I had a very nice time in this small Atlantic coastal city. The town had some notoriety from the 1960s as being a temporary hangout for Jimi Hendrix , Seattle’s hometown hero.

I went to the Marrakech bus station which was right next to the train station and got a tourist bus to the coast city of Essoquira. This was a very modern, comfortable bus with air conditioning. The ticket was cheap and it was about 3 hours to Essoquira.

I watched the scenery go by. The land was very dry and the fields seemed to be growing a lot of rocks. Right before we descended into the coastal plain, the surroundings started getting green and there was a large forest of trees.  The bus stopped right outside the south wall of the medina.

Fisherman's boats in the port




Self-portait from the Portuguese fort - can you see me in the window?





Port area with the Portuguese fort behind

Fortified medina walls called "the Skala", with the fort in the background

I didn’t have hotel reservations, so when I was approached by a young man offering to take me to a budget hotel in the medina, I agreed. I went to the Riad Squizzi, and negotiated a room with bath for 175 DM. The location was good, and I was only a ten minute walk from the medina’s  main plaza.

I went out walking and found the coastline. I paid an admission ticket into the Portuguese fort which was built in the 1600s. It was well preserved and contained lots of bronze Spanish canons pointing out to sea for defense.

I also walked the short distance south of the medina to the long sand beach. Unfortunately, the water was too cold to swim, but the nice sunny 80 degree day made for some nice beach walking. Towards the middle of the beach, I came upon a herd of camels which were saddled-up, but just relaxing in a knelling position in the sand. I walked among them for awhile before their owner approached and asked if I wanted to go for a ride – I said no.

Camels relaxing on the main beach

Further along the same beach was a large wind farm, with several dozen wind turbines, but I didn’t walk that far – I headed back to the old city.

The great dining area of the medina was the open-air restaurants located next to the shipping port. The fishermen would come in to port in the late afternoon and sell their catch to the restaurants immediately (they were located less than 100 meters away). The seafood menu and prices were posted on a central billboard, so everyone charged the same amount for the same type of fish. I ate there a couple of times, once I had an entire plate heaping with freshly sautéed shrimp, the other time I had grilled sardines which were the size of trout. These meals were less than $5 each.

It's my "Cat in a Bowl" photo from a street scene

After three days I took the tourist bus back to Marrakech. It left the city very early in the morning and I was back in Marrakech at noon.  My next destination was to Fes and Meknes by train.