the most disappointing tourist destinations in the world” according to a guidebook that Heather found). It was just not a place that any of us would’ve gone out our way to visit.
I do think there are some very nice areas in El Jadida. It is designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site, so we walked around and tried to get our culture on. Then we got lost. We tried to find the beach, but we definitely didn’t go to the nice part of the beach. Heather got dirty looks for wearing a loose, 3/4-sleeved midi dress that showed her calves and ankles. Finally we decided to just get a fresh-squeezed orange juice so we’d have a mixer for our remaining vodka and head back to the riad.
The riad (Riad Soleil d’Orient) I had found was charming with its yellow walls, lush courtyard, sunny rooftop and colorful rooms. I had chosen a room with a green theme; it was clean and decently-sized. The staff was very friendly and accommodating when we asked for more orange juice to mix with our vodka (we left that last part out). They even agreed to work with us when Niran requested pastilla for her final Moroccan dinner, one hour before dinner was set to begin. This was also very likely the cheapest place I will stay during my entire travels this year. I have no complaints about my stay… but I was ready for an upgrade upon departure.
After a final dinner together, it was time to bid the rest of the girls farewell. I could tell that we were all starting to feel the come-down effects at the end of a highly-anticipated and mind-blowing trip. We were also beginning to shift gears to focus on the road that lay ahead.
We gave each other big hugs and wished each other well until our next reunion. I’ll be in San Francisco the weekend before Thanksgiving, but the jury is still out whether Heather will be around. Regardless, we’ve tentatively committed to Palmetto Bluff in Georgia as the next destination for our annual trip. We all have lots to do until we come together again; until then, our WhatsApp group will have to do.
Wait! I Wasn’t Out of Morocco Yet
I had a 1:30pm flight to Cairo out of Casablanca the next morning, and had arranged for a driver to pick me up at 10am through the riad. The same driver had brought the rest of the girls to the airport the previous evening, and they spoke highly of his friendly, intelligent, professional demeanor. I sat up front with him and we chatted throughout the 1.5 hour drive to the airport. He seemed very well-traveled and educated compared to other drivers we had encountered in Morocco, but I got the sense that he had returned home to El Jadida to be near his family, and didn’t have a lot of opportunities there, so he started his own driving service.
As we neared the drop-off point for Departures, the driver asked me to pay him before we stopped. Apparently, at the sight of cash, the airport workers would ask for a bribe. Furthermore, he alerted me that when I went through immigration, I should hide any cash. If asked, I should tell the immigration officers that I didn’t have any cash on me. Really?! I was slightly alarmed about this advice and wasn’t all that comfortable lying to Moroccan government workers, but wasn’t about to take my chances. Sure enough, the immigration officers asked how much cash I had as I was leaving. “I don’t have any cash,” I said as naturally as possible. “None?” they asked. “Just credit cards,” I told them. Thankfully, they waved me through. It was just the first of many nerve-wracking moments as I started my next adventure: traveling solo to Cairo, then Istanbul.
