May 14-18 Essaouira and back to Marrakech

Essaouira

As far back as the seventh century BC, Phoenician sailors discovered this part of the Moroccan coast and it's believed that the Carthaginians and Romans followed in their footsteps. The evidence is in the Tyrian purple dyes that came from the murex shells found on the Purpura islands (the Iles Purpuraires, in French) which are just in the bay off Essaouira. It is amazing that you can still buy this natural dye in the markets in Essaouira and also in Marrakech. One of these islands is also a sanctuary for the Eleonora's Falcon that come there to breed from East Africa, especially Madagascar, where it spends the winter.  We have seen many of the same falcons in Greece.

The walled city originally had the name Mogador and you see this name used for several restaurants and accommodations names. In 1765 it became a commercial port. Sultan Mohammed bin Abdulla wanted a modern port to handle trade with Europe, and he engaged the French architect, Theodore Cornut, a military fortifications specialist, to draw up the plans for the city. This is the only medina in Morocco ever built on a plan, rather than just growing naturally, and the name “Essaouira” means “well-designed”.  It is a well-designed medina especially in that the main arteries are wider than most in Morocco, and you can squeeze by the carossas and donkeys without too much trouble. The ramparts exist still on three sides, and you can walk on one of them and enjoy the old canons facing the sea approaches, the sound of the waves crashing on the rocks, and of course the wind. Essaouira is known as a windy city, with many kite-boarding and surfing activities taking place in the bay. The winds blow down the medina alleys and the temperature drops considerably at night.

Corner wall view from our restaurant

Wall looking out toward isles where Eleonora's Falcons breed

Leslie was on a mission to get her sabra carpets made into cushion covers and she had brought them to Essaouira to try and make that happen. Marie, the owner of Villa Garance where we were staying for the next 3 days, was helpful in introducing us to her cushion tailor, who agreed to sew up Leslie’s three carpets into cushions for $20 total. She also advised where to get our laundry done. In Morocco you are looking for a “Pressier.”

With that project underway and expected to be finished in less than 24 hours, we started wandering the medina streets and looking for a nice place with a view for lunch. We sat in a shady spot watching the waves crash on the rocks, the many sea gulls, and the tourists walking on the ramparts. The afternoon was spent walking around the medina streets, and we returned to the same restaurant area (2 had excellent views) but this time we started on the rooftop bar area so that we could get a glass of wine. The wine was actually from the Essaouira area and not Meknes, which surprised us, and the white wine was surprisingly floral without being sweet. The wind had definitely come up, temperatures had dropped and we were happy to have a vest and shawl to help us try and keep warm. We ate dinner in the restaurant but while the view was excellent, the food was mediocre.

The following day, Thursday, was the start of the annual gnaoua music festival, and we had been warned that our Villa Garance would be full, and that it would be difficult to walk in the streets. The festival grounds are in two locations, one just near us in the medina area, and the other out on a broad tourist beach about a mile away.  The opening parade started around 5 pm so we made sure to be by one of the major ending Babs (gates to the medina) so we could watch.  All the musicians danced and played their way down the main street and it was a very popular event. We were lucky to get a few snapshots. 

Procession of colorful musicians

 

After that we walked through the carpet area, which was of interest and we bought yet another Sabra carpet the same colors as the other 3 but this was a bigger carpet and was purchased for $160 – much cheaper than our previous purchases. (Someone is dollar cost averaging down her investment in carpets.) The bargaining process is so necessary and all the tricks of not showing interest, walking out etc.! With the new carpet we headed back to the cushion maker so that he could make 3 floor cushions with trim all around for $20. Mohamed was interested that Leslie was going to do some hand stitching with the sabra silk that he offered to buy it and show her how to work with it.

Street display of carpets

The Friday morning we walked along the ramparts where it was possible to do so, came through the various Babs (gates), and toured the old fishing port on the edge of the fortifications, photographing the town from outside, and the many sea gulls. 

Sea Gulls everywhere tamely wait for netted fish

There are various Spanish and Portuguese cannons still pointing out to sea from the 5 bastions. The Skala of the Kasbah had wonderful views of the walled city, fisherman’s boats and the very active fishing port with the crescent moon sand beach flowing beyond. In the 1950s the film “Othello” with Orson Wells was filmed there, and most recently parts of Series 3 of “The Game of Thrones”, where it is the mythical city, Astapor.

Fishing fleet

Through Harbor Window

Later in the evening we went out to listen to the music from gnaoua music festival, which is a synthesis of Arab and black sub-Saharan African music and is supposed to be healing for various ailments. We had dressed in literally almost all the layers of clothes we had, long shirts, sweaters, scarves and rain coats. We ended up wrapping the scarves around our heads to keep them warm.  The wind was chilly off the ocean and sitting there listening to the music and watching the crowds from our balcony seats, it was so cold it was hard to believe we had just been roasting in the desert. It was interesting to see the conservatively dressed women dancing freely to the music, usually in a group of other women. The young men would form lines and dance throughout the group or around some of the women. 

Gnaoua musicians play outdoors

Families were there with babies, holding them in their arms and moving to the beat to the child would hear and feel the rhythm.  The festival was over 3 nights and was going to go on till the wee hours so we headed back to our Villa before midnight. We actually think that we felt the music’s rhythms beating through our bodies more in the small gnaoua school in the desert than here in the outdoor concert area.

Saturday morning we had a leisurely breakfast on the roof top of the Villa with the sea gulls and then went exploring the streets of the medina. Essaouira has so many artisans working in wood, leather, metal and wool and it is a joy to just wander in to the workshops and be allowed to observe what is going on. We saw some Thuja (Tetraclinis Articulata) wood, which only comes from this area, being used in many products, including beautiful inlays. This town is the center of the wood working area for Morocco.  An artisan we had not seen before was a shoe maker using raffia to make the top covering for the shoes. Raffia is a flexible substance that is made from the leaves of palm trees. It is soft like string, and has an almost papery feel to it.

Thuja wood inlaid with bone and other materials

One of the interesting architectural details of the houses are all the different doors. It is interesting that this town has houses showing both Christian (rose with four petals) and Jewish ownership (star of David) carved in sandstone on the portals of the door. The portal of a Muslim house can be denoted by snakes at the top and an eye lower down.

Doors are all different

Leslie went by her tailor to pick up her cushions and Mohammed showed her how to use the sabra thread he had gotten for her (8 skeins and a needle for $5). We opted not to attend the music festival that evening as the wind was blowing an even colder temperature that the night before.

While some interactions with merchants were marked by good feelings, there were a couple of instances where a merchant would obviously try to cheat us, and waste time bargaining over trivia even when we had made a good purchase from him in the past.  This was not normal for the Middle East, and definitely left a bad taste. The bargaining and toutery here was, however, not as bad as in Fez, and overall we felt that Essaouira was likely the best place in Morocco for people like us to live.  However, in view of the general hot climate, it is not ideal for a summer retreat, and there are not likely enough expat connections unless you speak French, who are the predominant expat nationality here.

Next morning we packed up, said goodbye to our hosts, and our bags were again transported to the gates by cart, where they were loaded into our car for our trip back to Marrakesh, and a day later, to the airport for our flight to Casablanca and on to Rome. This marked the end of our first trip to Morocco.

May 12th- 13th Ait Ben Haddou Through Ounila valley to Marrakesh and on to Essourira

 Bedouin tents used at Riad
 Ksar Ighnda

Leaving the lovely Riad Ksar Ighnda, we headed back to Marrakech using the main caravan route through the Ounila valley till we reached the High Atlas mountain pass of Tizni-n-Tichkna. The clay colored mountains, greenery of fields with beans, wheat, the almond and walnut trees and flowering wild oleanders trees make it a magical drive.

Abandoned Kasbah on road

The road was only paved 3 years ago so previously you needed a 4WD vehicle to travel this road. Still tourist buses do not drive on it because there is a small section that is not paved.

Stream with old village

Some ancient caves are still occupied

Some tribes lived in caves along the sides of the valley, and we had been told that some of the tribal women were the producers of many of the best carpets. We would say this road was a highlight in terms of scenery of all the valleys that we have seen in Morocco thus far.

Building techniques under consideration

We saw several men working together as a team making the large rectangular casts of rammed earth known in French pisé, which produce the clay building blocks of the walls and buildings. It takes two men to pound down the earth with a blunt-headed instrument to fill the larger forms, producing roughly 3' by 2' walls more than a foot thick, or double that in size for large Kasbahs. In addition to being the base for the large kasbahs, they are used for fencing and animal pens. The smaller adobe blocks are used for the decorative pieces higher up in the structures. We have found the molds for the pisé and the adobe blocks in many places along the way lying out in the open ready for use. In looking at the walls you can see that two of these pisé blocks are put together so you get a wall about two feet thick. The pisé is about 70 x 30 x 12 inches and are often used two abreast to build a wall 60 two feet thick.

This valley is also very rich in elegant and picturesque architecture; crenelated roofs, kasbahs with towers. We stopped at a salt mine along the road that belonged to the powerful Glaouis tribe.

The salt rocks were mined and then put into water pits in the sun to crystallize. The mine is now closed now because it became uneconomical. Salt was actually what created this caravan route. We remembered that in ancient Rome, only a rich family could afford salt; when entertaining those who sat nearer the host were "above the salt," and those less favored were "below the salt". We continued on passing through a paler, dryer soil with white streaks of salt visible at various points.

Old tower guards salt mine

We then stopped at Telouet, which sits on the banks of the Mellah river.  Mellah means salt in Arabic. After Morocco's independence in 1953, the Glaoui family was evicted and the kasbah was left to ruin. The remains of the kasbah stand proud but crumbling on top of a small hill.

The kasbah is actually a large compound of three kasbahs that  successive generations built, The first kasbah dates from the 1700's, the second from the 1800's, and remnants of the second kasbah include a lovely arch. The last kasbah built by T'hami's son Brahim in the early1900's, remains upright and solid and shows the significance and fallen wealth of the kasbah.

Andalucian style evidenced

The reception and entertainment rooms include stunning mosaics on the floors, and intricate wood carvings adorn the walls, along with plaster work all in the style of al-Andalus, Islamic Spain. The attention to detail is most incredible and the work and money spent on building it is unfathomable.  

Beautiful old silk fabric panels on walls

“In a fascinating sidebar to Moroc­co's early 20th-century history, Madani al-Glaoui and his brother T'hami eventually raised so brazen and so strong a challenge to Sultan Moulay Hassan that his Alaouite dynasty, seriously shaken, was forced to open the door to French rule in the south. In their time, the Glaouis were so powerful that they entertained the likes of Winston Churchill, attended the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, and sat in high council with the resident generals of the French Moroccan protectorate - until they were so sweepingly double-crossed by the French that their name entered the language as a Verb: glaouiser.” (meaning to betray). Quote taken from Aramco World Magazine “Across the High Atlas”

Telouet from the kasbah

There are a couple of tourist shops and Leslie bought another Sabra carpet along the same colors that she had bought before but this has more intense designs and is the same size as the others. After bargaining she paid $150 feeling well pleased with herself as this had more designs work than her other two and the price was only $20 more.

We had lunch at a truck stop after the pass and enjoyed our first taste of amlou and argan oil. This plant oil produced from the kernels of the argan tree (Argania spinosa L.) that is endemic to Morocco. The strong nutty taste of the oil is nice with bread or drizzled on the traditional Moroccan chopped tomato salad.  The amlou is a delicious mixture of the argan oil, almonds and honey and is also known as Berber Nutella.  Leslie bought a kindle edition of Paula Wolfert’s, “The Food of Morocco” a few days ago and has enjoyed reading it for the background information as well as the recipes.

We arrived back at Ksar Anika and collected our stored suitcase and moved back into our same suite. We had dinner at the Ksar and tried to use the internet but it was a very frustrating cause.

The next morning by 9am we were on the road to Essaouira which was expected to take about 3 hours. About an hour before Essaouira we saw goats climbing on top of argan trees (Argania spinosa L.).

Goats in tree look like fruit but really eat it

We stopped to take pictures dutifully reimbursing the shepherd the photography fee of $1. The interwoven trunk and low lying branches of the tree make it possible for goats to climb up and settle in to enjoy the fruit. The seeds become excrement and are left behind to be collected. With the demand for argan oil growing the women now also collect the fallen fruits and dry them in the sun.

The nut’s black casing is then cracked off and the seed removed. When we entered the association the three women working on the argan nuts did a ululation greeting for us.
The two sales staff were happy to explain the process in their English which was quite proficient and their comprehension was good enough to answer questions.

The production of Argan oil is managed by the women of Morocco. Cooperatives line the roads along the coast and each is responsible for the production of this highly sought after oil. The money they make by the sale of the oil goes directly back into the cooperative and supports the surrounding community. The culinary form of the argan oil includes roasting the nuts before the extraction process where as the cosmetic form does not roast the nuts.

We had already tried the edible oil as both a yummy dipping oil and a salad oil, so were delighted to buy some to take to the USA. We also purchased some of the ladies Amlou which included as one of the ingredients argan honey.

Shelling the argan nut

These ladies had developed quite a line of products including argon oil mixed with lavender or rose or thyme and many other aromatic herbs. But all of those items which were mixed with another essential oil were not to be used on the face only on the body. On one’s face and hair you were only to use the pure Argan oil. As an idea of pricing at the source: a small 40 ml bottle was the equivalent of $15. The cooking oil was $20. The waste product from the oil extraction is used to feed the cattle or can be used in the hammam's (steam rooms) for fuel. You see it being sold as brown molded patties with finger imprint on one end.

Grinding the nut to extract oil paste

We continued another 40 minutes down the road to arrive at Essaouira. The temperature dropped from 43 degrees to 36 degrees. We were amazed at this climate change. Rashid stopped the car at the Marrakech gate of the old medina and we found a carossa to wheel our bags to L’Masion d’hotel Villa Garance, which was to be our home for the next three nights. The location was very good as it was in the heart of the medina and just off one of the main passage ways going though the walled city. Our room was an “L” shaped with windows and doors looking onto the small courtyard and included a private bath and a fireplace. Carrying one huge suitcase up the uneven stairs was a struggle but we were happy to have the extra  space to put the suitcase. We had arrived in time for lunch and were ready to go exploring.

May 9th, 10th and 11th Ait Ben Haddou and its environs

We left Merzougha early in the morning, as we would have a long drive, mostly along the same road with over 100 kilometers along a different route. This time we drove in a valley within the Anti Atlas Mountains, which provided an opportunity to drive along the old trans-Saharan caravan route though the town of Rissani (previously known as Sijilmassa). There is nothing left of the large caravansari that used to be there, and the only remnants of that wealthier time are the khettara, underwater irrigation systems, that you can see extending for miles. We had lunch at our driver, Rashid’s family home in Kelaa M’Gouna, a short distance from the rose festival pavilion and where the Fantasia was to take place. We were served Moroccan salads, a chicken tanjin with couscous, and some sweets followed by mint tea. We left some funds for the family under the cookie plate after discussions with Abdou.

Despite the day being very hot, many of the local people were out to take in the festival, Fantasia and other markets that sprung up to capture the crowds. We toured the pavilions and the stalls outside, which were all selling basically the same rose water, rose oils, soaps etc. Leslie had learned from the internet how to make rose water using steam distillation and also learned that during the time of harvest, like now, the reason there are so many rose petals for sale in Fez, Meknes and Marrakech is that the women distill their own rose water, either through a small still they own, or one they rent. These stills are also used for making the orange water when those blooms are available (March and April).The delicate white flowers are from the Bitter Orange trees that are very common here in gardens, but from which the orange fruit is not edible. The flowers are distilled for the orange water and the essential oil, also called Neroli after an Italian princess who popularized it in the 17th century. The rind of the fruit and the leaves are used for other essential oils. One of the booths at the rose festival was managed by a Frenchman, and he was proudly displaying a large photograph of his copper still. We left that area and saw a few decorated parade floats starting to line up. One appeared to be for the to-be-crowned Queen of Roses. We headed back to the Fantasia area to see what time things were going to start and encountered more uncertainty, with start times having moved from 3pm to 5:30 to 7pm in just the time that we had lunch. We decided to leave and head on our way, as we still had two more hours to go to reach Ait Ben Haddou.

The whole country seems to be awash with “clay” colored houses, old buildings in their entirety and at least the fronts of the new buildings. Apparently a resident will not get electric or water hooked up to their house until the front is at least of some variation of clay color; terracotta, rust, raw sienna, burnt sienna, some building colors almost reaching the hot 2015 color of the year, 'marsala.'

View out one of our windows

Hand of Fatima

We arrived at Riad Ksar Ighnda around 6pm and were delighted to see this more upscale accommodation in a rebuilt Ksar. The owner is French and has put many interesting touches in the design and décor of the place. We are enjoying our fossil-stone sinks in the bathroom, and the cactus silk (sabra) bedcovers being used as curtains and a myriad of other small touches. We enjoyed a late swim, and dinner started at 8pm and ended two hours later. We are on half board so our dinner was included. The meal was delicious and the presentation excellent.

The next morning, at a breakfast buffet that included real crepes and fresh pancakes, we met the Chef and complimented him on this hand of Fatima décor on the desert plate. Our first stop was the UNESCO world heritage site (designated in late 1980s) of Ait Ben Haddou for a guided tour of this impressive walled Ksar (fortified village), which has served as back-drop to many famous movies including Gladiator, Jesus of Narareth, Jewel of the Nile etc. The Ksar, or multi-family fortress residence, was constructed from the 11th to 15 centuries, and is built on the side of a hill, to gain entrance of which one must cross the river.  

Souvenir shops on way to Ait Ben Haddou

Walking on sand bag stepping stones

At the top of the hill there is the Agadir (Tower of Courage), which makes an excellent vantage point to see the Wadi Melih (salt in Arabic) which has been part of the caravan route where traders brought slaves, gold, ivory and salt westward from sub-Saharan Africa to Marrakech and beyond. The water today is still very brackish, as we can tell from our showers. The salt from the mountains washes down in the river water, which is used in the homes and fields.

As you are walking through the alleys of the historic village you will see artists painting the local scene with 4 ingredients, paint brushes and a small gas stove. The ingredients are: a mixture of green tea with sugar; sugared saffron water; third container is just water and then there is an indigo rock. The artist dips the paintbrush into the water and then pushes it around on the indigo block till he gets the blue color he wants to paint with.

Left side not heated yet

 

After painting with these three colors, of which the green tea and saffron water are barely visible, he turns on his gas cooker and waves the paper drawing over the heat. The sugar in the tea and saffron water caramelizes such that the color changes to a darker one and indigo is set with the heat so it doesn’t rub off. This was an interesting art trick that we had not seen before.  The artist was using just regular watercolor paper it looked like. We bought a small painting for $5.

We headed next to the Akhnif Lglawi carpet cooperative in Tabouraht, just 20 minutes down the road, to view a range of traditional Amazigh carpets.

The “associations” and “cooperatives” here are in reality stores. While they have a loom on display and bring in someone to show you how the handicrafts they have for sale are made, in the end you will have a sales pitch. These artisans will work while you are there and then leave as soon as you start viewing products for sale. The sales speech after your fifth association can be quite repetitive “in the market the quality isn’t like this, in the market they don’t mix the copper with tin, in the market they don’t use natural dyes” etc. As customers we get annoyed when they say that cobalt blue is a natural dye or that hot pink is a natural dye; at that point we are ready to leave the place, because if you know that was is being said about the product can’t be true, you question how true are the other statements being made about the product.

We then went to a shop, Taznakht, which Abou knew that was right in the new town of Ait Ben Hadou  (right across the river from the historical site). The owner spoke good English, and when asked about a bright pink color in a carpet said, that while that color can come from the cochineal insect, they don’t have that here in Morocco so they use chemical dyes. This honesty proved to be the point to make us stay in the shop and discuss the various items. The owner had many little factoids and one was that the Missoni sweater motif was taken from the Berber Glaoua carpet pattern. Once he said that we could really see the resemblance in the bold zigzag and textured patterns as Ed Zinola had a couple of Missoni sweaters that he loved.

Glaoua also known as Zanafi carpets

We had lunch poolside overlooking the stepping stones across the river to the old Ait Ben Haddou UNESCO site. We enjoyed a glass of Meknes rose wine, berber omelets, fresh bread and finished are meal off with a nus-nus coffee (half coffee half milk).

We had been unsuccessful at contacting our friend Victoria’s guide for her Morocco film, Houcine through phone calls as the numbers we had from Victoria and the internet were incorrect. Houcine has a 12 room guest house with a lovely terrace looking over to the UNESCO site (only 8 families still living there). We drove to his guest house and were fortunate to find him there. We invited him to join us for a dinner on his terrace and arranged to come back at 7pm so we could enjoy the sunset.  

We went back to our hotel and had a little nap as the heat is quite intense with the dry air. We woke up to the sounds of drums beating and had to investigate. A bus load of tourists from A1 Travel arrived, and for them the hotel had organized for some traditional music from the village to be played. We enjoyed the show!

 

View from Housine's place in the evening

 After laundry duty, we headed back to La Fibule D'Or, Housine’s place. We enjoyed our meal with him and listening to him reminisce on his 2 weeks travel working with “Vicki” (Victoria Vorreiter) while she was doing her filming. We gave him a DVD of the documentary film that she had produced “Morocco and the Cycles of Life,” and he was very pleased.

The next morning we went to the Imdint Women's Textile Association, which had about 15 members ranging from 19 to about 60 years old. The lady on the left in our picture with the facial tattoos is the oldest, and she does the weaving and dying instructing. We enjoyed meeting these ladies as they were happy to discuss how they dyed the yarns for their carpets, which included boiling the wool first in water mixed with alum and then adding the vegetable dyes to that water. It was interesting to hear that they were making a dark brown color using onion, vinegar and rust powder.

Naturally-dyed yarns in Imdint

 They would collect bits of rusting metal and scrape off the rust so they had a powder they could use. For indigo blue they would mix the indigo, not with the alum water, but with henna, dry figs and ash. (In Oman they use dates instead of dry figs.) After dying with indigo they rinse the items in another pot such that the water is bluish and they then put yarn into this pot to get a very light grey color. They pound all of the natural herbs and twigs into a powder before use, as picking little sticks and other bits out of the yarn is more time-consuming than just taking the time to pound it into a fine powder. All the items that they have dyed they put in the shade to dry all day. The next day they wash with water and dye in the shade again. The day after that the yarn is put into the sun to absorb UV light. At that point it is ready to be woven into a carpet. This was an enjoyable visit and we left a hefty tip, as nothing was available for sale and the ladies had put on a lavish tea spread and shared much information. Leslie shared with them pictures of her quilts and enjoyed the interaction with the ladies.

We then were driven to Ouarzazate to see an embroidery and weaving cooperative. The men do the weaving on looms and often combine the sabra silk (cactus) with linen and cotton. The sabra silk will be one color and it will we woven along with at least one other color so that you have either 2 or 3 threads in the shuttle at any one time. At this “Association” the sales man was really annoying and tried to move us along from watching the weaver to the sales, only on being reassured that the weaver was still going to be there at the end of the presentation did Leslie agree to move away from the loom. Much to her chagrin, the weaver was gone as soon as she turned around while the ladies embroidering were working the whole time and then were assigned to fold up all the un-purchased merchandise that had been spread across the floor for viewing.  We did buy two small items even though the salesman had made another faux pas by saying a turquoise color was a natural dye when it was obviously chemical.

Oufzazate man weaving with doubled thread

We were then taken to a large commercial store selling antiques, carpets, lanterns, etc. The artisan for the two minute display was a metal worker and we enjoyed the sounds of his work. We then went to look at Sabra carpets which were basically $400 each. We had seen the same type of things on the internet for $250 so we knew that we could get a better price from the factoid-rich salesman we liked in Ait ben Haddou.

We had lunch again back in Ait Ben Haddou, poolside with the view and then went back to the shop, Taznakht to make our purchases of two smaller sized sabra carpets to be made into cushions at some point in time. These sabra carpets are to be treated like silk: washed in cold water less than 30 ° with natural soaps. One of the interesting tests on how to tell if a carpet is real vegetable silk is to burn the fringe. If it burns and becomes just becomes ash and falls off you know it's made from a real vegetable matter; but if, on lighting the thread scrunches up into a ball like burning plastic, then you know it's it is woven with a synthetic thread.

We were back at our hotel by 3pm and enjoyed some free time before a late dinner. The Moroccans like to eat late, after the last prayer, so it is hard to get anything before 8pm, according to our experience, and explained by our driver Rashid. It could also be the French influence as well.